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. A Wrinkle in Time
    A Wrinkle in Time is wildly uneven, weirdly suspenseless, and tonally all over the place, relying on wall-to-wall music to supply the missing emotional connection and trowel over huge plot holes.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid
    Coburn offers more of his smiles as testimony to the wizardry of Old West dentistry, while Kristofferson ambles through his role with solid charm. Neither conveys the psychological tension felt between the two men whose lives diverge after years of camaraderie.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Conan the Destroyer
    Conan the Destroyer is the ideal sword and sorcery picture. As Conan, Arnold Schwarzenegger seems more animated and much funnier under Fleischer’s direction than he did under John Milius’ in the original – he even has an amusing drunk scene. Jones just about runs off with the picture.
  4. The Beekeeper
    The Beekeeper is the best kind of bad movie — which is to say, it’s the sort that puts entertainment ahead of pretentiousness, embracing the laughter sure to accompany such an unapologetically stupid, ultra-violent premise.
  5. The Big Year
    Director David Frankel's picture delivers sweet and (more rarely) amusing moments, but this odd duck never completely gets off the ground.
  6. It Ends with Us
    When I say it’s a soap opera, I mean that as praise. Based on Colleen Hoover’s 2016 novel (the script is by Christy Hall) and directed by Justin Baldoni (who is one of the film’s costars), it’s an avid and emotional movie that pulls you right along. If you go in not knowing what it’s about, and are therefore all the more surprised by where it goes, it may be even more effective.
  7. Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu
    I found “The Mandalorian and Grogu” to be fun in a slightly flat way. But because the movie has so little pretense, it’s basically an invitation to wallow in the lite “Star Wars” nostalgia that’s there in every frame.
  8. Book Club
    Really, it’s sad that the best Hollywood can come up with for so much seasoned talent is this stale shake-and-bake combining upscale-lifestyle porn with some tepid smirky humor.
  9. Blackbird
    Thanks to Michell and a fine cast, it works admirably well — at least to a point, at which some viewers may feel [screenwriter Christian] Torpe piles on one crisis too many.
  10. Beowulf & Grendel
    Director Sturla Gunnarsson seems aware of the savagery intrinsic to the story, but is unable to mine it deeply, proving too genteel in the end to make a genuinely creepy or disturbing film.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Mary, Queen of Scots
    A large cast of excellent players appears to good advantage under the direction of Charles Jarrott. Superior production details and the cast help overcome an episodic, rambling story.
  12. The Artist's Wife
    It’s entirely possible that The Artist’s Wife would have hit the same pitch-perfect notes had it been set during a long hot summer. But the wintery ambiance enhanced by Ryan Earl Parker’s evocative cinematography feels altogether appropriate for a story about one life winding down, and another on the verge of a restorative spring.
  13. Alpha Dog
    Writer-director Nick Cassavetes' sprawling dramatization recklessly blurs the line between reconstruction and reality in ways that are admittedly interesting, if more than a little artistically suspect.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Next of Kin
    Picture climaxes with an elaborate war in a Chicago cemetery between Baldwin’s mafioso and Neeson’s Kentucky kin, matching automatic weaponry with primitive (but reliable) crossbows, hatchets, snakes and knives.
  15. Anemone
    As you watch the film, though, it’s amazing how things that should mean a lot could come to so little, including the return of Daniel Day-Lewis.
  16. Prisoners of the Ghostland
    Somehow, it doesn’t actually seem surprising that Cage would partner with Sono. But the creative choices they make together, from an exploding gumball machine to endangered testicles — well, they must be seen to be believed.
  17. Mister Lonely
    Less outre than "Gummo" and "Julien Donkey-Boy," Korine's most lavishly produced pic to date begins as a sweet-tempered tale of social misfits-turned-celebrity impersonators, but falls short of its ambition to say something meaningful about the obsessive nature of celebrity culture.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Ha-Hesder
    Emerges as an intelligent portrayal of the repercussions of single-minded religious fervor, and of the way the willingness to suffer for a cause does not necessarily translate into selfless acts.
  19. When Brendan Met Trudy
    Intermittently funny movie. Almost every scene recreates or alludes to a Hollywood or foreign classic.
  20. George of the Jungle
    Not quite inspired lunacy, the film has a game, likable quality.
  21. Save the Last Dance
    Grounded in bedrock formula and earnestness.
  22. Ella Enchanted
    The glue that holds the sweet teen-fantasy together is star Anne Hathaway, who continues to evolve into a luminous young lead.
  23. Chop Suey
    Bids to whip homoerotic iconography into something palatable for those suspicious of the cuisine.
  24. Rookie of the Year
    A warm, comic "what if" yarn, it's rife with humor and sentimentality but is just one run away from the game-winning score.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Big Business
    A shrill, unattractive comedy.
  26. I’ll Be Your Mirror
    You come to Blood for its aura of spiritual sustenance, only to leave it feeling curiously alienated and undernourished.
  27. The Blind Side
    Uplifting and entertaining feel-good, fact-based sports drama.
  28. The Program
    In the film’s richest performance, Plemons beautifully teases out the ambiguities and potential hypocrisies of Landis’ own moral position, tracing Armstrong’s slippery downward spiral almost in spite of himself.
  29. Soul Surfer
    Distinguished by splashy cinematography, engaging performances from Dennis Quaid and Helen Hunt as the girl's go-get-'em parents.
  30. Dumplin'
    Indeed, from its unpatronizing body-positive messaging to its restrained, tactful faith-based concessions (a given with Parton on board), Dumplin' has been so carefully calculated, it’s a wonder it plays as warmly and sincerely as it does.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Paradise Alley
    It’s an upbeat, funny, nostalgic film populated by colorful characters, memorable more for their individual moments than for their parts in the larger story.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane
    This film, about a homicidal orphan girl, is farfetched nonsense with precious little to appease shriek freaks. Laird Koenig's screenplay from his novel is riddled with unsuspended disbelief - coincidences, gimmicks.
  33. Mousehunt
    Mouse Hunt is the cat's meow. Blending the graceful slapstick of Laurel and Hardy with the mock-Gothic visuals of "The Adams Family," this often screamingly funny comedy about a resilient rodent has enough across-the-board appeal to click with audiences of all ages.
  34. Alita: Battle Angel
    This manga-based cyberpunk origin story is a pretty zappy effects showcase, weighed down by a protracted, soul-challenged Frankenstory that short-circuits every time it gets moving.
  35. The Book Thief
    The Book Thief has been brought to the screen with quiet effectiveness and scrupulous taste by director Brian Percival and writer Michael Petroni.
  36. Delicacy
    Tautou is fine but clearly typecast as another whimsical pixie with strong melancholy undercurrents.
  37. I Am Not a Hipster
    A deeper glimpse of the San Diego indie-rock scene around him might have made Brook's self-absorbed resentment less overbearing.
  38. Person to Person
    Mildly amusing, a tad amateurish in some aspects, this little ensemble piece about funny little people is ultimately just too damn little.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    In the Mouth of Madness
    While the pic doesn't really have meaty characters, the presence of Neill, Carmen, Heston and Prochnow lends an air of credibility that heightens the proceedings. The film is also blessed with an arsenal of special effects that work with tinker-toy precision.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Nancy Drew
    Purportedly an attempt to modernize the young detective's adventures for a new generation of tweens, the pic instead serves up stale mystery-movie cliches and overcooked red herrings in a thoroughly wooden adaptation.
  41. Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F
    With “Axel F.,” a parade of watchable clichés (not just retro-cop-thriller clichés but Eddie Murphy clichés) staged by director Mark Molloy in a slovenly utilitarian style, the series comes full circle: the product/schlock of the ’80s meets the product/schlock of Netflix. Welcome to nostalgia minus the soul!
  42. ABCs of Death 2
    Far too many of the shorts prove instantly forgettable.
  43. The Siege
    A potentially provocative idea is played out to diminishing returns.
  44. Knight of Cups
    Those who have had their fill of the director’s impressionistic musings will find his seventh feature as empty as the lifestyle it puts on display; for the rest of us, there’s no denying this star-studded, never-a-dull-moment cinematic oddity represents another flawed but fascinating reframing of man’s place in the modern world.
  45. 30 Days of Night
    Excels at bloodthirsty action, though dialogue and human-interest aspects are a tad anemic. Result is a mixed bag but has a catchy premise and quite enough splatter to satisfy gorehounds.
  46. Irrational Man
    Allen’s visual direction and editing rhythms are particularly sharp and precise this time around, as is his work with the actors.
  47. My Art
    The very artlessness of My Art is what sometimes makes it endearing, but its storytelling could use a few more foundational lines.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Shaolin
    Well-mounted Chinese-Hong Kong martial-arts co-production Shaolin elevates enlightenment above brute strength, but weak helming undercuts the pic's punch.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Baby Boom
    Baby Boom tries to be a lot funnier than it actually is, and handsome production design and cinematography do little to compensate for its annoying over-reliance on cornball action montages and a dreadfully saccharine soudtrack score.
  50. Sex and the City
    Best in its small moments, the movie should find receptive gal pals congregating for the mother of all viewing parties.
  51. Goal! The Dream Begins
    A slickly mounted slice of can-do nonsense.
  52. Inside
    Inside has an intriguing premise and an actor who makes whatever’s thrown at him intriguingly watchable. What it lacks is sufficient sense of who this character is, and a resonant enough narrative to justify being locked up together.
  53. The Promise
    A mixed bag of near-risible storylines, second-rate CG effects, some fabulous set pieces, somewhat cartoonish martial arts fighting and difficult international casting.
  54. 6 Years
    Although shot and performed in a determinedly raw, naturalistic register, this emotionally roiling portrait of two twentysomething Texas sweethearts too often veers toward melodramatic overstatement, inspiring little empathy or understanding despite the committed performances of promising young leads Taissa Farmiga and Ben Rosenfield.
  55. Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker
    The Rise of Skywalker is, to me, the most elegant, emotionally rounded, and gratifying “Star Wars” adventure since the glory days of “Star Wars” and “The Empire Strikes Back.” (I mean that, but given the last eight films, the bar isn’t that high
  56. The Art of the Steal
    Once the script is done playing its belabored game of who’s who, it becomes a sleek and moderately clever exercise in narrative misdirection, with at least one or two twists sly enough to pull the wool over even an attentive viewer’s eyes, as the climactic rush of “gotcha!” flashbacks makes duly apparent
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence
    The weakest point is its construction, sturdy and compact up to the point when it has to use flashbacks in order to explain the British side of the allegory.
  58. Honour
    Earnest issue drama and pulpy B-thriller mechanics make awkward but not uncompelling bedfellows in Honour.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Handmaid's Tale
    Though helmer Volker Schlondorff succeeds in painting the bleakness of this extrapolated future, he fails to create a strong and persistent connection with the heroine’s plight.
  60. After the Apocalypse
    A numbingly pretentious approach to a moldy premise -- a handful of strangers interacting amid rubble in wake of WWIII.
  61. Yau doh lung fu bong
    A disjointed story of self-discovery, courage and redemption somewhat incongruously billed as a salute to Akira Kurosawa.
  62. Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story
    Charting the presence of prominent Jewish major leaguers in every decade, their relationship to the world of big-time ball and the careers of such greats as Hank Greenberg and Sandy Koufax, helmer Peter Miller's historical docu strikes out a stadium-load of assumptions.
  63. Pray for Japan
    It's hard not to be moved by the words of love, gratitude and resilience spoken by earthquake/tsunami survivors and volunteers in Pray for Japan. But well-meaning platitudes go only so far in this sincerely felt, raggedly structured compilation of footage.
  64. $ellebrity
    A marketing tie-in with a line of soap wouldn't be the worst idea for $ellebrity, a documentary that's unafraid to get dirty digging into the subject of celebrity journalism, or to leave viewers feeling a little grimy after their immersion in tabloid culture.
  65. Big Ass Spider!
    An exceedingly good-natured Z-grade creature feature.
  66. The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet
    The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet is the perfect 3D vehicle and Jeunet takes full advantage, offering a feast of amusing visual flourishes suited to the book’s playfulness.
  67. Balloon
    Balloon is decent entertainment to a degree, and that is mostly thanks to its handsome production values.
  68. Warning
    This is sci-fi cinema of a relatively subtle, intriguing stripe, without the usual emphasis on fantastical or action imagery. Still, it’s slickly engaging enough to please more open-minded genre fans, and brainy enough to attract those who want something other than another laser shoot ’em up.
  69. Midas Man
    Midas Man is never less than watchable, and it does capture something about Brian Epstein that’s honest and affecting.
  70. Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World
    Though it risks political incorrectness every step of the way, film is more a pleasant laugher than a sharp-edged satire.
  71. Generation Wealth
    Though it can sometimes feel invasive when a documentarian includes his or her own voice in the finished cut, Greenfield’s presence is essential here as we observe the rapport she’s established with people whom it’s difficult for us not to judge, and whom she views with all the complexity her portraits suggest.
  72. Quarantine
    A modestly inventive, sporadically exciting thriller that nonetheless proves too faithful to its central conceit for its own good.
  73. Being Flynn
    The film surrounds its leads with a cast whose faces capture the ragtag dignity Flynn described in his book -- no overacting required, no emotional panhandling allowed.
  74. Lucky Number Slevin
    Thoroughly -- and sometimes justifiably -- infatuated with its own cleverness, this mistaken-identity thriller delights in narrative complication and Tarantino-esque self-awareness.
  75. Rounders
    Intermittently engaging but dramatically slack, this tale...is more interesting around the edges than it is at its core, thanks to the dull nature of the lead character played by Matt Damon.
  76. 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.
  77. Shooter
    An immediately involving yarn of an ace Marine sharpshooter set up to take the fall for an attempted presidential assassination, picture saddles itself with stereotypical villains, hokey contrivances and too-expedient crisis solutions.
  78. Killing Kasztner
    Frequently cutting away from storylines just before they peak and returning to them too much later, odd editing/structural choices never let the picture build up a satisfying head of steam. Overall look is just slightly better than homevideo.
  79. Only
    An absorbing post-catastrophe drama.
  80. Bang Gang (A Modern Love Story)
    The lack of a single clear character with whom to identify ultimately proves problematic.
  81. Burning Man
    Grief doesn't rate high among emotional states suited to high-octane presentation; hence the disconnect between excessive style and sober content in Burning Man, a feature-length montage posing as a serious drama about loss and anger.
  82. Annabelle Comes Home
    Name your fear trigger, and it’s probably there, somewhere, in Annabelle Comes Home. It looks like a horror film, but it’s really the horror equivalent of speed dating.
  83. Robin Hood
    Impressively made and serious-minded to a fault, this physically imposing picture brings abundant political-historical dimensions to its epic canvas, yet often seems devoted to stifling whatever pleasure audiences may have derived from the popular legend.
  84. Highway Courtesans
    Earnest but prosaic.
  85. Donnybrook
    For Sutton — whose previous film, “Dark Night,” inspired by 2012’s Aurora megaplex shooting, made an austere statement about gun violence — Donnybrook marks a major step forward in both ambition and style.
  86. The Fluffer
    Distinguished by generally good performances and smart camerawork.
  87. The Tigger Movie
    By far the least ambitious, and certainly the least interesting, animated feature to come out of Disney in quite some time.
  88. Leela
    Succeeds only as a cultural exchange of cinematic cliches.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Wiz
    Director Sidney Lumet has created what amounts to a love letter to the city of New York, which he equates with Oz.
  90. A Castle for Christmas
    Despite its smattering of shortcomings, A Castle For Christmas is gently disarming, heartening, holiday-themed escapism that’s as satisfying as a cup of hot chocolate on a cold winter’s night.
  91. Flightplan
    Largely undone by a script that self-destructs in the third act of an otherwise well-made thriller.
  92. RocknRolla
    A cleverly constructed, sensationally stylish and often darkly hilarious seriocomic caper.
  93. Crash
    Cronenberg is a master of creating and sustaining a mood of insinuating cool and dark allure, but while the director remains firmly behind the wheel for the first hour or so, he cracks up toward the end with sequences that send the film and the audience into a ditch.
  94. In Too Deep
    Formulaic but effectively gritty inner-city crime drama.
  95. The Mauritanian
    The story gains momentum as it goes, and by the end, it’s positively gripping.
  96. Imaginary Heroes
    The film sways awkwardly back and forth between prickly humor and pathos, rarely ringing true in either register.
  97. Richard Garriott: Man on a Mission
    A must-see for stargazers of all ages.
  98. Multiplicity
    The picture provides hilarious complications to the arithmetic mayhem and will be one of the strongest performers in the second half of the summer, its inventive edge standing up to the barrage of flashier effects pics.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Logan's Run
    Logan's Run is a rewarding futuristic film that appeals both as spectacular-looking escapist adventure as well as intelligent drama.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Broken
    Norris’ film does find a beating heart, if not exactly a focus, in the tender father-daughter relationship between Archie and Skunk, nicely underplayed by Roth and Laurence.
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