The Observer (UK)'s Scores

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For 1,640 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 3.3 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: 893 out of 1640
  2. Mixed: 714 out of 1640
  3. Negative: 33 out of 1640
1640 movie reviews
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  1. Fatima
    Pontecorvo seems particularly interested in conveying the gravitas of Lúcia’s spiritual burden, which is anchored by Gil, who is full of quiet intensity and impressive conviction.
  2. Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken
    The latest picture from DreamWorks Animation is a likable if slight story of teen crises.
  3. Champions
    The Champions ensemble takes this to the next level, showcasing a host of rising talent, with particular plaudits to Tevlin and Iannucci, both of whom have scene-stealing charisma and note-perfect comic timing to spare.
  4. Ticket to Paradise
    Clooney and Roberts try their best but they’re finally not much more than decoration themselves, the filmic equivalent of plastic figurines on a cake.
  5. You People
    The first third of the picture is promising, if frequently excruciating. But the points are painfully laboured and the jokes run out of steam.
  6. Scarborough
    Southcombe deftly threads together the two stories with echoes in the dialogue and in the location.
  7. The American Society of Magical Negroes
    Kobi Libii’s film is far too diffident and polite in its approach to leave much of a mark in the conversation about race and representation in US culture.
  8. Line of Duty
    The tone veers haphazardly from tense, high-stakes cat-and-mouse chase to ill-judged satire.
  9. Blonde
    At its heart this is a gothic melodrama, a fever dream of childhood trauma haunting adult life, replete with skin-crawlingly cruel visions of inquisitorial torture, brutal ordeals and hellish infernos – more Nightmare on Elm Street than My Week With Marilyn.
  10. Against the Ice
    There is about as much jeopardy as you’d expect from an action thriller about an obscure land dispute; a tense encounter with an angry polar bear and a phantom hot air balloon are highlights during the endless plodding across the frozen wilderness.
  11. Federer: Twelve Final Days
    Like its subject, the film is not particularly revolutionary or groundbreaking in its approach. But again, like its subject, it is a work of unmistakable quality and class.
  12. Sing 2
    While there are no surprises whatsoever here, the perky charm remains.
  13. Don't Look Up
    The smug asides plastered on screen, and the hyperactive inserts of nature documentary footage do nothing to raise the film’s real-life stakes.
  14. Out of Blue
    Having now seen the film three times, I find myself loving it all the more for its imperfections. When a film-maker aims this high, how can one do anything but watch in wonder?
  15. What Men Want
    Cameos from Pete Davidson and 30 Rock’s Tracy Morgan are enjoyable diversions but the jokes themselves are less high-concept, hinging on the men’s thoughts, which are mostly predictable (and predictably crass).
  16. The Gray Man
    For all the sensory overload – it’s a bit like being trapped inside a first-person shooter challenge being played by a 12-year-old gaming prodigy – The Gray Man is undeniably entertaining.
  17. The Miracle Club
    It’s trite and predictable stuff: the laughs are forced; the pathos is over-stewed.
  18. PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie
    It’s a chipper, self-consciously adorable romp that will no doubt delight existing fans of the television series. It is, however, laser-targeted at the youngest audience members.
  19. Bohemian Rhapsody
    Fans of the band might enjoy watching the movie cycle through their hits (and there are many), but those, like me, hoping for a more robust appraisal of the late Freddie Mercury may find themselves disappointed.
  20. Bullet Train
    There are films that are so thunderously stupid they bypass guilty-pleasure status and end up as a danger to themselves and all around them. Bullet Train falls into the latter camp. It’s so imbecilic, you wouldn’t trust it to cross the road unsupervised, let alone negotiate Japan’s Shinkansen high-speed rail network.
  21. Amsterdam
    Russell’s showy directorial pizzazz is very much in evidence, but there’s an edge of desperation to the chunks of exposition that dam the flow of this already meandering tale.
  22. Downhill
    The performances, especially the brittle Louis-Dreyfus, are admirably grounded, but the script’s comedy wastes time with lazy barbs about European brusqueness and American exceptionalism abroad.
  23. Little
    Directed by Tina Gordon Chism, co-writer of What Men Want, the film is cute enough, even if key ideas aren’t especially novel: it’s lonely at the top; we need to connect with our inner child; everyone is insecure as a teenager.
  24. Spirit Untamed
    Handsome animation adds to the appeal of this sequel to the 2002 animation Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, but this is family entertainment that’s quite niche in its appeal – pony-mad kids will love it, but it may test the patience of parents.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Texasville
    It is a rancid, flaccid affair, both cynical and sentimental. The characters are caricatures and seem to have more to do with Bogdanovich's feelings about Beverly Hills in 1990 than Texas in 1984. [09 Dec 1990, p.52]
    • The Observer (UK)
  26. Venom: Let There Be Carnage
    In an improvement on the film’s predecessor, director Andy Serkis dispenses with detailed explanations and instead amps up the humour, leaning into the goofy, flirtatious dynamic between Venom and Brock.
  27. Amaurosis
    The film lurches into conventional horror-thriller territory as it progresses, though there are interesting moments.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Ice Station Zebra
    Grand adventure yarn, based on an Alistair MacLean verbal comic strip about a Cold War race to grab some top secrets from an Arctic weather post. Like the nuclear submarine on which it's mostly set, the film cracks, leaks but finally stands the strain and has weathered well. [03 Feb 2008, p.2]
    • The Observer (UK)
  29. Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1
    It’s not uninvolving. The picture takes its own sweet time getting going, but a satisfying momentum builds through the multiple, interlinked storylines.
  30. The Beanie Bubble
    It is blithely unquestioning of what the frenzy over glorified Hacky Sacks actually tells us about society.
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