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. The Secret Life of Pets 2
    It’s unusual for a typical Illumination broad comedy to include a heartrending message that makes parents feel less alone in their very real, visceral struggles. It’s just cloaked in a shenanigans-soaked romp about what pets do when humans aren’t looking.
  2. MirrorMask
    Emerges as an overproduced novelty pic that looks and feels more like a company promo reel than an engaging piece of storytelling.
  3. Frankie
    There are a few surprises in Frankie, and the movie, in its placid way, wants to deliver a tug of revelation of what life is about. The trouble is, life at the end of this day doesn’t look very much different than it did at the start of the day.
  4. The Astronaut Farmer
    Thornton carries the film with relaxed authority, though the earnest tone doesn't let him explore the nuttier aspects of a character who, from any reasoned distance ought look more screwy than heroic. Madsen is radiant.
  5. Tusk
    An utterly bizarre, weirdly compelling story of manimal love that stakes out its own brazen path somewhere between “The Fly” and “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”
  6. Harry Brown
    Bleak, gripping, sporadically exciting drama.
  7. Screamers
    A noble cause does not a good movie make. Pic repeatedly drowns its impassioned message with music, creating an awkward hybrid between history lesson and concert documentary.
  8. Invincible
    This potentially intriguing story winds up being dull and at times faintly silly.
  9. All the Pretty Horses
    A half-broken adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's great modern Western novel. Neither dull nor exciting.
  10. Evelyn
    The star plays Doyle as just rough enough around the edges to warrant the character's setbacks, but not so unpleasant that the twinkle in his eye is extinguished.
  11. Hearts in Atlantis
    The few who saw the embalmed adaptation of "Snow Falling on Cedars" will recognize the same stifling approach brought to this more accessible material by director Scott Hicks.
  12. Facing Windows
    Only partially succeeds in interweaving questions of family loyalty with historical memory and the fate of Italian Jews in WW2.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Cirque du Soleil: Journey of Man
    Tech elements, including music, lensing, costumes and production design are blazingly impressive and strikingly evocative on all levels.
  14. Woman Thou Art Loosed
    Notable for Kimberly Elise's ferocious lead performance and for the bigscreen exposure pic affords the charismatic Bishop T.D. Jakes, who plays himself and upon whose works the film is based.
  15. Secret Things
    There's plenty for both the eyes and intellect to groove over in Secret Things, a taut, juicy, low-key feast of sexual and office politics filtered through helmer Jean-Claude Brisseau's customary blend of expedient formality and all-stops-out baroque behavior.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Phar Lap
    Tom Burlinson is very effective as the shy stable-boy who becomes devoted to the courageous horse. Martin Vaughan is impressive as the grimly determined trainer who leases the horse in the first place, as is Celia de Burgh, luminous as his loyal but neglected wife. Ron Leibman practically walks away with the picture as Davis, the smooth American horseowner, and Judy Morris is quietly effective as his naive, talkative wife.
  17. Room 314
    Pic feels like a cross between an anthology of ambiguous short stories and a string of acting-class exercises. Thesping is first-rate across the board.
  18. The Midnight Swim
    For much of the running time, The Midnight Swim is effectively ambiguous, but Smith’s decision to play coy with the sisters’ backstories eventually frustrates.
  19. Hard Labor
    Hard Labor teeters uncertainly between horror and social commentary. It feels as if the helmers tried to imagine what Bunuel would have done if he had made a horror film.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Volunteers
    Volunteers is a very broad and mostly flat comedy [from a story by Keith Critchlow] about hijinx in the Peace Corps, circa 1962. Toplined Tom Hanks gets in a few good zingers as an upperclass snob doing time in Thailand, but promising premise and opening shortly descend into unduly protracted tedium.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Pink Panther
    Quite apart from the general air of bubbling elegance, the pic is intensely funny. The yocks are almost entirely the responsibility of Peter Sellers, who is perfectly suited as a clumsy cop who can hardly move a foot without smashing a vase or open a door without hitting himself on the head.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Not as a Stranger
    Though some scenes come off fairly well, Mitchum is poker-faced from start to finish.
  23. After Midnight
    It’s not enough just to be offbeat. Defy whatever rules it might, a movie has to find its own beat, and After Midnight still seems to be weighing its options when the final credits roll.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    On the Beach
    On the Beach is a solid film of considerable emotional, as well as cerebral, content. But the fact remains that the final impact is as heavy as a leaden shroud. The spectator is left with the sick feeling that he's had a preview of Armageddon, in which all contestants lost.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Crossroads
    Seneca acquits himself very nicely, while director Walter Hill pulls of the expected professional mob, but he pushes so hard for pace that he skates right over the opportunities for thought that the subject calls for.
  26. 3 Days with Dad
    Ultimately, however, this tonally untidy yet incrementally affecting dramedy scores a cumulative impact by credibly and astutely depicting eruptions, disruptions and reconciliations during the long goodbye to a dying paterfamilias.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Last Hard Men
    The Last Hard Men is a fairly good actioner with handsome production values and some thoughtful overtones. Charlton Heston and James Coburn are both fine as a retired lawman and his half-Indian nemesis matching their wits in 1909 Arizona along the way to one last bloody confrontation.
  28. Blood
    Brad Anderson’s film steers a middle course between dysfunctional domestic drama and supernatural horror. That balance doesn’t completely work. But solid performances and some strong, occasionally unpleasant content make this an involving if not entirely satisfying watch.
  29. Godard Mon Amour
    A lightly audacious and fascinating movie (if not exactly one to warm your heart).
  30. The Missing
    Ron Howard has never before made a picture this raw and alive. At the same time, this tale of the desperate pursuit of the kidnappers of young women makes for a fundamentally grim and unpleasant experience.
  31. Romance & Cigarettes
    Chockfull of ideas and with an irreverence that irresistibly recalls late '60s American cinema, thesp John Turturro's third outing in the helmer's chair, Romance & Cigarettes, alternately shines and sputters.
  32. Liberal Arts
    This makes the film feel perilously close to widescreen sitcom, as do montages of New York set to Beethoven's Sixth Symphony.
  33. The Good Liar
    The pleasure of The Good Liar, and it’s a major one, is the chance to watch Mirren and McKellen act together in a cat-and-mouse duet that turns into an elegant waltz of affection and deception.
  34. Hours
    An ingeniously simple setup is cunningly exploited for maximum suspense in Hours, a slow-building, consistently engrossing drama.
  35. Everyday
    As the years go by and the kids grow — perhaps the only real benefit of Winterbottom’s approach — time begins to run together, making it all too easy for the mind to wander.
  36. The Last Samurai
    As rich in period and historical background as it is deficient in fresh dramatic and thematic ideas.
  37. Baby Mama
    Fey is a delight to watch throughout.
  38. Hostel
    Hostel may become something of a classic among Fangoria magazine's readership, acolytes of George Romero and audiences who thought "Saw II" was for babies.
  39. Anesthesia
    The ensemble labors sincerely to bring Nelson’s dense, frequently didactic writing to life, though it can be a hard task.
  40. Song to Song
    Song to Song finds the maestro in broken-record mode, rehashing more or less the same themes against the backdrop of the Austin music scene — merely the latest borderline-awful Malick movie that risks to undermine the genius and mystery of his best work.
  41. Noise
    Amusing but marginal diatribe against aural assault in Manhattan.
  42. The Mind's Eye
    The film has the visceral kick of brainiacs willing each other into bloody oblivion, but struggles to justify its own stock mayhem, much less plumb Cronenbergian depths.
  43. Consequences
    Ultimately, Stante’s raw energy and sure hand with actors are more encouraging than the screenplay’s lack of depth is bothersome.
  44. The New Romantic
    The film only feigns at analysis. It’s as naïve about love as Blake herself, who skips through the world like a temperamental child.
  45. The Eyes of Tammy Faye
    Chastain and Garfield give performances that are brashly entertaining but also canny and layered, as the characters get caught up in something far bigger than themselves. The Bakkers were hucksters of a grand order, and the film uses their spectacular greedhead soap opera to tell the larger American story of how Christianity got turned into showbiz.
  46. Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths
    So why is “Bardo,” for all its skill, reach-for-the-stars aspiration, and majestic sweep, such a windy, confounding, and — okay, I’ll just say it — monotonous experience? The movie is full of good things, but it’s three hours long and mostly it’s full of itself.
  47. Pride
    Despite a second half that feels more routine than its first, Pride is a definite crowd-pleaser.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    National Lampoon's Vacation
    National Lampoon’s Vacation is an enjoyable trip through familiar comedy landscapes.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Outrageous Fortune
    Outrageous Fortune is well crafted, old-fashioned entertainment that takes some conventional elements, shines them up and repackages them as something new and contemporary.
  50. The D Train
    Funny and sad isn’t the easiest combination to pull off, and while both descriptors fit The D Train well enough, this dark comedy might just as well be described as edgy and soft, audacious and coy, a largely enjoyable letdown.
  51. Milk and Honey
    Dexterously scripted, darkly humorous.
  52. Tammy's Always Dying
    Competently crafted, Tammy is too glib to be poignant and too defeatist to be amusing.
  53. CyberWorld
    An OK mishmash.
  54. Baby Boy
    Can be taken to task for its overt point-making, lackluster style and some late-on dramatic contrivances seemingly dragged in to provide a little violence.
  55. Nijinsky: The Diaries of Vaslav Nijinsky
    Despite its occasional visual interest, avant-garde package is far from the accessible tortured-artist portrait helmer essayed 15 years ago in "Vincent." Even committed dance and experimental cinema fans are likely to find this rough sledding.
  56. Road Trip
    Be forewarned: After you see Road Trip, it may be months, if not years, before you can order French toast with a straight face and a settled stomach.
  57. Tigerland
    A tautly focused, well-executed drama. Demonstrates that it's still possible to make small, intimate and personal movies within the Hollywood studio system.
  58. Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
    Gleefully commingles slapstick and scatology, satire and sentiment, in a free-wheeling farce aimed at making auds laugh until they're thoroughly ashamed of themselves.
  59. Kindred
    Kindred is a demonstration of how a naturalistic horror film can be derivative, in the most flagrant and shameless way, and still work.
  60. The Joneses
    If The Joneses were pure farce, which it isn't, Borte could have gotten away with a lot. Likewise, the picture might have succeeded if it were all a bit funnier and a little less mean-spirited about spending, debt and envy.
  61. Ichi the Killer
    Completely over-the-top yakuza actioner -- featuring nonstop mayhem, gore, torture and S&M -- duly reflects its comic book origins in both style and barely coherent narrative frenzy.
  62. The Adam Project
    The movie is a total trifle, but it’s often a diverting one — a wide-eyed sci-fi adventure with a screwball buoyancy.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    They Live
    A fantastically subversive film, a nifty little confection pitting us vs them, the haves vs the have-nots.
  64. Home
    Unimaginative and downright predictable by grownup standards, but bursting with elements sure to appeal to younger auds.
  65. Idlewild
    Achieves magic--something sorely missing from so many movies these days--and does so via a philosophy of respect, but not reverence, for what's come before it; it never recycles, it just reimagines.
  66. Gun Hill Road
    Earnest and well cast, but less involving than it should be.
  67. Hellraiser
    The new Hellraiser works as metaphor, as flesh-annihilating spectacle. Yet it doesn’t work as a story.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Surviving Picasso
    Latest Merchant Ivory production (produced with David Wolper) is a winner in spite of relatively modern look to the film.
  69. The 33
    In broad strokes, the events that unfold are undeniably riveting.... The trouble is, The 33 only knows broad strokes. Lacking any specific angle on the ordeal, the filmmakers give the once-over-lightly treatment to every aspect of it, which ensures that none of them will be properly served.
  70. The Great Gatsby
    More often, Gatsby feels like a well-rehearsed classic in which the actors say their lines ably, but with no discernible feeling behind them.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Package
    Smartly written, sharply played and directed at a cracking pace that never sacrifices clarity for speed, The Package is an enormously satisfying political thriller.
  72. Pathology
    Like its characters, the picture is too clever for its own good, allowing the meticulously researched scenario to be undone by implausible behavior and gaping plot holes.
  73. Ping Pong Playa
    A good, clean, fun comedy that uses a table tennis championship to crack inside jokes about Los Angeles' Chinese-American community.
  74. City of Tiny Lights
    Director Pete Travis’s film is distinguished by some transposition of noir tropes into cultural spaces not traditionally associated with the genre — from the London bar scene to a mosque — that keeps things from feeling too déjà vu.
  75. Discreet
    Opaque and formally ungainly, this itchy meditation on a host of contemporary social ills offers audiences a vividly, deliberately ugly worldview, but finally makes for hollow viewing.
  76. The Sky Is Pink
    The emotions we witness and feel should have more force given the obviously stressful circumstances depicted. But they feel like all the edges have been sawed off to flatter both the subjects and principal actors.
  77. La Dosis
    It’s all more involving than it is frustrating. That’s thanks in large part to the nuanced performances of the leads, whose work ensures that at least the first half of the term “psychological thriller” feels well-realized here.
  78. Ithaka
    Laura Poitras’s 2017 documentary “Risk” was a close-up portrait of Assange, shot during his early years of infamy and as fascinating, in a squirmy way, as Assange himself. “Ithaka” is less about the man than the cause — how the continued prosecution of Assange fits into the issue of free speech. It’s a more morally clean-cut watch. But it’s a lot less dramatic.
  79. The Spy Who Loved Me
    Triple X posed an ideal opportunity for the series to rectify its dismissive treatment of women until this point, putting a lady on equal footing with Bond. To its credit, the film does feature a bit of screwball badinage between the two (a clunky bit about female drivers, unfortunately), but it has yet to introduce a single female character who doesn’t want to sleep with our hero.
  80. The Bride!
    It’s a scrappy punk feminist tragicomedy of l’amour fou, a renegade take-off on the “Frankenstein” myth. And while the movie doesn’t quite work — it lumbers along and blows fuses; it has lots of flesh and blood but not enough storytelling spine — there’s a spark of audacity to it.
  81. The Bank
    Will connect with anyone who ever had a bad experience with a bank or finance company, and provides a satisfyingly loathsome character in Anthony LaPaglia's engaging protrayal of a corporate shark.
  82. Kal Ho Naa Ho
    Another slam-dunk from vet producer Yash Johar.
  83. Old School
    This year's kinder, gentler "Animal House."
  84. City of Angels
    The endlessly resourceful Nicolas Cage, as a celestial angel, and a terrifically engaging Meg Ryan, as a pragmatic surgeon, create such blissful chemistry that they elevate the drama to a poetic level seldom reached in a mainstream movie.
  85. Standing by Yourself
    In the post-Columbine era, Koury's film has its finger on something particularly potent.
  86. Diminished Capacity
    A God's little acre's worth of premeditated eccentricity runs through Diminished Capacity, a triumphant losers-in-Cornville comedy starring Matthew Broderick in a role he might have phoned in, and Alan Alda as a combination Jed Clampett and Raymond Babbitt.
  87. Fat Kid Rules the World
    Affecting performances and effective storytelling are the hallmarks of Fat Kid Rules the World.
  88. Body Bags
    Scary moments are scattered throughout the teleplays by Billy Brown and Dan Angel, with a few jittery jolts to grab attention (particularly during the first episode), but the writing and stories are pedestrian.
  89. The Men Who Stare at Goats
    A superbly written loony-tunes satire, played by a tony cast at the top of its game.
  90. Don't Make Me Go
    The movie’s ending is misguided to the point of being perplexing rather than upsetting, recasting everything that came before it in a less favorable light. That’s a shame, as this father-daughter drama starring John Cho has more than its fair share of touching moments before hitting the roadblock that is its questionable third act.
  91. Passion
    Clearly, Passion means to be a hoot, a wet-dream thriller for cinephiles. But by the time it reaches its overwrought final act, the picture has generated neither the tension of its forebears nor the audacity that would allow it to transcend its silliness.
  92. Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead
    Armed with “Mad Max”-like design elements and a good sense of humor, this energetically executed bloodbath marks a promising feature bow for Australian brothers Kiah and Tristan Roache-Turner.
  93. Dunston Checks In
    Director Ken Kwapis displays a deft touch, balancing realistic elements and outsize characterizations. Pic’s unflagging pace and the unexpectedly witty script by John Hopkins and Bruce Graham complement the simplicity of this comedy construct.
  94. Mansfield 66/67
    There’s value in examining the myth of Mansfield and its impact, but here poor Jayne herself is lost.
  95. Magic in the Moonlight
    Whenever Firth and Stone are onscreen together, the movie sings; the rest of the time it’s never less than a breezy divertissement.
  96. Hulk
    This impeccably crafted piece of megabuck fantasy storytelling aims to pull off the tricky feat of significantly reworking the superhero format while still providing the expected tentpole-type entertainment thrills for the international masses.
  97. Don't Move
    There’s something so schematic about Iris’ situation, it feels like an insult to those who deal with actual thoughts of self-harm. That doesn’t mean it’s not compelling to watch at times, as Iris does her best to overcome her immobility, but nothing about it feels believable.
  98. Goodbye June
    There’s a lot of acting here, little of it peak-form for the talent involved, though the ensemble lifts and colors Anders’ sometimes heavy-handed dialogue.
  99. Take Your Pills
    The kinds of connections that Take Your Pills makes, between the culture of information overload and a radically tightened job market and heightened personal performance and the chemical itch that fuels this whole late-stage capitalist dynamic, may strike some as too speculative for comfort. Yet it’s precisely by making connections like these that a documentary can fire up your perceptions enough to burn through the cumulative effects of advertising.
  100. The Ranger
    Diehard gorehounds may be disappointed by its relatively infrequent reliance on graphic and grisly mayhem (relative to this particular subgenre’s standards, that is), but Wexler’s discretion in this area turns out to be one of her film’s few distinguishing characteristics.
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