Variety's Scores

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For 17,825 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 2.3 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: 9,159 out of 17825
  2. Mixed: 7,029 out of 17825
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17825
17825 movie reviews
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  1. Dangerous Minds
    Pfeiffer tackles the part with obvious dedication, but she's thwarted from the get-go by the heavily proscribed nature of the role as written.
  2. Hoot
    Squeaky-clean, family-friendly opus.
  3. Musical Chairs
    This would-be inspirational picture has its heart in the right place, but with default-setting characters, loudly telegraphed emotional beats and lack of any real sizzle to enliven its maudlin moralizing, it all feels like a cursory run through a well-trodden routine.
  4. Fifty Shades of Grey
    Glossy, well cast, and a consistent hoot until it becomes a serious drag, this neo-“9½ Weeks” is above all a slick exercise in carefully brand-managed titillation — edgier than most grown-up studio fare, but otherwise a fairly mild provocation in this porn-saturated day and age.
  5. Rebel in the Rye
    Danny Strong’s film is diverting, mildly informative and — to borrow Caulfield’s adjective of choice — somewhat phony, heavy as it is on tortured-writer clichés and contrived art-imitates-life parallels.
  6. Above Suspicion
    Chris Gerolmo’s script isn’t at great pains to find the human factor here, and Phillip Noyce’s direction coats the whole unhappy affair in cold blue steel.
  7. Shotgun Wedding
    When it sticks to the trivial stuff, Shotgun Wedding is at least capably mediocre, coasting on its coastal scenery — actually the Dominican Republic, and brightly shot by David Lynch collaborator Peter Deming, not that you’d ever guess — and Lopez’s reliably sparky screen presence. It’s intermittently stolen, however, by everyone’s favorite Jennifer of the moment, Coolidge, as the gaffe-prone mother of the groom.
  8. The Gospel
    A creaky melodrama that wants to be a musical.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Undercover Blues
    The moderately enjoyable “Undercover Blues” plays like a big-screen, big-budget pilot for a TV series.
  10. The Ghost and the Darkness
    A throwback to bygone historical adventures, The Ghost and the Darkness is a classy, high-gloss yarn with sterling production values, fine performances and breathtaking vistas. It’s a literate and eerie true-life chiller that should grab moviegoers who’ve been hungering for adult entertainment.
  11. The Whole Truth
    Looking back to “Frozen River,” Hunt’s long-awaited second feature shares the weaknesses of her debut — namely, a single-minded focus on a somewhat trashy predicament, with little to no room for subplots or other enriching details — while lacking in the earlier film’s strengths.
  12. Capone
    Handsomely shot and small of scale, Capone ambles along without catching fire. That’s because the movie, at heart, is shaped as a pedestal for Hardy’s prankish mumbly Method showboating.
  13. The Da Vinci Code
    Director Ron Howard and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman have conspired to drain any sense of fun out of the melodrama, leaving expectant audiences with an oppressively talky film that isn't exactly dull but comes as close to it as one could imagine with such provocative material.
  14. Earwig and the Witch
    Something’s clearly missing, and the most obvious answer is magic, both on-screen and in the project’s conception.
  15. The Basketball Diaries
    The Basketball Diaries is a weak-tea rendition of Jim Carroll's much-admired cult tome about his teenage drug addiction. Leonardo DiCaprio's committed lead performance deserves a better context than this gloss on the source material.
  16. Welcome Home, Roscoe Jenkins
    An in-your-face double helping of fat jokes, crude slapstick, wacky Southern-black stereotypes and occasionally inspired improv.
  17. Mortal Kombat II
    Mortal Kombat II, a sequel to the 2021 Mortal Kombat reboot, is still an old-school video-game trash extravaganza: all sound and fury and flying bodies and jargony world-building, propped up by a sludgy excuse for a story.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Solitude
    Despite good thesping, particularly from Belton, it's hard to imagine why anyone would want to spend time with this trio.
  19. Her Majesty
    Despite its faltering touch with the story's darker, more melodramatic threads, Her Majesty nonetheless proves winning overall thanks to a predominant emphasis on nostalgia, whimsy (heroine's royal audience fantasies include one full-on production number) and droll-to-broad humor.
  20. Nightmare Man
    Perfs are either absurdly stiff or over-the-top, and effects and makeup look like they were made in someone's garage.
  21. Bonneville
    A bland road movie running on empty. It's depressing to see a deluxe cast wasted on such by-the-numbers material -- from predictable plot to fabricated Hallmark sentiment to strenuous milking of warm-and-fuzzy laughs from the irrepressible spirit of three women whose youth is behind them.
  22. The Elephant King
    The film may be too mainstream for arthouses, and too arty for the mall.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Simian Line
    Though picture is at times undermined by a lack of unifying perspective, its glimmers of greatness are a testament to the talent involved.
  24. Hollywood Ending
    For those always on the lookout for the "funny" Allen, this one definitely has its moments, but too much of the picture is flat, dispiriting and frankly unbelievable in fundamental ways that defy the granting of poetic license.
  25. Anatomy 2
    A no-holds-barred, thoroughly generic follow-up to the medical horror-chiller that wowed German wickets in 2000.
  26. Bruce Almighty
    There's remarkably little done with a premise snatched from high-concept heaven, adding yet another file to the growing cabinet of under-realized comedies.
  27. Conspiracy of Silence
    Deery lays out a story devoid of subtlety, in which characters are too easily pigeonholed and issues exist only in absolutes.
  28. Saw
    A crude concoction sewn together from the severed parts of prior horror/serial killer pics.
  29. How the Grinch Stole Christmas
    Shrill, strenuous and entirely without charm, Ron Howard's attempt at a Christmas classic is an elaborately wrapped empty box that will fool many people into buying it but will not greatly please its recipients.
  30. Rhinoceros Eyes
    Not sufficiently compelling.
  31. Story of the Eye
    Evaluating this project in conventional feature terms is a lost cause; relevant contexts are purely avant-garde and pornographic. Suffice it to say that helmer's careful attention to framing camera, music and content signal primary allegiance to Art rather than Smut.
  32. 10 on Ten
    A self-contained master class on cinema.
  33. 95 Miles to Go
    An engaging crazy-quit of comedy.
  34. The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai
    If outrageous concepts were all, this latest fillip in the oft-eccentric history of Japanese "pink" (softcore sexploitation) cinema would be genius. But the crazy ideas in Takao Nakano's script just fitfully amuse under Mitsuru Meike's draggy direction.
  35. CJ7
    "E.T."-inspired comic fantasy about a poor boy adopting a cute alien catches the eye but not fully the heart with its undernourished father-son dynamics, critter hijinks and smattering of social commentary.
  36. Love Hurts
    An ungainly, at times cringe-worthy succession of tame, telegraphed romantic mishaps, well-intentioned if unconvincing sentimentality, and some of the least authentic teenage dialogue this side of the "Friday the 13th" franchise.
  37. A Journey in My Mother's Footsteps
    Part personal quest, part testimonial and part fund-raiser, A Journey in My Mother's Footsteps fulfills disparate agendas for helmer Dina Rosenmeier, a mildly resentful daughter wondering why her humanitarian mother prioritized orphaned Indian children over her own offspring.
  38. Matru ki Bijlee ka Mandola
    Agreeably amusing but unduly extended, Matru ki Bijlee ka Mandola suggests what might have resulted had Rodgers and Hammerstein lived long enough to attempt a Broadway musical about the Occupy Wall Street movement.
  39. Xingu
    A stirring, broad-strokes account of the founding of Brazil’s Xingu National Park... Boasting breathtaking cinematography, remote, rarely seen locations and charismatic thesping.
  40. Horns
    This overly devout adaptation of Joe Hill’s sacrilegious text benefits from the helmer’s twisted sensibility, but suffers from a case of overall silliness.
  41. Two Shots Fired
    The most remarkable aspect of Two Shots Fired is that, despite the distancing effect of the artificial performances and simplified, almost basic visuals, viewers manage to find enough diversion and attachment to care.
  42. The Free World
    [A] well-meaning, well-acted but otherwise clumsily executed parable about second chances.
  43. The Meg
    If there’s a disappointment to The Meg, it’s not just that the movie isn’t good enough. It’s that it’s not bad enough.
  44. Nerdland
    With a scuzzy style to match its sleazeball vision of spotlight desperation and depravity, this Tinseltown satire — led by voice work from Paul Rudd and Patton Oswalt — revels in the foulness of 21st-century pop culture, albeit to a degree that’s ultimately both exhausting and redundant.
  45. Generation Startup
    Generation Startup is too blurry about the grass-roots wheeling and dealing it shows.
  46. Speech & Debate
    Though energetically shot and blessed with some appealing performances (including winningly strange cameos for theater darlings Lin-Manuel Miranda and Darren Criss), Speech & Debate never manages to make a convincing case for itself.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Death Wish 4: The Crackdown
    What raises Death Wish 4 above the usual blowout is a semi-engaging script and sure pacing by veteran action director J. Lee Thompson.
  48. 1:54
    1:54 intends to be a straight-shooting social drama about the multifaceted problem of bullying in the digital age, but it’s out of touch with how real teenagers think and act and communicate. It’s a modern film that feels like a relic.
  49. Caught
    Instead of emphasizing tense action and atmosphere — the usual limited-budget solutions — the filmmakers here seem to think having their characters nervously chatter on about their situation in reams of clumsy dialogue will do the trick. It does not.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    The End
    Production is a tasteless and overripe comedy that disintegrates very early into hysterical, undisciplined hamming.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    A Man Called Horse
    A Man Called Horse is said to be an authentic depiction of American Indian life in the Dakota territory of about 1820. Authentic it may be, but an absorbing film drama it is not.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Foxy Brown
    Even by the gutter-high standards of the genre, Foxy Brown is something of a mess. Jack Hill’s screenplay has peculiar narrative gaps.
  53. Cold Brook
    There’s no complexity to anyone or anything here. Even the hint of family conflict in the portrayal of our heroes’ children as bratty teens goes nowhere in the director and Cain DeVore’s screenplay, which at times teeters on the edge between simple and simple-minded.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Futureworld
    Futureworld is a strong sequel to Westworld in which the rebuilt pleasure dome aims at world conquest by extending the robot technology to duplicating business and political figures.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Five Days One Summer
    An attempt at an intimate personal drama that just doesn't come off, Five Days One Summer is so slow that it seems more like Five Summers One Day.
  56. Resort to Love
    To say that Resort to Love is slight would be akin to snatching a romance novel out of your closest friend’s hands while she sits reading and sipping a margarita on a beach. Why would you do that? It’s summer. Leave the girl her pleasures.
  57. Joker: Folie à Deux
    Joker: Folie à Deux may be ambitious and superficially outrageous, but in a basic way it’s an overly cautious sequel.
  58. Marcello Mio
    Marcello Mio winds up saying very little about industry power structures, or even about the barbed nature of celebrity.
  59. Gabby's Dollhouse: The Movie
    The movie, make no mistake, is a genial throwaway that skitters through incidents with a G-rated innocuousness that makes it perfect for a very pint-sized demo. Yet the design of it is captivating, and so, in a minor way, is the affection with which the film’s director, Ryan Crego, embraces childhood things.
  60. Project X
    This game-changing instant classic will doubtless inspire imitators, onscreen and in backyards everywhere, en route to redefining what a new generation expects of its mice-will-play movies.
  61. Another Happy Day
    Mistaking over-the-top dysfunctional family cruelty for comedy and drama, Another Happy Day tries and fails to channel "Rachel Getting Married" in its protracted tale of a wedding-party weekend that turns predictably from scabrous to redemptive.
  62. Irish Wish
    As a rom-com, Irish Wish is more than willing to kiss the Blarney Stone. Yet the chemistry of Lohan and Speleers makes it watchable enough to get by.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The River
    Stripped down to the bare essentials few people actually ever come into contact with, pic remains a rather private ordeal observed from the outside looking in. There is a victory at the end, but not a sense of lasting triumph.
  64. Rambo
    Stallone (who looks fit but mostly keeps his shirt on) has no intention of bogging the action down, but it's still a notably cheerless exercise, without knowing winks or stabs (pardon the expression) at humor. It is in all respects, rather, a completely workmanlike effort.
  65. American Mary
    This tale of a violently disillusioned medical student’s wade into the weird world of extreme body modification doesn’t develop all its narrative and thematic ideas to the fullest. But the polished pic is still outre and entertaining enough to please most jaded horror fans.
  66. Beyond Skyline
    There’s scant room for characterization, and when the dialogue isn’t banal or cringe-inducing, it aims for generic smirking-wiseguy quippage. No matter: The performers rise ably to what are primarily physical (rather than “acting”) demands, the energy level is fairly non-stop, and there’s a lot of visual stimulus to keep idle minds further occupied.
  67. Beerfest
    Such fare plays better on DVD, where the best moments can be absorbed in bite-sized bits and the debris easily bypassed.
  68. The Break-Up
    Sporadic rays of sunshine emanate from the broad and gifted supporting cast, but the core story is almost relentlessly unpleasant, like sitting through a dinner party where the host couple does nothing but bicker.
  69. The Last Days on Mars
    While it earns high marks for Jon Henson’s production design, this murkily derivative sci-fi-horror entry sets its sights disappointingly low in terms of story and ideas.
  70. Knight and Day
    A high-energy, low-impact caper-comedy that labors to bring a measure of wit, romance and glamour to an overworked spy-thriller template.
  71. The Upside
    So little has been done to update or refresh “The Intouchables” for American culture or a new audience that The Upside has no integrity as a separate piece of work. The casting alone is all that’s keeping it from sinking into a cynical act of franchise burnishing.
  72. The Exorcism of Emily Rose
    Some genuine shocks punctuate The Exorcism of Emily Rose, an unusually intelligent genre item that manages to mix full-bore horror with courtroom drama.
  73. Must Love Dogs
    To properly appreciate Must Love Dogs, one must first love John Cusack. Thesp's maverick turn steals the show in this otherwise middling romantic comedy, which retools standard meet-cute elements for the Web generation in pleasant but uninspired fashion.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Zardoz
    A brilliant premise which unfortunately washes out in climactic sound and fury.
  75. Dark Glasses
    While it wouldn’t exactly be accurate to say that Dark Glasses was worth waiting a decade for, a world in which Argento continues working till the bitter end is preferable to one in which we don’t have movies like this at all.
  76. The Queen of Spain
    Sure it’s meant to be taken in good fun, but the energy keeps getting undercut by over-broad comedy and uninspired scenes, such as a limp musical number in the Isabella movie.
  77. Detour
    It may be tempting, and not entirely inaccurate, to describe Christopher Smith’s Detour as “Sliding Doors” reimagined by Quentin Tarantino, but this cleverly twisty neo-noir thriller turns out to be more substantial and surprising than such logline shorthand might suggest.
  78. Back in Action
    The two actors are appealing; they’ve got marriage-as-domestic-fight-club chemistry. And when Glenn Close shows up as Emily’s British mother, a former superspy herself, the film calms down for a bit ­— and perks up.
  79. IF
    Krasinski’s concept borrows generously from Pixar films like “Monsters Inc.,” but is so chaotic and half-considered that you don’t feel as inspired as you should be, making it hard to submit to the film’s alternate reality.
  80. The Crossing Guard
    Much of the film plays awkwardly, its tone veering undecidedly between volatile drama and contemplative psychological study.
  81. Honest Thief
    It’s a serviceably energized and routine action crime movie, with a few slammin’ fistfights and gun battles, and it proves once again that Liam Neeson is an actor who will take a paycheck gig without treating it like one.
  82. A Good Man in Africa
    It stakes out Our Man in Havana territory in its ironic tone, but it's not nearly as humorous or as successful in delivering up a satisfying soupcon of caustic wit. Commercial prospects are tepid for what's essentially a shaggy dog story.
  83. Jay and Silent Bob Reboot
    Smith has every right to be older and wiser here, and Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, with its gentle anarchy and not-quite-mock nostalgia, is a time-machine sequel that passes the time amiably enough. But if Jay and Silent Bob get any older or wiser than this, they’re going to stop being who they are.
  84. Hotel Transylvania: Transformania
    The result is yet another wearisome tale that inelegantly depicts themes like acceptance, understanding and diversity within a saga that has always been rather clumsy with its messaging around such weighty topics.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    White Nights
    Pic shies away from the world of classical dance, personified by leading man Mikhail Baryshnikov, in favor of Gregory Hines' 'improvography' and assorted modern stuff in blatant music video contexts.
  86. Wolves
    It’s a showcase for some fine acting and even finer basketball action, but neither are enough to cover for this story’s enervating formulaic construction.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Spaceballs
    Mel Brooks will do anything for a laugh. Unfortunately, what he does in Spaceballs, a misguided parody of the Star Wars adventures, isn't very funny.
  88. The In-Laws
    The 2003 edition written by Nat Mauldin and Ed Solomon and helmed by Andrew Fleming places the Douglas-Brooks combo inside a much more complicated if not quite as funny world.
  89. Catfish in Black Bean Sauce
    Too mild-mannered and fuzzily focused for its own good.
  90. All Over the Guy
    Lightweight but likable romantic comedy about two mismatched gay singletons who are, of course, made for each other.
  91. Venus Boyz
    An utterly fascinating, beautifully crafted exploration of the world of drag kings -- women who dress, perform and/or live as men.
  92. Kiss the Girls
    Replete with smart, capable characters and crimes so bizarre that they lend the film a suspiciously lurid nature, this tony suspenser is hampered by the presence of a villain who is all too obvious from the very beginning.
  93. Grand Theft Parsons
    A likably laid-back spin about the bizarre fate of rock 'n' roll legend Gram Parsons' corpse. Inspired by a true story, pic travels down familiar genre highways, but quirky humor and an apt soundtrack make for a pleasant enough journey.
  94. Badland
    A solidly crafted piece of work that, despite its leisurely pacing, manages to infuse a respectable amount of fresh vigor into clichés and conventions common to shoot-’em-ups set during the post-Civil War era.
  95. Hero Mode
    A lively saga about a young coding wizard who’s charged with saving his family’s gaming business, this celebration of old- and new-school creativity doesn’t break novel ground in any respect. Fortunately, though, its good humor, spry pacing and likable performances should appeal to its pre-high-school target audience.
  96. Exit Plan
    Exit Plan has been retitled from “Suicide Tourist” for its U.S. release, and while the original monicker was certainly punchier, the new one perhaps better captures the gist of a movie that’s ultimately a little too polite and vague to make much of its intriguing premise.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins
    The film [based on The Destroyer series by Richard Sapir and Warren Murphy] never seems to know where it's going and, when the smoke has cleared, doesn't seem to have got there either.
  98. The Watchers
    For a while, The Watchers is a reasonably well-made lost-in-the-woods horror movie, one that draws you in like a puzzle whose rules you need to learn (just as the characters do).
    • 46 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Mighty Ducks
    Helmer Stephen Herek endows a familiar story with a crisp look and swift tempo, seldom allowing sanctimonious tale to linger too long or gags to get too tiresome.
    • Variety
  100. Every Secret Thing
    Berg’s narrative debut lacks much in the way of either poetry or realism, leaving only the clunky dynamics of a fairly predictable missing-persons case — for which screenwriter Nicole Holofcener carries at least part of the blame.
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