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. In Front of Your Face
    In Front of Your Face is a gentle pleasure and, as such, may not be a picture that will win new fans to the films of director Hong Sang-soo. But admirers of his distinctive style – long takes, zooms, social awkwardness, vast quantities of strong alcohol – will be beguiled by this bittersweet series of encounters.
  2. Passing
    Hall emphasises the moral grey area by shooting in black and white, an ingenious choice that allows her to light Clare as black or white.
  3. Honeyland
    No-nonsense beekeper Hatidze Muratova’s face is as weathered and craggy as the cliff face we see her scaling at the start of this gripping, Sundance-winning documentary.
  4. Identifying Features
    Valadez’s expressionist images give texture to the abstract emotions of rage and pain.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Sacrifice
    This humourless, portentous, beautifully made and exquisitely acted movie won the Special Jury Prize at Cannes, though when the men in white coats came to take Josephson away, some sardonic observers thought they'd come for Tarkovsky. [12 Jan 2003, p.8]
    • The Observer (UK)
  6. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar
    This is an archetypal Anderson film: mannered, fussy, obsessively designed – normally irksome traits, but in this alchemic instance it’s an utterly delightful combination.
  7. Daughters
    The dance is the picture’s climax, a glimpse of joy and optimism. But the film’s coda, shot three years later, shows the cost of prolonged separation. Hope is a spark that can be easily extinguished.
  8. The Fabelmans
    If you’re looking for a film that explains where the Spielbergian tropes you know and love came from, then The Fabelmans is for you.
  9. Vermiglio
    From the intimate restraint of the early scenes, Delpero’s direction becomes more fractured and abrasive. It’s a remarkable work.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Stalker
    Visually unforgettable and possibly Tarkovsky's finest work.
  11. I'm Still Here
    The realisation that her husband is gone for good is a gradual process that plays out, largely without words, on Torres’s face, in a performance of extraordinary intelligence and emotional complexity.
  12. The Eternal Memory
    The Eternal Memory is a restrained, respectful piece of film-making that takes its lead from its two subjects. It’s wrenchingly sad, but also a testament to the love that endures, even as Augusto increasingly struggles to recognise his wife.
  13. EO
    Yet there are also moments of heart-stopping tenderness and beauty.
  14. 76 Days
    It is, at times, harrowing. The film doesn’t shy away from grief at its rawest, fear at its most paralysing.
  15. Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret
    With a smile that frays a little around the edges, and a peppy enthusiasm that can’t quite hide the doubts, McAdams wrings every last drop of pathos from her scenes, almost upstaging her screen daughter in the process.
  16. The Truffle Hunters
    Every bit as immersive as Victor Kossakovsky’s recent documentary Gunda, about a sow and her piglets, The Truffle Hunters serves as a timely reminder that the world does not turn to the industrialised rhythms of mankind alone, and that we lose track of its natural heartbeat at our peril.
  17. Judas and the Black Messiah
    It’s a credit to Stanfield that he manages to keep these complex contradictions alive throughout his performance, capturing perfectly the uneasy manner that O’Neal exhibited on camera, his eyes darting anxiously as he attempts to read his surroundings, his manner a mix of fearful, furtive and oddly forceful.
  18. Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood
    If it’s a love letter, it’s the kind tinged with the grasping anguish and stab of bitterness that comes from knowing that the object of affection is almost certainly eyeing up a new favourite.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Farewell My Concubine
    Farewell My Concubine is an exquisite film, subtle, well acted, deeply moving. It confirms Chen Kaige's position as a major figure on the world scene and Gu Changwei as one of the today's finest cinematographers. [09 Jan 1994]
    • The Observer (UK)
  20. Sinners
    If you pick apart the story threads, Sinners is a little messy, but Coogler’s assurance and vision holds everything together.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Limelight
    It's a verbose, technically creaky work, both sentimental and self-indulgent, and never very funny except for a brilliant scene with Chaplin and Buster Keaton as a disaster-prone musical duo. However, there are sublime, deeply affecting moments and for those who think Chaplin one of the key figures of 20th-century popular culture, it is a crucial movie.
  22. Earth Mama
    It’s bleak at times, but there is a defiantly celebratory aspect to the film, which finds hope in the solidarity of Black women and dignity in Gia’s quiet stoicism.
  23. Booksmart
    Wilde expertly modulates the giddy highs and bittersweet lows of being a teenager, as demonstrated in the way the film’s house party climax crests and then crashes.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Wise Blood
    Stunning adaptation of Catholic author Flannery O'Connor's novel about religious obsession in America's Bible belt. Brad Dourif is outstanding as an agnostic GI returning to the deep south after the second world war and becoming involved with competing evangelists Harry Dean Stanton and Ned Beatty. [26 Sep 2010, p.59]
    • The Observer (UK)
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Ascension
    Accompanied by a lithe, organic score by Dan Deacon, which weaves the rhythms of industry and technology into the music, the film is a mosaic portrait of the realities and repercussions of “the Chinese dream”.
  26. The Seed of the Sacred Fig
    The Seed of the Sacred Fig may not be his most elegant picture – it has pacing issues and a laboured final act – but it is without doubt Rasoulof’s most important film to date.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Postman Always Rings Twice
    More film gris than film noir, it offers a biting moral conundrum at every turn. [17 Oct 2010, p.4]
    • The Observer (UK)
  28. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
    It’s not just Nicholson’s performance that makes this film a masterpiece; it’s the fact that Forman was able to prevent that performance from capsizing the whole enterprise.
  29. 2001: A Space Odyssey
    It’s an overpowering experience, awe-inspiringly photographed by Geoffrey Unsworth, groundbreakingly enhanced by Douglas Trumbull.
  30. Toy Story 4
    Woody and Buzz et al are still wonderful creations, and time spent in their company is rarely wasted. But riffs about new owner Bonnie starting kindergarten and once-favoured toys getting left in the cupboard smack of old ground being retrodden.
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