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. Godzilla: King of the Monsters
    The ugly visual effects are outdone only by the sound design, which is relentlessly loud and thunderingly tedious. Verbal exchanges between the humans are devoid of wit and barely functional in communicating the story.
  2. Thunder Road
    What we have instead is a succession of variously successful vignettes, only some of which hit that sweet spot between horror and humour, as we watch Arnaud’s life collapse around him.
  3. Sunset
    The film’s formal qualities obscure Nemes’s intentions instead of illuminating them. It’s all too vague to function effectively as either a commentary on the build-up to the Great War or as the story of a woman looking to find her place in a city predicated on rigid, gender-determined hierarchies.
  4. XY Chelsea
    Hawkins seems beguiled by Manning’s natural charisma, and more interested in the highs and lows of her personal reckoning. These are fascinating in their own right, yet more context might have made this feel like more of a definitive portrait.
  5. Rocketman
    Fletcher is the real star of this show, a director whose enthusiasm for musical storytelling shines through every frame, hitting all the emotional high notes.
  6. Aladdin
    Mena Massoud’s boyband haircut brings a certain charm, but like the rest of the film, he’s blandly competent.
  7. The Secret Life of Pets 2
    [A] charming sequel.
  8. 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.
  9. Pick of the Litter
    In a tussle between the appeal of the subject and the plodding banality of the approach, the pups are ultimately the losers.
  10. Beats
    It’s a terrific little film that combines the earthy humour and honesty of a Shane Meadows movie with an unexpected expressionistic section – flooded with colour – that channels the boys’ joyful dancefloor abandon.
  11. Birds of Passage
    It’s powerfully affecting fare; elegiac, evocative and profoundly cinematic.
  12. John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum
    The latest instalment of John Wick makes an art of pain in a way that is curiously life-affirming.
  13. Amaurosis
    The film lurches into conventional horror-thriller territory as it progresses, though there are interesting moments.
  14. Pokémon Detective Pikachu
    The CGI critters are seamlessly integrated with the 35mm cinematography, the film stock’s grain smoothing the visual tackiness.
  15. High Life
    The gravitational pull of sex, death and the void is palpable.
  16. Destination Wedding
    Writer-director Victor Levin’s caustic take on the romcom works better as a treatise on the genre than as an example of it. The staging of the individual scenes feels like an afterthought, with the stars and script doing all the heavy lifting. Still, the scaffolding is there.
  17. The Hustle
    Clearly, it’s intended as a vehicle for Wilson, who is credited as co-producer, but it’s Hathaway who steals the show.
  18. Madeline's Madeline
    The dilemma she presents is ethical: is it fair to ask someone to traumatise (or retraumatise) themselves for the sake of art? Rather boldly, it seems as though Decker is also asking the question of herself.
  19. Amazing Grace
    When a parishioner leaps to her feet, her spirit clearly moved, you’ll want to do the same. Wholy Holy indeed.
  20. Pasolini
    “Narrative art is dead – we are in a period of mourning”; “To scandalise is a right, to be scandalised a pleasure”; “Refusal must be great, absolute, absurd…” Abel Ferrara’s infatuated tribute to Pier Paolo Pasolini is littered with such gnomic bon mots, which could apply equally to either director.
  21. Blue Is the Warmest Color
    Certainly the performances by Léa Seydoux (already an important screen presence) and newcomer Adèle Exarchopoulos are extraordinary. Their portrayal of a blossoming, fragmenting relationship is shot through with genuine grace and conviction even when the film itself descends into indulgence.
  22. Vox Lux
    The film is at its most successful in the first half, which shows the genesis of a pop phenomenon...But once Portman takes over the role, as a jaded, jangled pop veteran, the picture becomes less persuasive.
  23. Woman at War
    Geirharðsdóttir commands the screen throughout, but she receives significant support from Jóhann Sigurðarson as Sveinbjörn, the gruffly avuncular sheep farmer who lives alone with his dog, Woman.
  24. Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile
    But while the period details are slavishly recreated, there’s an absence when it comes to character details for the two women, particularly Bundy’s wife, Carole Ann Boone (Scodelario).
  25. Tolkien
    There are moments that catch – a cafe date between Tolkien and his future wife (Lily Collins) is one, and a knockout scene with the mother of his closest friend is another – but for the most part this is stolid film-making that lacks the imagination and creativity of its subject.
  26. Long Shot
    Two of the most immediately likable actors in Hollywood, Theron and Rogen are a joy together.
  27. Ash Is Purest White
    This one hits its stride somewhere in the middle, bounding confidently towards its hopeless, poetic conclusion.
  28. Bel Canto
    There’s a tepid, cross-cultural romantic comedy trapped inside this televisual hostage drama. The reliable Moore is trapped too. Even she can’t animate the material, leaving the graphic denouement feeling like a bum note.
  29. Avengers: Endgame
    The final battle is giddily cathartic, but the catharsis arises from prioritising character development over plot and spectacle. This, I imagine, will be the Avengers’ legacy.
  30. Loro
    There’s a sloppiness and incoherence in the storytelling.
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