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. Pope Francis - A Man of His Word
    Few popes in living memory have seemed as recognizably human as Francis — for all its access, and for all the inherent empathy of its director, Wenders’ film is never able to completely connect the dots between the man and the figure.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    For the Love of Benji
    Only a heart of steel can resist this pooch...The tale itself is slim, and while the plot is a bit contrived, and all of the loose ends tied up a bit too neatly in the film’s last five minutes, it should be remembered that For the Love of Benji is merely a star vehicle. The idea is to watch the dog act.
  3. Beauty and the Dogs
    Ben Hania’s decision to divide the film into 9 chapters, each seemingly orchestrated in a single take, works on a cerebral level, but the form doesn’t serve the story, and while the overall choreography of actors and camerawork is impressive, it never fully satisfies.
  4. Juggernaut
    Even if the ending falls something short of memorable, Juggernaut still holds attention as a strong, well-acted effort that effectively walks the line between dysfunctional family drama and revenge thriller.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Drowning Pool
    The Drowning Pool is stylish, improbable, entertaining, superficial, well cast, and totally synthetic. Stuart Rosenberg’s direction is functional and unexciting.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Harper
    Some excellent directorial touches and solid thesping are evident in the colorful and plush production. Abundance of comedy and sometimes extraneous emphasis on cameo characters make for a relaxed pace and imbalanced concept, resulting in overlength and telegraphing of climax.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    1984
    In this unremitting downer, writer-director Michael Radford introduces no touches of comedy or facile sensationalism to soften a harsh depiction of life under a totalitarian system as imagined by George Orwell in 1948.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Earth Girls Are Easy
    Earth Girls Are Easy is a dizzy, glitzy fish-out-of-water farce about three horny aliens on the make in LA. The two val-gals and their alien ‘dates’ take off for a weekend of LA nightlife, where the visitors’ smooth adaptation to Coast culture is intended by director Julian Temple and his screenwriters to affectionately skewer Tinseltown lifestyles.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    White Fang
    Disney’s workmanlike remake of Jack London’s adventure White Fang boasts enough nature footage and a strong central performance by Ethan Hawke to win over small fry.
  10. Izzy Gets the F*ck Across Town
    It’s uneven practically by design, with a tone that slides all the way from kooky farce to anguished psychological study, just about held together by Mackenzie Davis’s lively, spiky turn in the lead.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Evil Under the Sun
    Apart from cutting down the number of characters, Hamilton and scripter Anthony Shaffer have also had the audacity to switch things around in the inevitable denouement scene. Poirot points right away at the guilty party, while the true suspense is put into the how’s and why’s that follow.
  12. Mug
    Szumowska...wants to tackle manifold issues, often unrelated to each other, and her attention feels magpie-ish and unsettled.
  13. The Legacy of a Whitetail Deer Hunter
    McBride is good for a few chuckles during the first two-thirds of the movie and continues to contribute a fair share of funny business after the plot takes a not altogether persuasive serious turn. But Brolin remains the main attraction, and the saving grace, during this lost weekend in the woods.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Victory
    Script spends so much effort extolling man’s basic goodness and the values of selflessness, teamwork and fair play, that it frequently softens the action. Fortunately, director John Huston has such a firm grip on the dramatic line that does exist – and works some very good performances from the cast, particularly Caine – that the pic survives intact.
  15. The Devil and Father Amorth
    It is often an oddly compelling tabloid foray, since it winds up shedding a crucial ray of light on the mad moment we’re in now. Whether or not you believe in the Devil, the film helps to color in how our culture got possessed.
  16. Unfriended: Dark Web
    "Dark Web” skates by on saturated nastiness, one terrific kill, and the audience’s engagement in seeing if the filmmakers can pull off the stunt. Barely, but it’s fun to watch them try.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Supergirl
    Helen Slater is a find: blonde as Supergirl, dark-haired as Linda Lee, she’s an appealing young heroine in either guise. Screenplay is filled with witty lines and enjoyable characters, but Jeannot Szwarc’s direction is rather flat.
  18. No Light and No Land Anywhere
    The story Sealey tells is slender, dissociative and inward-looking to the point of self-indulgence at times. But Brockis, with her stubborn jawline, two-tone shock of hair and striking heterochromatic eyes, is a powerful presence.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Foreign Body
    In composing this group portrait, “Buried Secrets” director Amari relies upon an efficient but relatively conventional dramaturgic arsenal: the beginning of a love triangle; the classic “makeover session,” during which a pop-eyed spectator will discover the princess under the rags; and so forth.
  20. Prospect
    Constructing character does not appear to be Earl and Caldwell’s strong suit (what’s satisfying about Cee owes almost entirely to Thatcher, a fresh face who tricks us into assuming she’s just a callow teen, when in fact, she proves to be the film’s toughest character). On the other hand, the duo show a real aptitude for world building.
  21. A Bag of Marbles
    Even when the chips are down, every boy’s adorable beret looks box-fresh. It’s the boys themselves, however, who often cut through the Camembert to deliver a shot of honest, imperilled feeling.
  22. What We Started
    Though it offers a decent enough primer on dance music history, it’s so eager to play all the hits that it never quite settles into any particular groove.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Roxanne
    Aussie director Fred Schepisi, who has elsewhere handled much rougher material, does a professional job of creating a breezy atmosphere, but in the end it’s hopelessly sappy stuff.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Dogs of War
    The Dogs of War [from Frederick Forsyth's novel] is an intelligent and occasionally forceful treatment of a provocative but little-examined theme, that of mercenary warrior involvement in the overthrow of a corrupt black African dictatorship. Film fails to really get at the heart of the whys and hows of mercenary life, and also rejects the idea of generating any sense of camaraderie among the men.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Re-Animator
    Pic has a grisly sense of humor, and sometimes is so gross and over the top the film tips over into a bizarre comedy.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    ...and justice for all.
    And Justice for All is a film that attempts to alternate between comedy and drama, handling neither one incompetently, but also not excelling at either task.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Every Which Way But Loose
    For Eastwood fans, the essential elements are there. Lots of people get beat up, Eastwood walks tall and looks nasty, cars are crashed. James Fargo directs limply.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Over the Top
    Stallone is sincere and soulful as a father who messed up pretty bad and just wants his kid back, Mendenhall is a likable tyke, and justice is served in the end.
  29. The House with a Clock in Its Walls
    While not terribly original, it would be fair to call the movie inventive, like one of those eccentrics who’s constantly pestering the patent office with what he thinks are fresh ideas, only to discover that someone else got there first.
  30. Operation Finale
    The last thing you want a movie like this one to feel like is a slick Hollywood suspense drama with famous historical names plugged in. Operation Finale doesn’t feel like that, yet taken on its own here’s how it really happened terms, the movie is at once plausible and sketchy, intriguing and not fully satisfying.
  31. Indivisible
    Filmed on Tennessee and California locations that convincingly double for everything from Fort Stewart to Iraq, Indivisible feels impressively edgy during battle scenes, especially during a suspenseful firefight set in the streets of Al Sakhar Province.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Dune
    Dune is a huge, hollow, imaginative and cold sci-fi epic. Visually unique and teeming with incident, David Lynch's film holds the interest due to its abundant surface attractions but won't, of its own accord, create the sort of fanaticism which has made Frank Herbert's 1965 novel one of the all-time favorites in its genre.
  33. Single White Female
    Despite excellent lead performances and numerous memorable scenes, this still feels like two different movies in one.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Dirty Harry
    Strip away the philosophical garbage and all that's left is a well-made but shallow running-and-jumping meller. Don Siegel produces handsomely and directs routinely.
  35. Blue My Mind
    Having created a striking and potent allegory in “Blue My Mind,” and explored it with grace, seriousness, and exceptional craft, Brühlmann doesn’t seem to know quite what to do with it by the end, except to suggest that the cost of self-acceptance is vast, eternal, oceanic loneliness.
  36. This Is Our Land
    The film is so calculated in its plotting that it loses some of its chill.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Mechanic
    Michael Winner keeps the tempo at fever-pitch despite deficiencies of feature’s opening sequences.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Jerk
    An artless, non-stop barrage of off-the-wall situations, funny and unfunny jokes, generally effective and sometimes hilarious sight gags and bawdy non sequiturs.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    RoboCop 2
    This ultraviolent, nihilistic sequel has enough technical dazzle to impress hardware fans, but obviously no one in the Orion front office told filmmakers that less is more.
  40. The Judge
    Greater attention to how and when information is revealed would make “The Judge” a far more valuable film.
  41. Mercury
    The movie is a mess, yet once the thriller plot kicks in, you do start to absorb it as a “silent” film, tuning into the visual atmosphere of stalker fear and rusty chemical entropy.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge
    Beneath its verbose, title, Jack Sholder's follow-up to Wes Craven's 1984 hit is a well-made though familiar reworking of demonic horror material.
  43. The Misandrists
    Misandrists is a diverting bad-taste frolic for the sufficiently jaded.
  44. The Brady Bunch Movie
    Part homage, part spoof, the deft balancing act is a clever adaptation -- albeit culled from less than pedigreed source material.
  45. Down a Dark Hall
    This is a decent modern Gothic thriller handled with sufficient style and a straight face by genre ace Cortés. His efforts, and strong performances by the young female leads, make for a movie that’s fairly strong meat by juvenile fantasy standards, if probably a tad wimpy for horror-fan tastes.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    August 32nd on Earth
    An appealing though ultimately slight drama about a young woman who is thrown into an emotional tizzy after surviving a bad car crash.
  47. Ibiza
    Loose-kneed, sloppy, and powered by charisma, this hangout flick doesn’t just embrace gross-out girl comedy cliches, it sticks Jacobs in the air roof of a limousine screaming, “Whooo! I am a total cliché right now and I don’t f–king care!”
  48. Twilight of the Ice Nymphs
    Overall, Maddin’s first effort with seasoned performers is extremely promising, and he continues to grow as a visual craftsman. But he’s in need of better material to develop the unique film voice his past films promised.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Zardoz
    A brilliant premise which unfortunately washes out in climactic sound and fury.
  50. Believer
    Believer may be more impressive around the edges than at its core, but that doesn’t prevent it from delivering a pretty solid two hours of action and suspense that’s muscularly directed by Lee and stylishly shot by Kim Tae-kyung.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Jesus Christ Superstar
    Norman Jewison's film version of the 1969 legit stage project in a paradoxical way is both very good and very disappointing at the same time. The abstract film concept veers from elegantly simple through forced metaphor to outright synthetic in dramatic impact.
  52. Climax
    Climax works, at least when it’s willing to be a human drama. But then it sinks in that you’re watching “Fame” directed by the Marquis de Sade with a Steadicam.
  53. El Angel
    Ortega shows more interest in the how than the why. He mines the scenes of violence for black comedy, rendering the bloodletting anticlimactic and the victims largely irrelevant, and Ferro’s baby-faced, bright eyed disingenuity suits that agenda perfectly.
  54. Asako I & II
    Hamaguchi extols his source for a compelling representation of love as a mystic experience. However, what gets transferred to the screen becomes more like banal indecision.
  55. Long Day's Journey Into Night
    Plunging viewers into an extended dream sequence in the name of abstract motifs such as memory, time, and space, the film is a lush plotless mood-piece swimming in artsy references and ostentatious technical exercises, with a star (Tang Wei, “Lust, Caution”) as decoration.
  56. Dogman
    Fonte, it must be said, gives an expert performance as a saintly scamp who “blooms” into a butterfly of vengeance. I might have bought what he’s doing in a different film, but the one that Garrone has made strains too hard to have it both ways.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Private Lessons
    Dan Greenburg’s script from his own novel [philly] is very effective in presenting an innocent youth’s point-of-view confronted with the sexual stimuli that pervade modern society. Inability to flesh out this central notion into a feature-length screenplay is a pity, but Private Lessons should satisfy general audiences with its diversions of frequent nudity, softcore sex, dominant rock music score and gags.
  58. Rocketman
    While Lee’s script steers Elton’s life from the “Billy Elliot”-like tropes of his daddy issues to the equally trite “Walk the Line”-esque cautionary tale of what happens when fame causes talented musicians to forget who they once were, Fletcher at least has Elton’s music to fall back on.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Patty Hearst
    Patty Hearst puts forth much less than its pretensions. Frequently wrapped in surrealistic stylization, film manages only to tell Hearst's side of her kidnapping ordeal.
  60. Let the Corpses Tan
    Even if the rewards are limited, the technique is impeccable.
  61. Five Feet Apart
    Fresh off of memorable supporting parts in “The Edge of Seventeen” and “Support the Girls,” Richardson gives a star turn every bit as charismatic and assured as the film is formulaic and forgettable, bringing soul, style and nuance to a character that could have easily been a condescending caricature.
  62. The Aftermath
    The result is attractive and diverting, as any well-appointed film starring these actors in mouthwatering period finery could hardly fail to be — though for a story about people rebuilding their lives through grievous personal loss and moral torment, it’s hard not to wonder if its vast reserves of enviable knitwear are counting for more than they should.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The New Age
    At one point in The New Age, the terminally stylish post-yuppie couple played by Peter Weller and Judy Davis put on their fanciest threads in order to commit double suicide, but can't go through with it. Like them, Michael Tolkin's film gets all dressed up but doesn't quite know where to go.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Gauntlet
    In a major role reversal, Clint Eastwood stars in The Gauntlet as a person who might be on the receiving end of the violence epitomized in his famed Dirty Harry film series.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Neighbors
    Other than a few laughs the reason for the film is a little puzzling. Ultimately it is Belushi and Aykroyd that make the picture work. When they hit the comedic mark, as they more often than not do here, nothing else seems to matter.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Hud
    Hud is a near miss. Where it falls short of the mark is in its failure to filter its meaning and theme lucidly through its characters and story.
  67. Spiral
    The film simply examines the prejudice that’s standing right in front of it. It’s chilling, but it’s the tip of the iceberg.
  68. The Hustle
    The Hustle, fun as some of it is, is a tall fizzy drink in which the fizz never completely rises to the top of the glass.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Restoration
    Sweeping yet intimate drama boasts an exemplary cast headed by Robert Downey Jr., who does bravura work as a wastrel physician. Pic’s main liability, an overly episodic story that loses some steam in the second half, might, however, limit its commercial domain to aficionados of artier historical fare.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Class of 1984
    Class of 1984 is pure exploitation with plenty of action and a manipulative plot [from a story by Tom Holland] designed to have audiences cheering on the blood.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Herbie Rides Again
    Another fat plug for the Volkswagen 'bug' as the runaway (literally) titular star.
  72. What Keeps You Alive
    This thriller about a lesbian couple whose weekend takes a drastic turn is less one-note as a narrative conceit than “It Stains the Sand Red,” though it too ultimately stretches inspiration a tad thin. Nonetheless, it’s an entertaining and well-crafted effort.
  73. The Elephant and the Butterfly
    The Elephant and the Butterfly is a movie too cool-headed and present tense for backstory.
  74. Muppets from Space
    A modestly clever comedy in which nothing gets seriously out of hand.
  75. White Fang
    The rewards here are ones of fine, subtle sensory detail, be it the shimmering visualization of falling snow on a forest floor, the convincing, characterful nature of the animal sound effects, and the grand, graceful design and movement of the wolfdogs themselves — as expressive and adorable as any Disney critter.
  76. Sierra Burgess Is a Loser
    Sierra Burgess is a Loser is a slumber-party charmer that wants to satisfy every craving, even when what audiences are hungry for clashes, like pouring a chocolate milkshake over a pepperoni pizza.
  77. Moss
    In addition to its scenic virtues, there’s a pleasant sense of life’s innate harmoniousness here.
    • 30 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives
    Writer-director Tom McLoughlin, who made the scare entry One Dark Night, puts comic spin on some of the predictable material and turns in a reasonably slick performance under the circumstances.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    State of Grace
    State of Grace is a handsomely produced, mostly riveting, but ultimately overlong and overindulgent gangster picture.
  80. Cold Skin
    A good-looking and well-crafted if familiar chunk of creature-siege horror.
  81. Running for Grace
    Imagine a Troy Donahue-Sandra Dee teen romance of the early ‘60s with an inoffensive undercurrent of social consciousness, and you’ll have a good idea of what to expect from director David L. Cunningham’s thoroughly predictable but lightly enjoyable tale of love and prejudice in 1920s Hawaii.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Enchanted April
    A slim comedy of manners about Brits discovering their emotions in sunny Italy, Enchanted April doesn't spring many surprises. Strong cast's reliable playing is undercut by a script that dawdles over well-trod territory
  83. The Prodigy
    While it lacks gripping, nail-biting tension, the unnerving horror that underscores the family drama brings it to life.
  84. The Feels
    As a comedy, The Feels has considerable sprightly appeal, although it could have used slightly more assertive visual packaging.
  85. King Cohen: The Wild World of Filmmaker Larry Cohen
    There’s nothing particularly inspired about Mitchell’s treatment here — he’s directed a lot of DVD extras, and this first feature feels like a plus-sized version of one — but there’s considerable entertainment value in its subject.
  86. Final Score
    Park your brain cells in the lobby, and this U.K. production about a terrorist attack on a London soccer stadium — with Dave Bautista as Bruce Willis plus 100 or so extra pounds of muscle — is an entertainingly over-the-top ride that doesn’t even try to be “credible.” It’s not quite daft or otherwise distinctive enough to be memorable.
  87. Major Payne
    It’s relatively foolproof light entertainment, undone only when it strays too far into the absurd or wears the mantle of Wayans’ comedy persona.
  88. Outrage Coda
    It’s a testament to Kitano’s effortlessly sleek, inherently watchable filmmaking (he reteams with regular DP Katsumi Yanagijima and uses the atonal descending motif of composer Keiichi Suzuki’s score to good effect) that you’re just about kept in your seat throughout all the speechifying.
  89. The Beverly Hillbillies
    It’s thin stuff, but the ingratiating naivete of the characters and the aw-shucks friendliness of the cast are disarming, and it becomes easy to just let this go down as a country tune with some moonshine on the side.
  90. Cut Throat City
    Cut Throat City has vivid moments, but RZA’s direction is better than P.G Cuschieri’s script. The film is a muddled social-protest thriller that tries to bridge the corrupt machinations upstairs with the desperation of the streets, and can’t find a way to connect them convincingly.
  91. Love Affair
    A film of gorgeous surfaces and negligible emotional resonance, this third rendition of a perennial sentimental favorite is easy on the eyes and has its share of beguiling moments in the early going, but crucially lacks a compelling climax and any sense of urgency in its storytelling.
  92. The Trigger Effect
    David Koepp's writing-helming bow is a bleak, highly stylized view of modern civilization. While The Trigger Effect maintains a potent mood of postmodern dread, even its proponents will be wondering what all the queasy fuss was about.
  93. MDMA
    None of the sizzle is as compelling as this character study of a young woman who confesses that her only childhood companion was the TV.
  94. Quincy
    Stretching to more than two hours, Quincy stumbles into some pacing problems as it goes, and considering the sheer number of turns the man’s life took, one wonders if a miniseries might have served him better.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Life Stinks
    Mel Brooks' Life Stinks is a fitfully funny vaudeville caricature about life on Skid Row. Premise of a rich man who chooses to live among the poor for a spell feels sorely undeveloped, and suffers from the usual gross effects and exaggerations.
    • 99 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Touch of Evil
    Touch of Evil smacks of brilliance but ultimately flounders in it.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Trick or Treat
    Like a relatively dark street on Halloween night, Trick or Treat is ripe for howls and hoots, but only manages to deliver a choice handful of them when the festivities are just about over.
  98. A Boy. A Girl. A Dream.
    If Basir and Samantha Tanner’s screenplay ultimately feels like less than a full meal, its intelligence and restraint — particularly in resisting the lure of a heavier-handed message — are nonetheless admirable.
  99. 47 Meters Down: Uncaged
    It takes a lot of chops to shoot the majority of a movie underwater, and Johannes Roberts is a skillful crafter of images ... But he’s a throw-what-he-can-at-the-audience director, and there’s little in 47 Meters Down: Uncaged that really sticks. The shocks, however, are consistently well-timed, and for the audience that seeks out a movie like this one that’s probably enough.
  100. What Men Want
    But the thoughts she overhears don’t, for the most part, have the snap of comic surprise. They just fill in the walking alpha blanks we already know.
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