The Observer (UK)'s Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
  1. Zappa
    Key to the success of the film is the editing, a pinballing assault of free association, claymation and gleeful profanity, which goes some way towards recreating what it must have been like to spend time inside Zappa’s head.
  2. Pink Wall
    Maslany is magnetic, her coiled fury and sexual energy threatening to erupt as her placid partner plods along beside her.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Kung Fu Panda 2
    The central notion of discovering one's unique personal identity ("the only thing that matters is what you choose to be now") takes us back to an earlier China and it's free of jokey references to other movies.
  4. Slalom
    Favier is smart on the mechanics of abuse, and the sobering inevitability of her heroine’s downhill skid.
  5. Music
    These self-consciously upbeat moments clash horribly with the wider redemption narrative.
  6. News of the World
    I found this a rewarding and entertaining drama, heavy with the weight of the past, yet buoyed up by the possibilities of the future.
  7. Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar
    The sci-fi stuff is tedious, but Wiig and Mumolo are bawdy and brilliant as ever, their effortless chemistry bolstered by years of collaboration.
  8. Rams
    It works on the assumption that a story about grumpy old gits united against a common foe has a universal appeal. True, to an extent, but what the makers of this film fail to realise is that it was the specificity of the Icelandic original that made it such a glumly hilarious delight.
  9. Greenland
    A first-rate B-picture, and a timely reminder of the delights of well-crafted popcorn thrills.
  10. A Glitch in the Matrix
    It’s a messy, mind-blowing collision of philosophy, technology, religion and fruit-loop paranoia which, while it doesn’t exactly make a watertight case, does provide a fascinating, and in one case deeply disturbing, insight into the thought processes of those who believe it.
  11. Assassins
    Perhaps wisely, Ryan White’s slick documentary chooses not to mine the bizarre scene for comic potential. Instead, he spins the arrest of Siti Aisyah and Doan Thi Huong – economic migrants from Indonesia and Vietnam respectively – into a parable about political corruption.
  12. Palmer
    The showy singer turned actor struggles to modulate his natural charisma, a flirtatious, extroverted energy repeatedly leaking out where it should be muffled.
  13. The Dig
    In a film defined by understatement, it’s the little details that matter.
  14. Beginning
    Sukhitashvili’s subtle performance brings interiority to a character who might otherwise be defined entirely by her suffering.
  15. The Road to Mandalay
    A combination of tender details – the way Guo carefully picks the fibres from his girlfriend’s skin after a gruelling shift at the factory – and a strikingly surreal approach to a scene in which Lianqing prostitutes herself for the first time makes this unflinching picture a notable addition to the ever-swelling list of films that deal with migration.
  16. Vanguard
    It’s an unforgivable waste of Jackie Chan, action-movie legend, reduced here to pratfalls and gurning double takes.
  17. One Night in Miami
    The ensemble cast electrifies Powers’s dialogue, jockeying between black power and integration, activism and commerce, spiritual clarity, pork chops and sex.
  18. Mayor
    Deft editing and unexpectedly affecting music choices make for an engaging portrait of the kind of impassioned and dedicated politician who seems in short supply right now.
  19. Robin's Wish
    It’s certainly informative and affecting, but the limited use of early archive footage and the emphasis on Williams’s decline and suffering make for bleak viewing.
  20. Baby Done
    Tinder-dry delivery bolsters the film’s gentle humour, and while the momentum sags a little in the second half, the natural chemistry between Matafeo and Lewis keeps the audience invested and the story relatable.
  21. Quo Vadis, Aida?
    Like the unblinking closeup that concludes the deeply moving (and ultimately redemptive?) epilogue to Quo Vadis, Aida?, Žbanić’s powerful and personal film keeps its eyes wide open.
  22. 76 Days
    It is, at times, harrowing. The film doesn’t shy away from grief at its rawest, fear at its most paralysing.
  23. The White Tiger
    Powered by a surging, impatient energy and a bracing undercurrent of spite, Ramin Bahrani’s version of Aravind Adiga’s 2008 Booker prize-winning novel is one of the more successful literary adaptations of recent years.
  24. Dear Comrades!
    Throughout, Konchalovsky juxtaposes wide-ranging events with seemingly insignificant details to dramatic effect.
  25. Stardust
    The whole thing feels strangely pedestrian, unable to capture or channel Bowie’s maverick spirit.
  26. Blithe Spirit
    The impish Leslie Mann is well cast as his dead wife, Elvira, who provides a jolt of creative inspiration. Judi Dench’s screechy caricature of psychic Madame Arcati is less winning.
  27. MLK/FBI
    Pollard’s decision to eschew traditional talking heads in favour of voiceover interviews allows the archive to take centre stage.
  28. My Rembrandt
    My Rembrandt is at its most interesting when struggling to reconcile the slow, careful work of art restoration with the crass, instant gratification on acquiring such rarefied objects.
  29. Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets
    The sense of the watering hole as a haven for lost souls – not to mention the threat of gentrification to civic space – couldn’t be more vérité.
  30. Sylvie's Love
    Like Barry Jenkins’s If Beale Street Could Talk and Todd Haynes’s Carol, Ashe takes the form of the 50s melodrama and recentres it on characters the genre has tended to ignore. This isn’t as politically restless as those films – it’s less interested in subverting the “woman’s picture” than establishing itself as one.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »