Variety's Scores

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For 17,794 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 52% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 44% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 2.4 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 63
Highest review score: 100 IMAX: Hubble 3D
Lowest review score: 0 Divorce: The Musical
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 9,142 out of 17794
  2. Mixed: 7,015 out of 17794
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17794
17794 movie reviews
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  1. Low Down
    It’s a familiar story of music-world success, failure and addiction, admirably but unevenly told by first-time feature director Jeff Preiss, who certainly knows the music and the milieu, but proves less adept at shaping the material into a consistently compelling narrative.
  2. The Voices
    In tapping Satrapi to interpret this project, the producers have done about as well as one could expect with such material. Still, a bit more consistency in style would have gone a long way.
  3. The Sleepwalker
    A consistently intriguing psychodrama that may nonetheless leave many viewers feeling that it’s all buildup and scant payoff.
  4. Hellion
    More sensitive than sensational, Candler’s debut doesn’t add much in the way of insight to the juvenile delinquency genre, but boasts a stunning breakthrough performance from newcomer Josh Wiggins as the troublemaker in question.
  5. Brightest Star
    Brightest Star, has all the trappings of a contemporary romantic comedy, but also the good sense to strive for a deeper examination of a young man’s search for his place in the universe.
  6. Island of Lemurs: Madagascar
    A pleasant if fairly pedestrian viewing experience, one that more or less gets the job done in terms of balancing the requisite ooh-ahh moments with another unsurprising reminder of man’s capacity for selfishness and destruction.
  7. Redwood Highway
    Redwood Highway delivers in high spirits and fine thesping what it lacks in dynamic tension and narrative consistency.
  8. Cooties
    Amusing as the Cooties script manages to be, one gets the distinct impression that its authors didn’t bother to visit a school at any point in the research or writing process, missing out on any number of jokes they could have made at public education’s expense.
  9. A Walk Among the Tombstones
    Too formally well crafted to be dismissed, but too straightforward and uncurious to be particularly exciting or insightful.
  10. Brick Mansions
    Delamarre knows his way around an action scene and keeps the proceedings moving briskly enough, even if the picture clocks in at about 10 minutes longer than its taut, 81-minute predecessor.
  11. Beijing Love Story
    While there’s no great originality on display here, Beijing Love Story handles its full range of stylistic and tonal gambits with impressive assurance. A strong performance or a well-placed sober moment always brings things back to terra firma whenever they turn a bit over-the-top.
  12. Highway
    Tracing a journey of self-discovery through six North Indian states without a formal script, Ali’s actors, like his characters, effectively improvise in a meandering present tense, stripped of any viable destination.
  13. The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part
    The Lego Movie 2 ought to have raised the bar, and while it’s faster, denser, and jam-packed with all sorts of catchy new songs (including one, “Catchy Song,” that’s insidiously engineered to get stuck inside your head), all that energy only goes so far to cover for the wobblier foundation on which this film is built.
  14. Entourage
    Sometimes funny, often dumb, with equal doses of inside-baseball references and broad bro-ish boorishness, Entourage will be loved by fans and despised by detractors, possibly for the same reasons.
  15. Afflicted
    A low-budget horror-thriller that’s resourceful enough to wring a few fresh chills from a slender premise and a less-than-novel formal conceit.
  16. Guilty of Romance
    There are too many twists, insignificant literary references and drawn-out scenes of sex and violence to sustain either the pic’s running time or its ideas, with Sono’s message obscured in the final reels by an ambiguous treatment of his leading ladies.
  17. Himizu
    Because Sono tries to set the manga’s storyline, with its stylized violence, in the very real, post-earthquake/tsunami disaster area, Himizu struggles to find a coherent tone.
  18. Patrick: Evil Awakens
    Rich in gothic trappings and sporting a terrific central performance by Sharni Vinson (“You’re Next”) as a nurse in Patrick’s sinister sights, the pic has some wobbly dialogue and doesn’t deliver full-blown terror, but should satisfy audiences hankering for old-school genre entertainment.
  19. Suzanne
    Quillevere, co-scribe Mariette Desert and editor Thomas Marchand struggle to keep audiences fully involved in the story... Thankfully, the performances are all first-rate.
  20. Fort Tilden
    Its potent sense of place and underlying ideas never compensate for the tiresome millennial musings that constitute most of its runtime.
  21. Salvo
    After taking a couple of left turns following its thriller-like opening, Salvo unfortunately returns to a more conventional register in the closing reels, though the atmospheric picture does continuously fascinate on a visceral level.
  22. Queen
    The film could easily be a half-hour shorter; shot in a loose, handheld style that involved some improvisation, it feels unfocused and repetitive at times, to the point of aimlessness.
  23. Ida
    It’s one thing to set up a striking black-and-white composition and quite another to draw people into it, and dialing things back as much as this film does risks losing the vast majority of viewers along the way, offering an intellectual exercise in lieu of an emotional experience to all but the most rarefied cineastes.
  24. Proxy
    Skirting horror and black-comedy terrain without quite surrendering to either, the pic proves rather bracing even if it doesn’t hold up to much plot-logic scrutiny.
  25. Small Time
    The narrative becomes more tenuous the deeper it strays into drama.
  26. Half of a Yellow Sun
    The rare prestige pic that could actually stand to be longer.
  27. Magic Mike XXL
    Written raggedly enough for the actors to bring their own chemistry to what aspirationally feels like one of Robert Altman’s backstage dramas (a la “Nashville” or “Ready to Wear”), Magic Mike XXL is most fun when it isn’t trying to justify itself, but just kicking back with the guys — or better yet, giving them a fresh excuse to show off their creativity.
  28. R100
    If a dominatrix is one who takes total control of her passive partner, then R100 is the cinematic equivalent of a kinky femme fatale in black leather and stiletto heels, cracking a whip and a smile.
  29. The Case Against 8
    There are engaging, articulate personalities here that maintain interest through a mountain of strategizing sessions and court reversals, though helmers Ben Cotner and Ryan White strike a rote note of tele-friendly inspirational uplift while risking tedium with too much repetitious content.
  30. Anna
    A likable if overly familiar psychological thriller.
  31. DamNation
    The film’s haphazard focus muddies the waters without doing anything to clarify the overall stakes. Fortunately, the continual visual splendors make a rather striking argument of their own.
  32. Ricki and the Flash
    This is a shaggy, easily distractible film that consistently defies expectations to both charming and baffling effect.
  33. Cyber-Seniors
    Though there might have been some real drama to tap in following some seniors’ efforts to reconnect with their long-lost loves, Cassaday either doesn’t find any such intrigue, or didn’t bother looking for it.
  34. The Discoverers
    Schwarz lacks the writing chops to adequately embed the character’s predictable learning curve into a richer narrative fabric, but Dunne’s perf is pitch-perfect.
  35. The Life and Crimes of Doris Payne
    The film all too eagerly allows itself to be taken in by Payne’s charms, trying to capture her human side via interviews with her two grown children, while all but ignoring the all-too-obvious cautionary aspect in favor of escapist entertainment.
  36. The Wonders
    An appealing yet oddly insubstantial work, like an early impressionist sketch in need of a little more focus, and perhaps a more suitable frame.
  37. The Song
    A well-crooned country tune can invest even the hoariest cliches with honest feeling, and in much the same fashion, The Song takes a familiar tale of love, marriage, betrayal and redemption, and delivers a largely satisfying rendition.
  38. Party Girl
    [An] accomplished if unexceptional debut feature.
  39. Saint Laurent
    The upside for Saint Laurent’s admirers is that Bonello’s film reflects more of the designer’s tortured creative drive in its dark onyx surfaces; it’s the slightly deranged auteur portrait that a fellow artist and iconoclast deserves.
  40. The Blue Room
    While this appropriately brief film unravels its enigma at a tidy clip, it gathers neither enough heat, nor quite enough of a chill, to linger in the bones.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Sorcerer
    William Friedkin's Sorcerer is a painstaking, admirable, but mostly distant and uninvolving suspenser based on the French classic The Wages of Fear [from the novel by Georges Arnaud]. Friedkin vividly renders the experience of several men driving trucks loaded with nitro through the South American jungle, yet the characters are basically functional. 'Sorcerer' is merely the name of one of the trucks.
  42. The Salvation
    There’s really only one ingredient for which The Salvation is likely to be remembered: Eva Green.
  43. Bird People
    Where the film goes is both unexpected and necessary, since however grounded and relatable these thinly detailed characters might be, the movie doesn’t actually seem to be going anywhere.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Alien Nation
    Solid performances by leads James Caan and his humanoid buddy-cop partner Mandy Patinkin move this production beyond special effects, clever alien makeup and car chases.
  45. Burt's Buzz
    [A] thin but engaging portrait.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Net
    Riddled with more coincidences and implausibilities than Hitchcock permitted himself in his entire career, The Net still gets by as a reasonably suspenseful, very au courant thriller.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Police Academy
    Police Academy at its core is a harmless, innocent poke at authority that does find a fresh background in a police academy.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Stir Crazy
    Director Sidney Poitier’s chief role seems to be providing enough space for Pryor and Wilder to do their schtick without going too far afield from the scant storyline
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Tremors
    An affectionate send-up of schlocky 1950s monster pics, but with better special effects, Tremors has a few clever twists but ultimately can’t decide what it wants to be – flat-out funny, which it’s not, or a scarefest.
  50. Honour
    Earnest issue drama and pulpy B-thriller mechanics make awkward but not uncompelling bedfellows in Honour.
  51. Silence
    Though undeniably gorgeous, it is punishingly long, frequently boring, and woefully unengaging at some of its most critical moments.... Still, viewed through the narrow prism of films about faith, Silence is a remarkable achievement.
  52. Uncharted
    Uncharted is a lively but thinly scripted and overlong mad-dash caper movie, propelled by actors you wish, after a while, had more interesting things to say and do.
  53. Two Night Stand
    Two Night Stand’s strength lies in the doubts and the ambivalence it expresses about the way we love now.
  54. Found
    Although not entirely successful, this intriguing, above-average genre effort still reps an ambitious and resourceful debut for helmer/co-writer Scott Schirmer.
  55. The Transporter Refueled
    The Transporter Refueled comes up strong where it counts, with frequent bursts of ludicrously implausible yet coherently directed mayhem.
  56. Coldwater
    Suitable for teens — lies somewhere between indignant expose and unusually tasteful exploitation picture, with shower scenes and sweaty young delinquents aplenty.
  57. Captivated: The Trials of Pamela Smart
    Zagar’s thesis — that overpowering media exploitation determined its legal outcome early on — is introduced in the very first shot, then hammered home harder the longer the pic goes on.
  58. Fort McCoy
    Connor and co-director Michael Worth allow Fort McCoy to proceed at an unhurried pace, giving Stoltz ample opportunity to subtly convey undercurrents of guilt and anger percolating beneath his character’s affable exterior.
  59. Godzilla: King of the Monsters
    You won’t feel cheated; at stray moments, you’ll feel the wonder. But for every high point, there’s a moment when the thrill threatens to leak away.
  60. The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
    Cavill and Hammer have each toplined major tentpoles before, so it’s something of a mystery why neither makes much of an impression here, but there’s a curious vacuum at the center of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. that almost certainly owes to its casting.
  61. No No: A Dockumentary
    While the film’s sense of chronology is at times strained and its tale of redemption hardly unique, its subject is certainly one of a kind.
  62. The Age of Adaline
    A sensitively directed slab of romantic hokum that wrings an impressive amount of emotional conviction from a thoroughly ludicrous premise.
  63. Kink
    The consistently celebratory stance of “Kink” is commendable, but also feels somewhat limiting.
  64. Krampus
    Krampus isn’t especially scary, but it generates goodwill nonetheless for treating its home-invasion-for-the-holidays setup with an appreciably straight face.
  65. Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers And The Emergence Of A People
    Though a tad uneven, as a whole the documentary cannily juggles an overview of African-American history in general with the specifics of its photographic representation and talents.
  66. McFarland USA
    A rare studio entertainment featuring a largely Latino ensemble, yet necessarily fronted by a big-name draw like Costner, McFarland, USA feels at once mildly progressive and unavoidably retrograde.
  67. Jamie Marks Is Dead
    The potentially ludicrous story is handled artfully enough here to cast an eerie but not off-putting spell throughout, though the ultimate point is more than a tad murky, and the desired poignancy doesn’t fully come across.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Ghostbusters
    Within the top-heavy cast, it’s Murray’s picture, as the popular comedian deadpans, ad libs and does an endearing array of physical schtick.
  69. Once Upon a Time Verônica
    “Veronica” is accomplished in aesthetics if not thematic weight, with a handsome look and some attractive soundtrack choices.
  70. Thunder and the House of Magic
    It’s a thin premise that cues much cheery knockabout comedy, with ample scope for impressively whooshy 3D tracking shots.
  71. Take Me to the River
    Take Me to the River compensates for a lack of originality and depth with no shortage of joyful celebration.
  72. Jackie & Ryan
    Mellow, digestibly sweet and embellished with lovely folk tunes, this modest bit of Americana reveals pleasing new sides of both leads.
  73. The Postman's White Nights
    Some stunning shots and a likable protag can’t cover up the story’s shallowness.
  74. Jack and the Cuckoo-Clock Heart
    Rather than linger on the project’s shortcomings, which only disappoint relative to the story’s incredible creative potential, it should be said that in partnership with Berla, Malzieu has created a fully realized, wildly imaginative storybook world and populated it with eccentric characters.
  75. Last Hijack
    Hulsing’s illustrations suggest a depth to pirate Mohamed Nura that remains hidden in the flesh.
  76. Copenhagen
    Copenhagen remains more intriguing than compelling.
  77. The Water Diviner
    An often capriciously mixed cocktail of war film and cross-cultural family melodrama, The Water Diviner marks an ambitious if emotionally manipulative directing debut for Russell Crowe.
  78. Black Sea
    As ruggedly crafted as you’d expect from director Kevin Macdonald, with a sturdy ensemble led by Jude Law as a submarine captain of formidable sangfroid, the film nonetheless never quite sparks to life.
  79. The Way He Looks
    The pic has genuine appeal, though in truth the script and direction are little more than average.
  80. You're Not You
    While the film’s last two acts begin to deepen its characters in generally satisfying ways, You’re Not You throws down its initial gauntlet with an off-putting lack of subtlety.
  81. Independence Day: Resurgence
    This cinematic Big Mac entertains abundantly on its own second-hand merits.
  82. The Golden Era
    Seemingly caught between a daring impressionistic approach and a pedantic recital of dates and locations, this three-hour endurance test is marked by sincere adoration of its subject.
  83. Trash
    Trash works in large part thanks to the infectious energy and sheer pleasure in comradeship exuded by the three young teen boys.
  84. Missionary
    A luridly entertaining thriller that plays like “Fatal Attraction” for extreme religiophobes, or perhaps a very gory episode of “The Brigham Young and the Restless.”
  85. Showrunners: The Art of Running a TV Show
    The producers, obviously, are good storytellers, and there is something to be said — touched on here — about their shifting roles as TV has embraced an auteur quality. Still, the resulting doc finally feels like less than the sum of its anecdotes.
  86. We Are the Giant
    A surfeit of harrowing on-the-ground footage during protest crackdowns, plus the protagonists’ testimonies, make for a frequently inspiring and exciting documentary. But helmer Greg Barker (“Ghosts of Rwanda”) also risks pretentiousness in various forms of stylistic and thematic overreach, while providing viewers scant explanatory info on the regional conflicts.
  87. Son of a Gun
    At least three entertaining films are jostling for position in Australian writer-director Julius Avery’s messily propulsive debut feature, Son of a Gun — and if none ultimately emerges dominant, the red-blooded tussle between them is never dull to watch.
  88. Danny Collins
    Beneath the sitcom cutesiness and boldfaced sentimentality, the film manages to keep just enough reality coursing through to stay grounded.
  89. Match
    Without sacrificing the piece‘s warm comic undertones, this minimally adapted theatrical piece remains richer and far more thought-provoking than a typical night at the movies — if only the entire cast were as strong as Stewart.
  90. The Cruise
    There is unquestionably enough lively material here to snare one’s attention but, even at just 76 minutes, many will feel that this cruise has gone on plenty long enough.
  91. Little Accidents
    Features a standout central performance by newcomer Boyd Holbrook (“The Host”), but suffers from predictable plotting and shallow characterizations that keep the movie from ever transcending the obvious.
  92. Unfriended
    Simultaneously clever and exasperating, the film puts a novel spin on the genre Roger Ebert dubbed “the Dead Teenager Movie.”
  93. The Revenant
    In aiming to steer his dark, fatalistic vision toward something genuinely contemplative and cathartic, Inarritu has managed to appropriate the beauty of Malick’s filmmaking but none of its sublimity — another word for which might be humility. There is plenty of amazement here, to be sure, but all too little in the way of grace.
  94. Appropriate Behavior
    This tart, sexually frank portrait of a disintegrating relationship — and its long, bitter aftermath — packs plenty of punch in its best scenes, but it also frequently tests audience patience with its relentless deadpan affectlessness and insistence on leaving no Brooklyn cliche unmined.
  95. [REC] 4: Apocalypse
    This supposedly final though none-too-conclusive chapter is fast-paced and entertaining, if not especially scary.
  96. Tracers
    While Lautner is to be admired for his physical commitment to the role, the below-the-line team lighting, shooting and choreographing his moves deserves equal credit. The film wouldn’t have worked without such a versatile team, which otherwise operates without a trace.
  97. When Evening Falls on Bucharest or Metabolism
    Porumboiu so carefully intellectualizes every outwardly inconsequential exchange that the picture has no room to breathe, forcing audiences to work hard to catch the sly playfulness and cunning within.
  98. The Other Man: F.W. de Klerk and the End of Apartheid
    It’s an opportunity only half seized: Haphazard both as biography and historical survey, the film asks more salient questions than it can answer in a rushed 76 minutes.
  99. Vessel
    The film is an intriguing story passionately told, shot through and through with activist zeal, although a greater deal of distance might have allowed it to make a stronger case.
  100. Avatar: The Way of Water
    At its height, it feels exhilarating. But not all the way through. Cameron, in "The Way of Water," remains a fleet and exacting classical popcorn storyteller, but oh, the story he’s telling! The script he has co-written is a string of serviceable clichés that give the film the domestic adventure-thriller spine it needs, but not anything more than that.
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