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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    • 30 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Cassandra Crossing
    Coarse international thriller with a standard group-jeopardy dramatis personae set abroad a trans-European express train boarded by a plague-carrying terrorist. Saved from total mediocrity by an all-star cast that includes Sophia Loren, Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, Ingrid Thulin, Martin Sheen, OJ Simpson, Richard Harris, and Alida Valli. [28 Oct 2007, p.14]
    • The Observer (UK)
    • 57 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Last Tycoon
    A generally lacklustre affair. [03 Mar 2013, p.44]
    • The Observer (UK)
    • 39 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    To the Devil a Daughter
    Far from the Rosemary's Baby it wished to be, but nonetheless unsettling at least up to the point that we see the devil's glove-puppet itself. [27 Jun 1999, p.10]
    • The Observer (UK)
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson
    It's a bicentennial companion piece to Nashville, with a fabulous cast that includes Burt Lancaster (superb as dime novelist Ned Buntline), Harvey Keitel and Joel Grey. [22 Jun 1997, p.11]
    • The Observer (UK)
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Bad News Bears
    Matthau is at his curmudgeonly best and Ritchie (at the time considered one of Hollywood's best directors) brings his usual sharp eye for middle-Americana to bear on a script by Bill Lancaster, son of Burt. [24 Oct 2010, p.46]
    • The Observer (UK)
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Robin and Marian
    Charming, elegiac tragicomedy, scripted by playwright James Goldman, about being middle-aged in the Middle Ages. [03 Jan 2010, p.22]
    • The Observer (UK)
  7. Barry Lyndon
    One of the most beautiful of all Stanley Kubrick’s films, originally released in 1975, this slyly savage tale of social climbing in the 18th century is also arguably his funniest.
  8. 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.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    F for Fake
    At times T for tedious and P for pretentious, the film remains essential viewing for admirers of the great cineaste and showman.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Swept Away
    It is, in effect, a reworking of The Admirable Crichton, JM Barrie's parable about a servant taking command when a hopeless aristocratic family is shipwrecked. Far superior to the disastrous 2002 Guy Ritchie-Madonna remake. [30 Jan 2005, p.13]
    • The Observer (UK)
    • 44 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Breakout
    Engagingly wry thriller starring Charles Bronson as a Texas adventurer hired by Jill Ireland to spring her innocent husband (Robert Duvall) from a Mexican jail. [08 Oct 2000, p.10]
    • The Observer (UK)
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Brannigan
    Amiable thriller merging Fabian of the Yard with Dirty Harry. [21 Mar 2004, p.91]
    • The Observer (UK)
    • 60 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Great Waldo Pepper
    This colourful fable, scripted by William Goldman (who wrote Butch Cassidy and All the President's Men ) deserved far better than the critical drubbing and public rejection that greeted it. [20 Jul 2008, p.18]
    • The Observer (UK)
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Young Frankenstein
    Mel Brooks's send-up of 1930s horror movies is a mixed, always amiable affair, beautifully shot in monochrome with loving attention to detail. [12 Nov 2000, p.11]
    • The Observer (UK)
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Alice in the Cities
    Yella Rottlander is unforgettable as Alice. [06 Jan 2008, p.16]
    • The Observer (UK)
    • 92 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Chinatown
    This film is flawless.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Last Detail
    Great acting, and a superb screenplay by Robert Towne, who re-united with Nicholson the following year on Polanski's Chinatown. [02 Apr 2006, p.10]
    • The Observer (UK)
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Theater of Blood
    Arguably Price's finest single performance, certainly the one that called on all his varied talents as a comedian, aesthete, mellifluous speaker of verse, old-fashioned barnstormer and exponent of horror, is Douglas Hickox's classic black comedy Theatre of Blood, best of a string of horror pictures he made in Britain.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Mack
    Incoherent, idiotic and exhilarating. [28 Apr 1996, p.16]
    • The Observer (UK)
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Train Robbers
    Enjoyable traditional western. [26 Apr 2009, p.18]
    • The Observer (UK)
    • 80 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Deliverance
    Adapted from the novel by the poet James Dickey (who plays the small, significant role of a sheriff in the moral coda to the journey), it's a riveting, resonant film, the male rape sequence as shocking as it was 35 years ago. [28 Oct 2007, p.20]
    • The Observer (UK)
    • 100 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Tokyo Story
    This 1953 classic is one of the cinema's most profound and moving studies of married love, ageing and the relations between parents and children. It is flawless and rewards numerous viewings.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Hot Rock
    Wittily adapted by William Goldman from a Donald E. Westlake novel, it's the best film Yates made between Bullitt and Breaking Away. [08 Aug 1999, p.10]
    • The Observer (UK)
    • 55 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Kidnapped
    Skillfully adapted by prolific TV playwright Jack Pulman from Stevenson's classic adventure yarn. [02 Feb 2003, p.8]
    • The Observer (UK)
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Duel
    A haunting study of middle-class paranoia scripted by seasoned horror author Richard Matheson, it established Spielberg in Europe as a name to be reckoned with before he'd been heard of in the States. [03 Oct 2004, p.83]
    • The Observer (UK)
    • 58 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Let's Scare Jessica to Death
    Regular horror ingredients are all mixed up into something truly terrifying. [17 Dec 2006, p.8]
    • The Observer (UK)
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Klute
    Jane Fonda gives what remains the best performance of her career as a confident, self-aware call girl in a riveting thriller by a master of paranoid conspiracy cinema that explores feminism and the darker side of inner-city life. [10 Jun 2012, p.48]
    • The Observer (UK)
    • 93 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    McCabe & Mrs. Miller
    A truly great western.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Anderson Tapes
    An exciting tale with a cast that includes Christopher Walken and Martin Balsam, but its real concern is with a dehumanised, paranoid society dominated by electronic surveillance. [09 Oct 2011, p.46]
    • The Observer (UK)
    • 47 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Mephisto Waltz
    A confusing, unintentionally funny movie starring Jacqueline Bisset and a young Alan Alda. [23 Jun 2002, p.8]
    • The Observer (UK)
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