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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    • 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.
  2. Aladdin
    It’s great to see Smith in comedic mode again, and smart of the team to base the Genie’s personality on the star’s brand, rather than imitating what Williams did with the role. Even in cases where Smith is quoting directly from the original, his persona comes through loud and clear as this blue-hued, CG-enhanced master of ceremonies.
  3. Keeping Mum
    Rather dark, decidedly English and exceedingly well played, Keeping Mum is a neatly crafted black comedy with more than a nod in tone toward the Ealing classic "The Ladykillers."
  4. Piranha 3-D
    The 32-year-old carnivorous fish franchise has lost none of its bite, serving up a fresh batch of spring-break revelers for the fearsome creatures to attack.
  5. A Regular Woman
    Much more accomplished and watchable than Hormann’s previous film about a real-life crime, “3096 Days,” “A Regular Woman” owes much to its fine cast and impeccable technical package.
  6. John Dies at the End
    Give or take the titular disclosure, John Dies at the End is a thoroughly unpredictable horror-comedy -- and an immensely entertaining one, too.
  7. Allah Made Me Funny: Live in Concert
    This amusing rather than laugh-out-loud funny project is best suited to smallscreen exposure.
  8. The Forever Purge
    As a satirical demagogic action movie, The Forever Purge is blatant, bare-bones, and entertainingly brutal.
  9. Emancipation
    Anchored by an ultra-focused and unusually low-key Will Smith as Peter, Emancipation can be an intense and at times almost unbearable thing to watch, presented in meticulously composed, nearly black-and-white frames, desaturated to the point of Civil War photographer Matthew Brady’s grim battlefield tableaux.
  10. Ma
    You can’t take Ma seriously. It’s a squalid formula picture that’s too busy connecting dots, hitting beats, engineering situations designed to make you squirm. But you will squirm.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood
    The latest product of the prolific Wayans family, Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood is much like its marquee-buster of a title: full of very obvious spoofery, and funnier in concept than in execution.
  12. Jungleland
    It’s the kind of enterprise that has everything but a single fresh idea, or even moment. ... The sombre tone feels forced rather than earned, because everything here comes out of The Giant Golden Book Of Coulda Beena Contenda Cliches.
  13. Lost and Delirious
    All the dramatic stops are pulled out as the script goes into serious literary overload.
  14. Vanity Fair
    Nair's approach never entirely convinces, and the adaptation of the 900-plus-page book becomes increasingly episodic, making this Vanity Fair more a collection of intermittent pleasures than a satisfying emotional repast.
  15. Tea with Mussolini
    Some fine individual perfs by the tony cast, plus fine period detail and costumes, make the time pass fairly agreeably, but Tea With Mussolini suffers from a fatal lack of focus and emotional center, reducing potentially involving material to a succession of individual scenes.
  16. De-Lovely
    Benefits greatly from Kevin Kline's outstanding performance as the ultra-sophisticated songwriter whose resilient marriage anchored a complicated double life.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Johnny Suede
    One-time cameraman, DiCillo exploits pastel colors to advantage in order to flesh out Johnny's fantasy world. Brad Pitt, fresh from stealing scenes in Thelma & Louise, gives Johnny the right kind of innocent appeal, and the rest of the cast surround him with loving care.
  18. Ricky
    Because Ozon doesn't develop his characters once Ricky shows his true nature, the movie's slightly overcooked working-class realism quickly morphs into a grotesque -- and admittedly funny -- story of a mutant baby.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    That's What I Am
    Benefits from sensitive, restrained thesping, most notably by Ed Harris, and leaves one feeling blandly inspired.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Bad Boys
    Bad Boys is a troubling and often riveting drama about juvenile delinquency. Director Rick Rosenthal does a topnotch job of bringing to life the seedy, hopeless environment of a jail for juvenile offenders and has gotten some terribly convincing performances from his young cast, notably topliner Sean Penn.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Lords of Flatbush
    Not too much finesse distinguishes the script, which carries neither warmth nor particular interest for the various characters.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Race with the Devil
    As followup by 20th-Fox to its surprise success with last year’s Dirty Mary Crazy Larry, this Peter Fonda-Warren Oates meller should do okay with action audiences, since it includes the requisite road chases and other hyped-up thrills, some of them slickly executed by director Jack Starrett. Otherwise the production is a sloppy, cynical blend of second-hand plot elements.
  23. Palmer
    Stevens (who has expert instincts in his documentary work) falls short of making this scenario entirely convincing. Take out a few “gritty” details that account for the film’s R rating, and Palmer is formulaic enough to pass for a faith-based movie.
  24. Palindromes
    Like the symmetrical word that supplies its title, the mordant comedy-drama recovers ground to become a boldly intriguing if not entirely satisfying subversion of American family values.
  25. It's Easier for a Camel...
    Fantasy sequences, including animation, keep the melancholy tone from overwhelming the proceedings.
  26. Let Fury Have the Hour
    A curiously warm-and-fuzzy hindsight interpretation of artistic aggression, delivered by the artists themselves.
  27. 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.
  28. We Broke Up
    We Broke Up stays together nicely thanks to Cash and Harper’s appealing tag-team, but also because of the winsome work of Bolger and Cavalero as the seemingly goofball, soon-to-be hitched duo.
  29. We Have a Ghost
    Rarely ha-ha funny and never scary, it’s ultimately more sentimental than anything else — a clunky approach that undermines its strong performances.
  30. Lilo & Stitch
    Somehow, Lilo & Stitch has lost its unpredictable sense of anarchy in the retelling.
  31. Lost Highway
    Although uneven and too deliberately obscure in meaning to be entirely satisfying, result remains sufficiently intriguing and startling to bring many of Lynch's old fans back on board for this careening ride.
  32. She Came to Me
    We’re invited to laugh at what we’re seeing, yet Miller works in such a heartfelt and unassuming way that we’re never standing outside the quirks.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Narrow Margin
    Spectacular stunt work and Canadian locations punch up the train thriller Narrow Margin, but feature remake is too cool and remote to grab the viewer.
  34. Apres Vous (After You)
    Elegantly written, well-thesped comedy is too hermetic and bittersweet to be laugh-out-loud funny, but sustains a fairly successful ratio of uncomfortable situations to amusing solutions.
  35. Amateur
    Just as quirky and idiosyncratic as the Gotham-based writer-director's earlier efforts, this one pushes the spiky humor a bit more to the fore while unfolding a tale loaded with offbeat oppositions and odd character detailing.
  36. Flag Day
    Even telling the story of this scarred, flawed, barely together family, Penn creates honest notes of nostalgia.
  37. The Deb
    Screenplay credit goes to Hannah Reilly, who wrote the stage musical from which “The Deb” was adapted with Meg Washington. While their lyrics are clever and contemporary, this project is every bit Wilson’s jam. Her sensibility is grounded in sincerity but relies on bawdy, off-color jokes to deflect from empowerment messaging that might otherwise seem square. And it works.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Hamlet
    Franco Zeffirelli's Hamlet is bland.
  39. Hysteria
    Dancy manages a few sly moments, and Everett is as ever a scene-stealer, if barely recognizable under a beard and altered features, and with a raspy voice. But the estimable Pryce and Jones are wasted, along with many other fine thesps, while Gyllenhaal works too gratingly hard in an already strained role.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    In the Grey
    Ritchie goes relatively easy on the joy-of-killing stuff, at least until the climax, and there’s an engaging couple of minutes en route thanks to the simplest, cleanest action filmmaking the film has to offer: a chase involving motorcycles, police cars and some proficient editing.
  41. We Are Marshall
    Full of good intentions, We Are Marshall has a game plan that's hard to fault, but as with any playbook, a scheme is only as good as how well it's executed.
  42. The Amazing Maurice
    Courtesy of source material by offbeat fantasy maestro Terry Pratchett, it’s genuinely eccentric enough — with its sly talking cat, intrepid band of gold-hearted rats and chronic aversion to keeping the fourth wall intact — to come off as charming rather than smarmy.
  43. The Winning Season
    With an invaluable assist from Sam Rockwell, hilarious and wounding as a deadbeat dad who lands a high school coaching gig, it's the rare inspirational movie with more than just winning or losing on its mind.
  44. Split: A Deeper Divide
    None of this will be news to informed viewers, and the documentary's broad theme necessitates quick, superficial treatment of myriad underlying causes. But it's a solid, fairly even-handed spur for discussion that will be particularly welcome in classroom settings.
  45. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
    This f/x-heavy third adaptation of the Christian-themed fantasy series feels routine and risk-averse in every respect, as if investment anxiety had fatally hobbled its sense of wonder.
  46. Bliss
    Whether classified as straight-up genre piece or substance-abuse drama in disguise, this is a dive into psychedelic hedonism that succeeds in constantly topping itself, rather than succumbing to shock-value fatigue like the aforementioned Noé joints.
  47. Landscape with Invisible Hand
    Finley loses his exacting handle on the material, allowing the story’s more commonplace ideas to dictate its direction in ways both unsurprising and a little rough around the edges.
  48. Penguins of Madagascar
    The graceful camerawork, precise editing and high-quality animation still can’t disguise the lack of imagination that went into the overall conception and the repetitive sameness that creeps into every bind the penguins find themselves in.
  49. She's the One
    There's charm to burn in "She's the One," Ed Burns' sophomore romantic comedy. Very much in the vein of his award-winning "The Brothers McMullen," outing is a decided step forward artistically and technically. Endowed with a refreshing honesty and poignancy, the film should score well with audiences and rack up upbeat theatrical returns.
  50. Fatherhood
    It transitions Hart from playfully scowling cutup to earnest heartfelt actor, and it does so in a way that, at times, is genuinely touching, even as the audience can see every sanded-down conflict and market-tested beat falling into place.
  51. The Hudsucker Proxy
    The Hudsucker Proxy is no doubt one of the most inspired and technically stunning pastiches of old Hollywood pictures ever to come out of the New Hollywood. But a pastiche it remains, as nearly everything in the Coen brothers' latest and biggest film seems like a wizardly but artificial synthesis, leaving a hole in the middle where some emotion and humanity should be.
  52. The Better Angels
    Apart from the heavy debt it owes to Malick’s oeuvre, Edwards’ entrancing debut is radically non-generic, either as history film and coming-of-age piece.
  53. The Amazing Spider-Man 2
    Redundancy remains a problem, but this overlong superhero sequel gets by on sound, fury and star chemistry.
  54. Focus
    A stilted, heavy-handed parable about fascistic intolerance.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Passionada
    A lovely, albeit imperfect fable marked by strong performances and infused with glorious bursts of soulful fado folk music.
  56. Enemy at the Gates
    Shows a consistent inability to generate any kind of drama when characters open their mouths.
  57. New Suit
    Another satirical view of the everyday insanity of working within the Industry, slickly made New Suit adds no special insight to the subgenre.
  58. Daydream Believer
    An unusually bright, inspired look at the perils of breaking into the acting business.
  59. L'autre monde
    First hour is an often gripping look at the realities of modern Islam ("You can do anything you want, as long as it's not in public," says a soldier's wife), before silliness takes over.
  60. Magnifico
    A wholesome family movie with a moppet star and tearjerker ending, Magnifico milks the sentiment like an industrial dairy machine on overdrive.
  61. Benji
    Benji may be far too simplistic for adults to find much enjoyment in watching, but it rewards active viewing from kids and displays mostly model behavior on the part of its young protagonists (once they stop keeping secrets from their mother, that is).
  62. Knock Knock
    [A] glossy and reasonably fun update of Peter Traynor’s 1977 exploitation movie “Death Game.”
  63. Late Bloomers
    While the world could certainly use more films about characters entering their sunset years, a solution as toothless and saggy as Julie Gavras' Late Bloomers does little to help the cause.
  64. Private Romeo
    Sticking closely to the written text (with basketballs and barbells supplying incidental props) and wisely not attempting to reimagine the specific circumstances that separate the lovers, a dynamite ensemble cast of young actors invests the Bard's poetry with energetic immediacy.
  65. Chagall-Malevich
    To call results over-the-top is less a criticism than a statement of intent. While it may be old-fashioned and silly in many respects, Mitta’s film is not dull, and its heedless embrace of cliche has a retro charm.
  66. On a Magical Night
    On a Magical Night is whimsically cute, provocative in a coy way, and more than a little in love with itself.
  67. Beyond Outrage
    The Japanese action aesthete plays it cool and smooth in a picture that exerts a steadily tightening grip, though not until after a first hour of near-impenetrable gangster gab that may leave the uninitiated feeling stranded.
  68. Humor Me
    Humor Me manages to earn its audience’s indulgence, if never its full affection.
  69. Finding Steve McQueen
    Finding Steve McQueen is a ramshackle indie heist drama that has a little bit (but not much) to do with Steve McQueen.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Subway
    Result may disappoint some for its singular lack of ambition or purpose and its ragged narrative, but still proves a charmingly cartoonish escapade, strong on humor and rock rhythms.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Death Takes a Holiday
    It is the kind of story and picture that beckons the thinker, and for this reason is likely to have greater appeal among the intelligentsia. [27 Feb 1934, p.17]
    • Variety
  72. The Journey
    The Journey, thanks to its buddy-movie structure, is destined to feel a little corny, but the movie gets at something real. It’s a celebration, by two splendid actors, of the art of political theater.
  73. Rent
    Director Chris Columbus has pasted the grungy "La Boheme" update onto film with slavish respect for the original material but a shortage of stylistic imagination and raw emotions.
  74. Hellbound?
    By narrowing its range of voices to Christian leaders, thinkers and writers, Kevin Miller's sober, stimulating documentary on the hot topic of eternal damnation necessarily limits its audience, but achieves a level of rhetorical eloquence that would theoretically appeal to open-minded viewers of any religious stripe.
  75. Another Stakeout
    The most amazing thing about Another Stakeout is that even though some of its skits are dopey and cloying and its plot recycled and derivative, the movie is still very amusing.
  76. Renfield
    Cage’s Dracula, sipping blood out of a martini glass, is so quick, so in thrall to his legend, that he’ll slice you with sarcasm. It’s a witty and luscious performance, unhinged but never out of control, and it deserved a movie that could serve as a pedestal for the actor’s seasoned flamboyance.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Suspect
    Art imitates art - and not very well - in Peter Yates' gimmicky suspense drama sabotaged by a flimsy script full of cliches.
  78. Free State of Jones
    For all the ravaged surface appeal of McConaughey’s performance, the character is a little too good to be true, but then, that’s just the sort of movie Free State of Jones is. It’s a tale of racial liberation and heroic bloodshed that is designed, at almost every turn, to lift us up to that special place where we can all feel moved by what good liberals we are.
  79. Sharp Stick
    Sharp Stick, in its quick verbal exchanges, its naked sexuality, its general air of busting taboos as if they were oversize balloons, is recognizably a Lena Dunham movie. But it’s the first one of her projects in which the parts don’t quite add up, because it seems as if what we’re watching hasn’t been so much created as contrived.
  80. I Trust You to Kill Me
    Deftly mixing alternating tracks of playful rowdiness, thoughtful introspection, ferociously slamming rock and not-so-quiet desperation, helmer Manu Boyer scores impressively with I Trust You to Kill Me, arguably the best rockumentary since "Some Kind of Monster."
  81. Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween
    The way a movie like “Goosebumps 2” works, even a weary adult will be grateful, by the time it finally kicks in, for all the brainless whirling distraction. I almost wrote fun, but that would be pushing it. To achieve that F-word, the film would have to ground its amusing effects in a story that was less skittery yet leaden.
  82. A Good Woman
    Has a script that plays more like a period romancer studded with occasional Wilde-isms and gets uneven treatment from a mixed Anglo-American cast.
  83. The Big Question
    Intriguing and surprisingly witty.
  84. Another Evil
    Another Evil is somewhat unpredictable and nicely played, but so low-key that the comedy as well as everything else feels almost too modest for feature scale; it has the throwaway, anecdotal tenor of a droll short.
  85. Run
    The film, effective on its own unassuming terms, seems to cut out with some distance left to run.
  86. The Magician's Elephant
    While the movie itself is more whimsical than magical, it does have a few tricks up its sleeve.
  87. Stormy
    “Stormy” shows you what the scandal looks like from inside the sensationalist bubble of fame, and by the end of the film you may be a little bit ashamed of us all.
  88. The Killer Inside Me
    A film that should but doesn't get under your skin and give you the creeps.
  89. The Rocker
    Wilson makes the most of it in this well-crafted, feel-good satire.
  90. Finding Your Feet
    The modest rewards in Finding Your Feet are ones of sprightly human chemistry rather than great narrative discovery, of all-round good humor rather than outright hilarity.
  91. Resistance
    Resistance tells a story that’s plenty strong on its own terms, and if anything, it’s a bonus that one of the key participants should survive to become famous. Afforded depth and gravitas by Angelo Milli’s string score, the film hardly needs the framing device in which Ed Harris appears as Gen. George S. Patton, regaling his troops with Marceau’s story before inviting him onstage for his first public show.
  92. The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears
    When does an exercise in style become a wearying ADD slog through blood-splattered pseudo-Freudian nonsense? When it’s The Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears.
  93. Long Time Since
    Intense but inscrutable tale involving a woman's gradual remembrance of a long-suppressed trauma.
  94. This Old Cub
    More a slavish tribute than objective portrait. As a result, competent but innocuous Feature begins to overstay welcome at the 60-minute mark.
  95. Remember Me, My Love
    While Muccino has refined his technique over four features and has developed greater insight, his characteristic tendency toward hysteria remains. This keeps the drama fast and compelling, but also makes it slightly wearing at times.
  96. The Burial Society
    Screen chemistry and production crackle are lacking from this "Usual Suspects" wannabe.
  97. The Tender Bar
    It’s not easy being Ben Affleck, by which I mean, there aren’t many actors who seem so comfortably themselves on-screen, and now that Affleck has reached middle age, he’s capable of bringing fresh depth to his performances.
  98. Bachelorette
    After a promisingly funny first half, this tale of three coke-snorting gal-pals trying not to screw up their friend's nuptials all but drowns in its own catty cynicism, turning as stingy with emotion and insight as it is with real laughs.
  99. On Any Sunday: The Next Chapter
    An intoxicating blend of exotic travelogue, death-defying derring-do, and affecting profiles in courage and perseverance.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Great White Hope
    A superior cast, headed by James Earl Jones encoring in his stage role, a colorful and earthy script, plus outstanding production, render film quite palatable.
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