Variety's Scores

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For 17,791 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: 9,139 out of 17791
  2. Mixed: 7,015 out of 17791
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17791
17791 movie reviews
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  1. Exporting Raymond
    Mildly amusing.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    To Sir, with Love
    A well-made, sometimes poignant, drama.
  3. Hunt
    A twisty, action-packed political thriller — one that keeps you guessing even as it spirals into ever-crazier realms.
  4. Yes
    Ultimately has nothing of any real depth or profundity to say, but a thousand self-consciously complex ways of saying it.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Woman in Red
    A wonderful diversion through all of this is Gilda Radner, a relatively plain fellow office worker who initially thinks she’s the object of Wilder’s wanderlust and is bitterly – and vigorously – disappointed when she finds out she isn’t.
  6. Inheritance
    How the film conceives of Maya is somewhat limited by her being a naive pawn in a bigger picture, but Dynevor easily demonstrates the screen presence to sustain this whole enterprise.
  7. Wuthering Heights
    For nearly two centuries, Brontë’s book has been a romantic fantasy for readers. Fennell treats it as an erotic one as well, leaning into all that is sensual.
  8. The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare
    These guys are so good at what they do, Ritchie fails to muster the expected tension. Instead of suspense, audiences feel a sense of delight in watching them succeed, no matter the setback.
  9. A Christmas Story Christmas
    A Christmas Story Christmas is like “A Christmas Story” with a softer center, but at least it doesn’t leave you feeling like you’ve had a glass of eggnog spiked with Long Island Iced Tea.
  10. Almost Christmas
    David E. Talbert, the writer-director of Almost Christmas, has assembled a gifted cast and given them a chance to stretch out and play with their roles. He has made a heartwarming gripe-and-grouchfest that pushes a lot of buttons, though with a vivacity that’s exuberantly funny and sincere.
  11. Becoming Jane
    An ersatz "Pride and Prejudice" in all but name, Becoming Jane is a finely tooled Brit-lit costumer that, like Anne Hathaway's flawless accent as the young Austen, lacks only that final convincing 5%.
  12. Green Street Hooligans
    Unvarnished verisimilitude, visceral impact and vividly evoked emotional and physical extremes distinguish Hooligans, the impressive debut feature by German-born helmer Lexi Alexander.
  13. Taking Woodstock
    The picture serves up intermittent pleasures but is too raggedy and laid-back for its own good, its images evaporating nearly as soon as they hit the screen.
  14. The Relic
    Still, this strikingly proficient production boasts genuinely scary thrills and first-rate visual and creature effects.
  15. Lost in Thailand
    Lost in Thailand is a boisterous, joyously hokey comedy.
  16. While at War
    This is a worthy enterprise that errs on the side of caution, carrying the slightly stale whiff of awards-bait cinema in which greatness is frequently signaled but inspiration somehow lacking.
  17. Driven
    Against the film’s own boisterous inclinations, Pace gives it something like a heart, albeit a closed, melancholic one: that’s some acting, and it’s maybe more than these agreeably derivative proceedings deserve. Like its less interesting chancer of a protagonist, however, Driven will take what brushes with greatness it can get.
  18. The Eagle
    While the movie doesn't wholly succeed, there's enough to like here -- including Channing Tatum's credible performance as a tradition-bound Roman soldier.
  19. Strange But True
    Both ambitious and overwhelmed, this sophomore feature from British-Indian director Rowan Athale — whose festival-traveled debut “Wasteland” had lively promise and similarly hinky storytelling — can’t quite decide what kind of weird it wants to be: a loopy B-movie corkscrew ride, or an “American Beauty”-style suburban burlesque with Something To Say.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Eye of the Storm
    Geoffrey Rush and Judy Davis bookend a cast consisting of some of Oz's finest thesps, but Schepisi never gets a grip on a script with awkward literary tics.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Some Kind of Wonderful
    A simple, lovely and thoughtful teenage story that occasionally shines due to fine characterizations and lucid dialog.
  22. The Devil All the Time
    The Devil All the Time shows us a lot of bad behavior, but the movie isn’t really interested in what makes the sinners tick. And without that lurid curiosity, it’s just a series of Sunday School lessons: a noir that wants to scrub away the darkness.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Karate Kid Part II
    Script delivers any number of wise old Eastern homilies. Anyone over the age of 18 is liable to start fidgeting when Macchio dominates the action, but then viewers beyond that advanced age are irrelevant with this film.
  24. Cloud Atlas
    As inventive narratives go, there's outside the box, and then there's pioneering another dimension entirely, and this massive, independently financed collaboration among Tom Tykwer and Wachowski siblings Lana and Andy courageously attempts the latter.
  25. Casi divas
    Gloriously flamboyant comedic extravaganza, fuses soap opera and "American Idol"-type competition, following four wildly different women vying for the star role in a feature filmization of a popular telenovela.
  26. The Attorney
    The pacing gradually accelerates after a leisurely first act, so that The Attorney easily sustains interest, and often stirs emotions.
  27. The Magic Flute
    There's not much magic left in Kenneth Branagh's The Magic Flute. Relocating the 1791 opera to WWI and adopting a hard-edged approach that worked for "Hamlet," Branagh has wrought a "Flute" for high-end aficionados only. Lavishly mounted and well sung, but thin on charm and spontaneity, pic is likely to hit a bum note at general wickets.
  28. Clifford the Big Red Dog
    Clifford the Big Red Dog becomes a rowdy chase film — as agreeable as Clifford himself, as simultaneously cute and in-your-face, and as genially random in its ability to create chaos.
  29. Hitchcock
    Hitchcock is a diverting but dramatically insipid account of how the Master of Suspense took his biggest gamble and delivered his greatest success with "Psycho."
  30. Beyond the Clouds
    It’s a commendable departure, even if you can sense the helmer struggling to get the lay of the land at certain intersections in this heartfelt tale of an impoverished brother and sister seeking roundabout justice when she’s imprisoned for attempted murder.
  31. Angelfish
    This easy-to-take film’s pleasures, then, lie chiefly in its relaxed evocation of place and time. Set in 1993, though it could just as easily work in a contemporary setting, Angelfish wisely doesn’t go all in on period kitsch, though music and costuming are both deployed to evoke a pre-internet, arguably gentler era of youth.
  32. Never Let Go
    Though not all of its clever ideas come together efficiently in the finale, its thematic ruminations on grief, sanity, rebellion and redemption are intrinsically intertwined to harrowing, claustrophobic effect, heightening the hallucinatory horrors and dread-soaked atmospheric pull.
  33. Resurrecting the Champ
    Overly sentimentalized and the execution is slack. If not for Samuel L. Jackson's performance as the ravaged boxer, "Champ" would be of limited interest.
  34. I Love You, Daddy
    There’s a better, tighter, more emotionally focused movie hidden somewhere in the sprawl of “I Love You, Daddy.” It’s a movie that’s just as rude, funny, and observant as this one but that doesn’t tie itself in knots trying to “say” something.
  35. It's About You
    Luckily, the music trumps the indifferently shot concert footage and lends shape to the evocatively lensed recording sessions in iconic locations. Nothing, unfortunately, mitigates Markus' sincere but trite and awkward narration.
  36. I Am Eleven
    Genevieve Bailey displays a terrific knack for connecting with her subjects on topics ranging from religion to romance and the environment.
  37. Turn the River
    Atmospheric picture positively vibrates with authenticity, and Janssen's intense, febrile performance earned a special jury prize at the Hamptons fest.
  38. Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel
    This fawning docu goes to lengths to portray the octogenarian Playboy magazine founder as among the greatest figures of 20th-century American popular culture, while only cursorily acknowledging his status as a pioneering softcore pornographer.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Demon Seed
    Excellent performances and direction (Donald Cammell), from a most credible and literate screenplay [from a novel by Dean R. Koontz], make production an intriguing achievement in story-telling.
  40. Beast Beast
    Beast Beast’s plot twist is a swing at gravitas that disrupts the balance of Madden’s naturalistic character study. This is the way teen life is, Madden says, until suddenly the film accelerates from reality to sensationalism, and trades humanity for pulp.
  41. Old
    Old, like most Shyamalan movies, has a catchy hook along with some elegant filmmaking gambits. But instead of developing his premise in an insidious and powerful way, the writer-director just keeps throwing a lot of things at you.
  42. The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat
    Still, there are moments of minor magic here. Deep friendship is among the most enchanting inventions after all. And Odette, Clarice and Barbara Jean show how to honor it.
  43. Dark Shadows
    This bizarre but weirdly bloodless retro-camp exercise is neither funny nor eerie enough to seduce the uninitiated, and will court bemused reactions at best from the series' still-estimable fan following.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Purple Rain
    Playing a character rooted in his own background, and surrounded by the real-life members of his Minneapolis-based musical 'family,' rock star Prince makes an impressive feature film debut in Purple Rain, a rousing contemporary addition to the classic backstage musical genre.
  45. The Fall of the American Empire
    Arcand tries a little too hard at the very end to demonstrate his deep-down earnestness. But never mind: The performances across the board are everything they need to be, and the satirical thrusts are well aimed at the right targets.
  46. We Summon the Darkness
    We Summon the Darkness is a psycho thriller that pulls the bloody rug out from under you, and does it in a shivery sly way.
  47. Eagle vs Shark
    Result is still innocuously mild and inconsequential.
  48. The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3
    More than anything a fascinating portrait of how much New York has changed in 35 years, the film delivers the goods in excitement and big-star charisma.
  49. Short Cut to Nirvana: Kumbh Mela
    Casual, engaging documentary doesn't attempt a Hinduism 101 lesson, instead going for an impressionistic mix of on-the-fly spectacle and human interest.
  50. Below
    This hokey thriller reps what one can only hope will be a one-of-a-kind hybrid between a World War II actioner and a ghost story outfitted with innumerable false-alarm shock cuts and shot with enough colored lights and filters to delight Baz Luhrmann.
  51. Camp
    A big-hearted, exuberant, compassionate film with a wicked sense of humor and terrific songs performed by some preternaturally talented kids.
  52. Square Grouper
    Think of it as the cinematic equivalent of a buzz-kill.
  53. Life's a Breeze
    It takes a special kind of imagination to recognize the entertainment potential trapped in such a mundane scenario, and an incredibly resourceful filmmaker to spin it into as much fun as Daly does here.
  54. Street Kings
    A brutal look at police corruption that allows director David Ayer and "L.A. Confidential" author James Ellroy to pool their deeply cynical insights.
  55. Money Monster
    As an indictment of Wall Street chicanery, it’s largely toothless; as a pure thriller, it only quickens the pulse once or twice; as a conspiracy saga, its central mystery falls flat. Yet somehow the film hangs together surprisingly well.
  56. Yesterday
    In Yesterday, [Boyle and Curtis] reduce the Beatles to the ultimate product by declaring, at every turn, “These songs are transcendent!” And it’s the fact that they keep telling us, rather than showing us (i.e., with musical sequences that earned their transcendence), that makes Yesterday, for all the timeless songs in it, a cut-and-dried, rotely whimsical, prefab experience.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    An American Werewolf in London
    A clever mixture of comedy and horror which succeeds in being both funny and scary, An American Werewolf in London possesses an overriding eagerness to please that prevents it from becoming off-putting, and special effects freaks get more than their money's worth.
  58. Ambulance
    Ambulance is simply too much of a not-so-good thing. It never stops huffing and puffing to entertain you, but it’s joyless: a tale of escape that’s far from a great escape, because for all its motion it’s going through the motions.
  59. Drift Away
    Beauvois brings everything together in the movie’s final minutes, although it’s hard to shake the feeling that Drift Away has dodged what should have been its central social concern. Renier, a former child actor who began his career a quarter-century ago in the Dardenne brothers’ “La Promesse,” only gets better with age.
  60. The Purge: Election Year
    You’d think the concept would now be wearing thin, but Election Year, which feels like the final chapter in a trilogy...is the best “Purge” film yet. The action is excitingly sustained in a way that it wasn’t in the previous two, and the political dimension, while crude as hell, exerts a brute-force entertainment value.
  61. Seven Years in Tibet
    Despite some magnificent widescreen lensing, faultless ethnographic detail and a timely sympathy for the plight of the Tibetan people, director Jean-Jacques Annaud's true-life tale about a self-obsessed Austrian mountaineer who learns selflessness in the Himalayas too rarely delivers at a simple emotional level.
  62. Forgetting the Girl
    First-time feature helmer Nate Taylor, working from an adroitly constructed screenplay by Peter Moore Smith, skillfully evokes a clammy sense of dread in this stealthily suspenseful indie.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Light of Day
    Despite the over-the-edge quality of her character, Rowlands makes even the most ludicrous lines seem feasible. Fox is basically miscast as the good-natured brother who idolizes his sister and tries to cover for her. Jett looks the part and even manages to hit the mark from time to time, but for every hit there’s a miss.
  64. The Boogeyman
    Savage’s confidence behind the camera sustains the film’s intensity even when the connective tissue between plot and theme, logic and tone is tenuous at best. But even working alongside sturdy collaborators like Messina and young Blair, it’s Thatcher who sells the improbable reality of an old-as-time spirit preying upon the frightened and grieving.
  65. Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase
    But here’s the cool thing: The film’s consistently clever script, from empowerment-minded “The Handmaid’s Tale” writers Nina Fiore and John Herrera, isn’t nearly as interested in the mystery as it is in Nancy Drew herself, or in the circle of characters and relationships that surround her. And that’s the smart way to approach such a case, since the movie was clearly intended to be more than a one-off.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Valmont
    Milos Forman's meticulously produced Valmont is an extremely well-acted period piece that suffers from stately pacing and lack of dramatic high points.
  67. The Assault
    The tense buildup to a blazing, if generic, rescue is the most satisfying part of The Assault, a stylized combo of action and drama from Julien Leclercq.
  68. Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist
    Result is hardly a diabolical failure, if not quite a heavenly masterpiece. Schrader's intelligent, quietly subversive pic emphasizes spiritual agony over horror ecstasy, while paying occasional lip-service to the need for scares.
  69. Wendy
    What felt so revolutionary in 2012 is no less visionary today, but packs a disappointing sense of familiarity this time around, like tearing open your Christmas presents to find … a huge stack of hand-me-down clothing. Or else, like watching a magic trick performed a second time from a different angle.
  70. The Greatest Game Ever Played
    Offers an inspiring story, lush visuals and accessible characters to give a black-hat-white-hat view of class struggle in America and England.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Far from the Madding Crowd
    Julie Christie, Peter Finch, Terence Stamp and Alan Bates are variedly handsome and have their many effective moments, but there is little they can ultimately and lastingly do to overcome the basic banality of their characters and, to a certain degree, their lines.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Comancheros
    The Comancheros is a big, brash, uninhibited action-western of the old school about as subtle as a right to the jaw.
  73. The Craft
    Four gifted and attractive actresses struggle hard to lend a semblance of dramatic coherence to The Craft, a neatly crafted film that begins most promisingly as a black comedy a la Heathers, but gradually succumbs to its tricky machinery of special effects. Still, young audiences, particularly women, are likely to connect with this energetic high-school tale about the vengeful empowerment of rebellious misfits.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Kidnapped
    An intriguing adventure piece set against that period in Scottish history when the English were trying to take over that country's rule.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Rhapsody in Blue
    Those who knew George Gershwin and the Gershwin saga may wax slightly vociferous at this or that miscue, but as cinematurgy, designed for escapism and entertainment, no matter the season, Rhapsody in Blue can't miss.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    I Walk Alone
    I Walk Alone is tight, hard-boiled melodrama.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Road to Hong Kong
    The script is spiced with a number of private jokes (golf, Hope’s nose, Crosby’s dough, reference to gags from previous Road films) but not enough to be irritating. Major disappointment is Joan Collins, who though an okay looker, never seems quite abreast of the comedians.
  78. 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.
  79. I Can Do Bad All by Myself
    Perry's latest emotional roller coaster starts with considerable promise and a high-wattage cast, including Taraji P. Henson and singers Gladys Knight and Mary J. Blige, before giving way to melodramatic predictability.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Dead of Winter
    Mary Steenburgen is first-rate as the struggling actress.
  81. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
    Opening half-hour has some of the best stuff in the movie, walking a precarious line between black irony and showing the war from a totally German viewpoint, without tipping over into gallows humor or parody.
  82. Jackie & Ryan
    Mellow, digestibly sweet and embellished with lovely folk tunes, this modest bit of Americana reveals pleasing new sides of both leads.
  83. A Lot of Nothing
    Even if the onyx-dark humor and sardonic formal control go MIA eventually, “A Lot of Nothing” is really quite something.
  84. Close to You
    Page’s performance isn’t moving merely for whatever parallels it might hold to his life: Rather, it’s a reminder of what a deft and perceptive actor he can be, capable of both naked emotional candor and acidic wit — both assets to a script that sometimes errs on the side of caution.
  85. The Scoundrel's Wife
    A bland gumbo of wartime intrigue and home-front soap opera in the bayou country of Louisiana.
  86. The Truth About Charlie
    Dazzlingly nimble and light on its feet, this breezy but densely textured love letter to modern, multicultural Paris in the guise of a romantic suspenser returns its director to the vibrant vein of his pre-Oscar work in "Something Wild" and "Married to the Mob."
  87. Veronica Guerin
    The supporting perfs provide the real drama, especially Hinds' excellent turn as the outwardly macho but inwardly broken Traynor, and McSorley's simmering portrayal of the psychotic Gilligan
  88. P.S.
    Laura Linney’s beautiful performance is most of the story in p.s.
  89. Dhobi Ghat (Mumbai Diaries)
    This tale of four Mumbai dwellers at a crossroads in their lives owes more to Taiwanese or French auteur cinema than to Satyajit Ray.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy
    The mad scientist/corporate heavy comedy is an odd combination of belly laughs and cerebral humor that will delight those familiar with the sketchcom troupe's antics.
  91. Hot Milk
    The film unfolds in a dreamy, liminal place in Sofia’s personal evolution, but lacks the tangible sense of vicariously experiencing it ourselves — a shame, since it’s a splendid location in which to be doing such intensive self-healing.
  92. 8: The Mormon Proposition
    For sympathetic outsiders, on the other hand, it covers a lot of ground in a short space, not always in the most organized way, but on enough fronts to spark an informed dialogue.
  93. 2 Guns
    Kormakur shows he knows his way around an action movie better than most, keeping the pace quick, the banter lively and the old-school, mostly CGI-free thrills delivering right on schedule.
  94. Legend
    For all Hardy’s expressive detail and physical creativity, Helgeland’s chewy, incident-packed script offers little insight into what made either of these contrasting psychopaths tick, or finally explode.
  95. Don't Come Knocking
    Strikes some resonant chords but also hits notes that simply don't ring true and are borderline risible at times
  96. About Time
    Curtis ends up making a virtue out of the narrative’s episodic quality, a tendency that’s been criticized in his previous work; the film, like life, is just one damn thing after another, and that’s really the rather lovely point.
  97. Ingeborg Bachmann - Journey into the Desert
    In many ways, Ingeborg Bachmann – Journey into the Desert feels like the exact opposite of the project we ought to be attempting, which is to reclaim the work of women of genius who are in danger of falling into obscurity, without reducing their already threatened legacies to mere romantic biography
  98. Mr. & Mrs. Smith
    An exhaustingly elaborate romantic fantasy actioner.
  99. Mao's Last Dancer
    The story lights up when world-class performer Chi Cao leaps about as the adult Li, but is marred by lumpy melodrama when the music stops.
  100. Safe
    What starts out crisp and promising gives way to a conventional shoot-'em-up in Safe, a fast-paced but extremely familiar vehicle for Jason Statham, who can only carry the material so far on his brawny shoulders.
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