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. The Iron Lady
    Fuzzy-headed biopic, which glosses over the former British prime minister's politics in favor of a glib, breakneck whirl around her career and marriage.
  2. Once in the Life
    A film that ultimately feels stagebound and excessively talky, but which showcases an exceptional performance.
  3. The Princess Diaries
    Exudes a pre-fab quality.
  4. Turkey Bowl
    This ongoing improvisation, along with the completed passes and resulting chest-bumping celebrations or recriminations, serves to define these otherwise "ordinary" ciphers and lend shape and momentum to an otherwise plotless movie.
  5. Madame Bovary
    Measured and absorbing rather than deeply compelling or vital, this latest adaptation of a rarely well-filmed novel makes a strong effort to capture the stiflingly provincial world that Flaubert was able to describe in such precise, painstaking detail on the page.
  6. Get Santa
    Midway through, the plot gets rather bogged down, unfolding on what seems like one of the longest December days for daylight hours ever witnessed in the Northern Hemisphere. However, Broadbent keeps the smiles coming in a wonderfully committed turn as the incarcerated toymaker.
  7. How He Fell in Love
    Mature and moving in its navigation of convoluted, conflicting desires, it’s an indie as assured in its silences as it is in its speeches.
  8. An Ordinary Man
    An incredibly precise actor who understands exactly how to play to the camera, conveying volumes via even the slightest microexpressions, Kingsley navigates the tricky mix of humor, horror, and deep-seated regret that make this man, if not exactly ordinary, then relatable, at least.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Sudden Impact
    A brutally hard-hitting policier which casts Clint Eastwood as audiences like to see him, as the toughest guy in town.
  10. Materna
    The film is formally beautiful almost to a fault, giving it a schematic quality that’s at odds with its roiling emotions.
  11. After the Hunt
    After the Hunt has been made with a fair amount of craft and intrigue, but it’s also a weirdly muddled experience — a tale that’s tense and compelling at times, but dotted with contrivances and too many vague unanswered questions. That’s why, in the end, it’s a less than satisfying movie.
  12. Under Siege 2: Dark Territory
    Bogosian provides some much-needed comic relief to the slogging tale. He turns in solid work, as does Everett McGill as his head strongman, but they and others are saddled with pedestrian dialogue and motivation.
  13. The Longshots
    While The Longshots is by no means an unpleasant experience, it feels like a project carried out by people who began with the best of intentions but weren't quite able to sustain their initial enthusiasm.
  14. A Girl Missing
    The intriguing ambiguity suffusing Kôji Fukada’s “Harmonium” returns to a certain degree in A Girl Missing, but this time the writer-director neglects to reinforce onscreen relationships, resulting in a disappointing and unmoving drama.
  15. Sister Aimee
    Unfortunately, the invention on display is of a helter-skelter variety, as Samantha Buck and Marie Schlingmann’s film so madly lurches about in search of a tone that it feels like the first draft of a gonzo faux-biopic.
  16. Exodus: Gods and Kings
    What’s remarkable about Scott’s genuinely imposing Old Testament psychodrama is the degree to which he succeeds in conjuring a mighty and momentous spectacle — one that, for sheer astonishment, rivals any of the lavish visions of ancient times the director has given us — while turning his own skepticism into a potent source of moral and dramatic conflict.
  17. The Contractor
    Being a solid cut above average is good enough, given so much formulaic mediocrity among thrillers cluttering the streaming market.
  18. Starship Troopers
    A spectacularly gung-ho sci-fi epic that delivers two hours of good, nasty fun.
  19. The Devil's Double
    The life story of Latif Yahia, body double to Saddam Hussein's diabolically unhinged son Uday, makes for slick action-movie fodder in The Devil's Double, a rocket-powered thriller.
  20. Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald
    Most of the surface pleasures of filmic Potterdom (the chiaroscuro tones, the overqualified character actors, the superb costuming, James Newton Howard’s warmly enveloping score) have survived intact, but real magic is in short supply.
  21. Hacia la oscuridad
    A convoluted bilingual thriller about a kidnapping in Colombia, Towards Darkness may be too clever for its own good. Frosh director Antonio Negret intertwines so many disparate characters, each with a flashback-studded backstory, that after a while the exhausted viewer, assaulted by sudden time-jumps, agitated handheld camerawork and tediously protracted suspense, ceases to care.
  22. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2
    Part 2 has the bonus of a livelier Stewart performance than fans have been accustomed to. No longer a mopey, lower-lip-biting emo girl, this Bella is twitchy, feral, formidable and fully energized, a goddess even among her exalted bloodsucker brethren.
  23. 80 for Brady
    Kyle Marvin’s directorial debut is a pleasant enough reminder that these gals are still game for a good time.
  24. Players
    Trish Sie’s middling and at times mawkish film not only makes us hate the game, but also its players.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Breathless
    A suitably jazzy, sexy, entertainment.
  26. National Champions
    As timely as last night’s episode of “ESPN Sports Center,” and as riveting as a well-crafted tick-tock suspenser, National Champions adroitly avoids most of the pitfalls common to conventional “message movies” by raising and debating issues in the context of a solid and involving drama that can be enjoyed even by people who couldn’t tell an offside kick from a cheerleader’s cartwheel.
  27. We Are the Giant
    A surfeit of harrowing on-the-ground footage during protest crackdowns, plus the protagonists’ testimonies, make for a frequently inspiring and exciting documentary. But helmer Greg Barker (“Ghosts of Rwanda”) also risks pretentiousness in various forms of stylistic and thematic overreach, while providing viewers scant explanatory info on the regional conflicts.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Black Hole
    What ensues is sometimes talky but never dull. Director Gary Nelson’s pacing and visual sense are right on target.
  29. Waiting for the Barbarians
    Coetzee’s novel, with its measured, interiorized voice and sparse, incrementally devastating narrative, was never an obvious fit for film treatment. After a stiffly mannered, overwritten first act, however, Waiting for the Barbarians gradually gains in poetry and power, while Mark Rylance’s lead performance, as a liberal-minded colonial official undermined and overwhelmed by his tyrannical superiors, gives proceedings a quiet but firm moral core.
  30. The Christmas Chronicles
    With its saccharine score, saturated cinematography, and trite platitudes, the film is formulaic and forgettable except for Russell’s performance as the lovable legend.
  31. Mia and the White Lion
    Despite a heartfelt sentiment that one person has the power to uproot societal structure and inspire change, and the filmmakers’ desire to raise awareness about an abhorrent practice, packaging it in a family-friendly narrative proves to be wildly problematic.
  32. A Working Man
    Jason Statham is good at his job, which explains why he keeps booking the same kinds of movies — well, that and the fact that people keep watching them.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Last Boy Scout
    There’s really nothing special about this entertaining if mindless shoot-’em-up other than an ample supply of amusing juvenile put-downs and elaborate action sequences.
  34. The Spy Who Dumped Me
    The Spy Who Dumped Me is no debacle, but it’s an over-the-top and weirdly combustible entertainment, a movie that can’t seem to decide whether it wants to be a light comedy caper or a top-heavy exercise in B-movie mega-violence.
  35. Nicky's Family
    A valuable albeit overproduced history lesson.
  36. The Sea
    Though solidly crafted, with a host of well-etched performances, film is unable to establish a consistent, engaging tone.
  37. Atlantis: The Lost Empire
    Recycles familiar adventure and cartoon devices with minimal wit and flair, and the lack of imagination will seem all the more dramatic to audiences in comparison to the winningly sophisticated "Shrek."
  38. Dopamine
    A dweeby and unenchanting concoction as romantic comedies go, Mark Decena's debut feature also juggles enough storylines to fill five or six movies in barely 80 minutes of screen time, ending up with a whole distinctly less than the sum of its parts.
  39. Secondhand Lions
    May score higher with parents than the kids they bring in tow. Writer-director Tim McCanlies' ("Dancer, Texas Pop. 81") feel-good celebration of youth and old age enriching each other is carefully leavened with humor.
  40. A Horrible Way to Die
    Where helmer Adam Wingard's prior "Pop Skull" used a jittery style to convey its delusional, possibly meth-addled protagonist's mindset, here, too much handheld camera wobble and wavering image focus only alienate the viewer from this somewhat sluggish tale.
  41. Tai Chi Zero
    Manages the curious feat of being at once relentlessly energetic and almost continually uninvolving; the title more or less sums up the amount of pleasure to be had here.
  42. Ping Pong Summer
    A sweetly amusing ode to the underdog sports movies that proliferated during that widely derided decade.
  43. Justin Bieber: Never Say Never
    As much a legitimate documentary as it is a 3D concert film and teen girl squeal-delivery device, the film possesses surprising moments of candor on the toil of teenage superstardom.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Watcher in the Woods
    The acting and writing are barely professional but the art direction, especially Alan Hume’s stunning camerawork, gives the pic a gloss.
  45. Be Kind Rewind
    It's a quick trip from whimsy to silliness in Be Kind Rewind, a notably ephemeral work by Michel Gondry, whose flights of fancy can't overcome the egregious illogic of the premise.
  46. Fallen
    As a high-concept mating of two familiar genres, the police story and the supernatural thriller, "Fallen," Gregory Hoblit's sophomore effort, is a movie that might frustrate aficionados of both genres, despite some strong elements.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Jamaica Inn
    Superb direction, excellent casting, expressive playing and fine production offset an uneven screenplay to make Jamaica Inn a gripping version of the Daphne du Maurier novel.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Wild at Heart
    Joltingly violent, wickedly funny and rivetingly erotic, David Lynch's Wild at Heart [based on the novel by Barry Gifford] is a rollercoaster ride to redemption through an American gothic heart of darkness.
  49. Every Day
    There’s a playfulness to Every Day, to how the film says to its audience — through the very structure of its Afterschool Special sci-fi design — that if you want to find love, you’ve got to look beyond the surface.
  50. Casa de mi Padre
    A likable enough lark that rarely achieves outright hilarity.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Hook
    Hook feels as much like a massive amusement park ride as it does a film. Spirited, rambunctious, often messy and undisciplined.
  52. 300
    A blustery, bombastic, visually arresting account of the Battle of Thermopylae as channeled through the rabid imagination of graphic novelist Frank Miller.
  53. Race to Witch Mountain
    Strikes a deft balance of chase-movie suspense and wisecracking humor, with a few slam-bang action setpieces that would shame the makers of more allegedly grown-up genre fare.
  54. Any Given Sunday
    (Stone's) most accessible and purely enjoyable film in years.
  55. Off the Hook
    Building blocks of tale are not new, but there's an appealingly rough-hewn and convincing tone to the proceedings.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Lock Up
    Lock Up is made in the same, simplistic vein as most other Sylvester Stallone pics - putting him, the blue-collar protagonist, against the odds over which he ultimately prevails.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Irreconcilable Differences
    Irreconcilable Differences begins strongly as a human comedy about a nine-year-old who decides to take legal action to divorce her parents. Unfortunately, this premise is soon jettisoned for a rather familiar tale of a marriage turned sour as shown step-by-step.
  58. Eiffel
    Bourboulon hatches a second-rate romance, rather than detailing the rich, real-life drama that swirled around Eiffel’s controversial endeavor.
  59. Mother of Tears
    This hectic pileup of supernatural nonsense is a treasure trove of seemingly unintentional hilarity. Although lacking helmer's usual aesthetic panache, this "Mother" is a cheesy, breathless future camp classic.
  60. Goya's Ghosts
    Ambitious script is stranded between entertainment and intellectualism, leaving us with a magnificent folly, thoroughly watchable for its visuals but ultimately hollow.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Cowboys
    The story [from a novel by William Dale Jennings] is long and episodic, and its gentle treatment makes the length something of a hindrance to maximum enjoyment.
  62. She's One of Us
    While the director's penchant for extended silences and stagy character positioning make it all seem rather studied, the drama nonetheless is compellingly unsettling.
  63. Little Secrets
    What you end up with are a bunch of kids acting not like kids, but how adults who've lost all sense of what it was like to be a kid think kids behave.
  64. The King Is Alive
    Simultaneously gritty and cerebral.
  65. Valentin
    The choice to have Valentin narrate the tale and make philosophical observations beyond his years becomes irritating at times; ditto the cartoon humor.
  66. Scream 4
    The picture delivers enough of the expected goods, if seldom with the wit or panache of the series' best.
  67. Water for Elephants
    The filmmakers clearly value their public, crafting a splendid period swooner that delivers classic romance and an indelible insider's view of 1930s circus life.
  68. Dead Man's Shoes
    Film plays as a quirky Brit riff on everything from U.S. slasher pics to revenge oaters but without Meadows' usual psychological complexity.
  69. Miss Lovely
    Like “Boogie Nights,” Miss Lovely offers a visually stunning evocation of a disreputable subculture, although it lacks that pic’s rooting dramatic interest.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Nickelodeon
    Peter Bogdanovich's film is an okay comedy-drama about the early days of motion pictures. Story begins with a group of barnstorming filmmakers in the pre-feature film era, later segues to the adolescence of the industry.
  71. Carrie Pilby
    Limply cute, with underdeveloped subplots and secondary characters, this sitcomish dramedy shares the source material’s primary fault: For a story about a supposed genius, it’s not all that clever or complicated.
  72. X-Men: Apocalypse
    Although the X-Men ensembles are usually large, there are simply too many characters for the action-heavy “Apocalypse” to properly juggle.
  73. Mirzya
    The life-and-death stakes are there, but the people involved — while uniformly ravishing to gaze upon — are too wanly sketched for this melodrama to pump much blood.
  74. Despicable Me 4
    At times, it feels less like a feature than a collection of Looney Tunes-y shorts piled one on top of another.
  75. The Ticket
    Boasting complex, sharply drawn characters and top-notch performances, this mature drama plays with ideas of seeing, both the outside world as well as within oneself, as Fluk (“Never Too Late”) masterfully depicts intimacies gone awry.
  76. The Monuments Men
    Clooney has transformed a fascinating true-life tale into an exceedingly dull and dreary caper pic cum art-appreciation seminar — a museum-piece movie about museum people.
  77. The International
    Graced with well-chosen location eye candy, Tom Tykwer's biggest production to date is proficient but lacks the added tension and characterization to put it anywhere near the top tier of contempo action suspensers.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Betsy's Wedding
    Setting a buoyant, anything-could-happen tone from the outset, Alda as director creates what he’s striving for: a feeling of being caught up in the warm craziness of this family, as all its vivid characters push and tug to impose their will on the proceedings. His punchy, inpertinent script is equally good.
  79. Rudderless
    Crudup does a lot to keep things watchable, playing with a slightly acidic wryness that suggests the character’s humor has only been heightened by his grieving hopelessness.
  80. The Producers
    So determinedly old-fashioned it makes a strong claim to being the best film musical of 1959.
  81. Felony
    Thanks to Saville’s tightly controlled direction and a superlative cast, the mere exchange of glances builds as much suspense as the kinetic action sequence that opens the pic.
  82. Red Christmas
    The film is an energetic, candy-colored romp through genre tropes that manages to take its subject matter seriously while poking fun at itself at the same time.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Critters
    Critters resemble oversize hairballs and roll like tumbleweeds when prodded into action, the perfect menace for this irritatingly insipid and lightweight film which unfolds with plodding predictability and leaves few cliches unturned.
  84. Malmkrog
    Even people reasonably familiar with Gnosticism, Manichaeism and its offshoots, early 20th century history and the works of Russian philosopher Vladimir Solovyov, whose writings Puiu adapted, will find this punishing film, with its theatrical construct and off-putting running time, a challenge with few lasting rewards.
  85. Nacho Libre
    Nacho Libre strikes a delicate balance of whimsy and absurdity that may surprise auds primed to expect wall-to-wall slapstick.
  86. Beckett
    It’s intriguing to see Filomarino experiment with the formula and exciting to imagine where his career might go from here.
  87. The Drop
    The Drop is smarter than it is funny. As sympathetic as Konkle and Fowler are as the beset couple, had the film leaned into its intelligence more, trusting its bleak comedy and affording its other characters a little emotional wiggle room, it may have achieved a more perfect coupling of each.
  88. Triple 9
    Well suited to Hillcoat’s gifts for low-boil suspense and brutal eruptions of violence in close, male-dominated quarters, the film has grit and atmosphere to burn but also a certain narrative sketchiness, as though unable to reconcile its sharp sociological portraiture with the pleasures of a more robustly plotted crime yarn.
  89. The Second Chance
    The crisply made feature delivers an involving if not always persuasive portrait of religious leaders in conflict.
  90. Everything, Everything
    For the first hour or so, it is unabashedly sappy yet modestly engaging, buoyed by the low-key charm of its two leads. But then an implausible third-act reveal spoils the fun, and the movie never recovers.
  91. The Object of My Affection
    Tries to mix the messy realities of mismatched relationships with the structural neatness of a musical-comedy view of the world, with mild, occasionally diverting results.
  92. Epic
    A reasonably entertaining, adeptly crafted kidpic whose biggest crime is its near pathological reliance on overfamiliar tropes and trappings.
  93. Paul, Apostle of Christ
    Countering the CG bombast and apocalyptic doom and gloom of the modern blockbuster with a soft-spoken message of faith and love, Paul, Apostle of Christ struggles to find a compelling entry point to a critical period in the early Christian church.
  94. Rat Race
    A lineup of comic actors running on empty long before the dust settles.
  95. Snake Eyes
    Cage supplies beaucoup energy, but his highly compromised hustler cop character provides little else in which he can invest his talent. Sinise wears an increasingly grim demeanor in a part that comes to make no sense, and John Heard's role as a local power broker gets lost in the shuffle.
  96. Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!
    A warm embrace of broadly but humanely sketched characters plus some scrappy casting of rising young stars led by an incandescent Kate Bosworth help overcome the half-realized comedic situations.
  97. Rick
    A noxious little tale of Wall Street types whose amorality knows no limit, Rick takes smarmy knowingness to ludicrous extremes.
  98. Blow
    Respectable but unmemorable end result may suffer from comparison with the similarly themed, albeit differently angled, “Traffic.”
  99. Under the Tuscan Sun
    Lane transforms this seriocomic saga of a devastated American divorcee who impulsively purchases a Tuscan villa, thereby changing her life, into a spellbinding display of emotional transparency.
  100. À cause d'un garçon
    Non-formulaic character interactions, a uniformly strong cast and deft handling by vet TV helmer Fabrice Cazaneuve render a refreshing take on youthful coming-out.
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