The Observer (UK)'s Scores

Select another publication »
For 1,641 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 46% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 51% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 3.1 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 68
Highest review score: 100 Enys Men
Lowest review score: 20 Book Club: The Next Chapter
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 894 out of 1641
  2. Mixed: 714 out of 1641
  3. Negative: 33 out of 1641
1641 movie reviews
view
per page
  1. Days of the Bagnold Summer
    Interlocking vignettes swing from laugh-out-loud comedy to piercing melancholia, but at the centre of it all there is a genuine sense of rebirth and renewal – no mean feat for a small movie with a big heart and a surprisingly wide-ranging vision.
  2. France
    France is watchable, if not subtle, but the picture labours its message with an overstretched running time and an oddly anticlimactic structure.
  3. Cold Pursuit
    The whole tone of this glib black comedy, with its cartoon bad guys and conspiratorial wink with each addition to the body count, seems rather dated.
  4. Somebody I Used to Know
    It’s a wasted opportunity. Brie is clearly a gifted comic actress who deserves better material than this.
  5. Jules
    It’s a gently inoffensive little comedy from Marc Turtletaub (producer of Little Miss Sunshine and director of Puzzle), with an amiably jovial score. But the picture is elevated by its handling of melancholy themes of ageing and loneliness, and a superb gruff-yet-vulnerable performance from Kingsley.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    White Christmas
    It's creaky sentimental stuff, redolent of the Eisenhower era, but the songs are (mostly) excellent, and Vera-Ellen and Rosemary Clooney are delightful. [14 Dec 2008, p.17]
    • The Observer (UK)
  7. Escape from Pretoria
    A pacy screenplay, co-written by director Francis Annan and adapted from a book by Jenkin, rarely flags, but it’s the nervy camera, hugging the characters at hip height, the better to scrutinise each locked barrier to freedom, that most successfully builds the tension.
  8. Mary J Blige's My Life
    Footage of recent concerts and meet and greets is included to showcase both her imperious glamour and how far she’s come, yet we never really get a sense of where she’s been, let alone My Life’s musical and cultural context.
  9. Migration
    A screenplay by White Lotus creator Mike White elevates proceedings with an enjoyably sardonic bite.
  10. a-ha: the Movie
    Fans will no doubt find the film fascinating, if a little dispiriting: it may be like eavesdropping on your parents, only to discover that they’re on the brink of divorce.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
    Despite a curiously disjointed narrative and Frankie Laine on the soundtrack, it's well-staged, turning what in real life was a brief skirmish into a mythic confrontation. [29 Jun 2014, p.48]
    • The Observer (UK)
  12. After Blue (Dirty Paradise)
    It’s an overlong, indulgent slog.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Rabid
    Early, low-budget Cronenberg horror flick, emetic in intention and effect. [08 Oct 2000, p.10]
    • The Observer (UK)
  14. Sonic the Hedgehog 3
    While I had more time than many of my fellow critics for the two previous movie spin-offs from the Sega video game series, it turns out that you can, in fact, have too much of a good thing.
  15. Our Time
    Reygadas has made a career out of a confrontational lyricism, finding poetry in images that could be considered mundane or even ugly – but the film is nearly three hours long. You have to question how much time spent loitering next to the carburettor is actually justified.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Indian Runner
    In the character of Joe, David Morse and Penn have created an authentic hero of everyday life, and in a generally well acted picture, Charles Bronson as the boys' father reveals for the first time in some years his more vulnerable side and demonstrates what a fine actor he is. [01 Dec 1991, p.60]
    • The Observer (UK)
  17. Nightbitch
    Nightbitch would have worked better if it had been pushed further in either direction – as an intimate interrogation, or as a full-bore bestial freakout. This uneasy middle ground feels like a missed opportunity.
  18. Deadpool & Wolverine
    A film can be obnoxious and simultaneously very funny, and Deadpool & Wolverine is frequently hilarious. But it’s also slapdash, repetitive and shoddy looking, with an overreliance on meme-derived gags and achingly meta comic fan in-jokes.
  19. DC League of Super-Pets
    It’s formulaic, uninspired stuff, an artless, mirthless mess that leans heavily on the familiarity of the characters – Batman, Wonder Woman and others cameo – while also undermining the integrity of the DC universe.
  20. Drive-Away Dolls
    The film has a boisterous energy, but it’s puerile, phoney and frequently rather cringe.
  21. Loro
    There’s a sloppiness and incoherence in the storytelling.
  22. The Croods: A New Age
    The film’s second half suffers from frantic pacing and overstuffed action sequences.
  23. Fast X
    Disbelief is not so much suspended as detonated.
  24. The Pale Blue Eye
    While the picture looks wonderfully atmospheric throughout, with its frostbitten monochromes and consumptive colour palette, the story disintegrates into a lurid and rather silly final act.
  25. Summerland
    What a lovely, hopeful and rather magical movie this is.
  26. Where Is Anne Frank
    This handsome but uneven animation weaves together excerpts from the diary with the quest of Kitty – the imaginary friend to whom Anne addressed much of it – to locate the young writer in present-day Amsterdam.
  27. The Beach Bum
    It’s not unfunny watching McConaughey smoke a joint from between Isla Fisher’s toes, but some viewers may find themselves less enamoured of Moondog than the film is.
  28. The Devil All the Time
    However dark the narrative may seem, there’s a strong streak of black humour that accompanies the horror, often facilitated by a pointedly chosen tune.
  29. Clifford the Big Red Dog
    The film is best when it sticks to children’s caper mode, jostled along by gentle toilet humour, bad-tempered barnyard animals and a scene of two kids driving a van across Manhattan.
  30. Never Let Go
    This kind of horror storytelling is only as successful as its final act. And, unfortunately, Never Let Go drops the ball, along with the bloodstained machete, just when it should be ramping up the tension.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »