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. The New Boy
    The latest film from Warwick Thornton (Samson and Delilah) is strikingly beautiful, its widescreen vistas rendered in a scorched palette of dust and ochres. But the pacing is languid to a fault and it all gets rather bogged down in allegory.
  2. Drive-Away Dolls
    The film has a boisterous energy, but it’s puerile, phoney and frequently rather cringe.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Lovely Rita (2001)
    It's performed by a non-professional cast, who all seem a little tense, and the rebellious Rita is an unsympathetic, inadequately characterised figure, though not unconvincing. [30 Dec 2001, p.12]
    • The Observer (UK)
      • Posted Mar 15, 2024
  4. Origin
    The compelling Ellis-Taylor goes some way towards tying together the disparate elements. She is a magnetic, dignified presence, persuasive in both the more melodramatic elements of the story and in the academic journey.
  5. Frida
    While the film doesn’t attempt to explore every aspect and every romantic connection, it does delve satisfyingly deeply into her interior life, explored through her artistic output.
  6. Ricky Stanicky
    Despite the best efforts of a game John Cena in the title role, the laughs are a little thin on the ground.
  7. The Inventor
    Charming and informative as it is, the film may struggle to engage younger audiences accustomed to more overt comedy in their animated movies and less grave-robbing.
  8. High & Low: John Galliano
    Given the vested interest that the business has in the industry and its highly lucrative maverick son, it’s surprising and refreshing that High & Low is as nuanced and thought-provoking as it is.
  9. Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World
    This picture is more or less equal parts an indulgent, endurance-testing slog and a brilliantly audacious, fiercely political poke in the eye to conventional cinema. I loved every enraging minute of it.
  10. Dune: Part Two
    There are moments when Dune: Part Two feels uncomfortably timely.
  11. Perfect Days
    Perhaps, in its polite and unassuming way, the film advocates not just a new way of looking, but also a new way of living.
  12. Memory
    Gradually and delicately, Sylvia and Saul’s tessellating traumas are revealed by a beautifully balanced pair of lead performances.
  13. Out of Darkness
    Proof that even the most basic cinematic tools can be used to make fire.
  14. Getting It Back: The Story of Cymande
    Tim Mackenzie-Smith’s slightly breathless and overstretched documentary aims for a Buena Vista Social Club-style story of late-life rediscovery but gets a little bogged down in a few too many hagiographic quotes from high-profile fans. Still, the music is sublime.
  15. The Taste of Things
    The Taste of Things defies expectations. There is something refreshingly unconventional about its depiction of the tender, well-worn love between Eugénie and Dodin.
  16. Eureka
    Unfortunately, for all its daring, Eureka is often stultifyingly slow.
  17. The Promised Land
    This very enjoyable Nordic western from Nikolaj Arcel (A Royal Affair), based on a true story, is at first driven by grit and macho hubris. But thanks to the women in his life . . . the captain belatedly comes to realise that there is more to life than potatoes and royal-sanctioned prestige.
  18. Bob Marley: One Love
    What becomes painfully clear is the fact that Bob Marley deserves a better biopic. Still, Lynch’s magnetic presence, and a heartstopping rendition of Redemption Song, almost justify the price of admission.
  19. Occupied City
    Feels closer in approach to his early gallery installation work than it does to his narrative film-making.
  20. The Iron Claw
    Even if The Iron Claw doesn’t quite match the bracing originality of the other two films, it still cements Durkin’s status as one of the most consistently impressive American directors of his generation.
  21. Your Fat Friend
    It helps that Gordon is a dream of a subject: funny, frank and eminently likable, she challenges preconceptions and prejudices about fatness with wit and grace.
  22. The Settlers
    Not everything in this Leone-inspired Latino western hits its target, but the picture has a venomous bite, and a smart, slippery final scene that turns the lens back on to the act of film-making, questioning cinema’s role in (mis)shaping the way we view history.
  23. American Fiction
    The story works on two levels, first as a prickly critique of the pressures facing Black creatives. But equally satisfying is its depiction of the abrasive, complicated dynamics in a high-achieving family.
  24. Migration
    A screenplay by White Lotus creator Mike White elevates proceedings with an enjoyably sardonic bite.
  25. Argylle
    The special effects seem shoddy and unfinished and the screenplay struggles to keep up with its own twists and turns.
  26. The Zone of Interest
    The impact all but knocks the breath from your body.
  27. All of Us Strangers
    It’s a remarkable achievement – a raw and potent piece of storytelling that grabs you by the heart and doesn’t let go.
  28. The Holdovers
    There’s a bracingly astringent bleakness under its surface layer of melancholy humour; a biting, sharp edge that counters the occasional lurch towards sentimentality.
  29. Werner Herzog - Radical Dreamer
    Interviewees tie themselves in knots of gushing superlatives, but the real insights come from the man himself.
  30. The Kitchen
    Robinson and Bannerman are excellent, warily stepping around each other’s expectations and weighing up the cost of allowing themselves to care.
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