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. Shock and Awe
    The shock feels less than shocking and the awe less than awesome in Rob Reiner’s righteously motivated but clunkily executed exposé of media manipulation in the run-up to the Iraq War.
  2. The Delta
    Sachs commits a major error by deciding to center on Lincoln’s character, for John is a far more interesting, complex and disturbing personality.
  3. Lion's Den
    Situated somewhere between neo-realist study and standard women in prison pic, Lion's Den too frequently wanders into common territories to make the material its own.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Cable Guy
    Carrey’s character lacks the empathy or poignance to command ongoing interest, and Broderick’s role strains one’s patience because he’s hopelessly dimwitted and slow to react in any way vaguely resembling human behavior.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Deep
    Efficient but rather colorless...It’s possible that inside this slick piece of engineering there is a genuinely mordant satire of human greed struggling to get out, but it never quite gets to the surface.
  6. Far from the Tree
    Good intentions aside, Far From the Tree puts all its energy into disproving a thesis that many of us don’t actually believe — that the tree is inherently perfect, and that anything other than a direct copy of one’s parents is a crisis in need of resolving.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore
    Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore takes a group of wellcast film players and largely wastes them on a smaller-than-life film – one of those ‘little people’ dramas that make one despise little people.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Papillon
    For 150 uninterrupted minutes, the mood is one of despair, brutality, and little hope. The script is very good within its limitations, but there is insufficient identification with the main characters.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The King of Comedy
    The King of Comedy is a royal disappointment. To be sure, Robert De Niro turns in another virtuoso performance for Martin Scorsese, just as in their four previous efforts. But once again – and even more so – they come up with a character that it’s hard to spend time with. Even worse, the characters – in fact, all the characters – stand for nothing.
  10. The Year of Spectacular Men
    With the right script, this trio could make a fantastic flick. Forget these “spectacular” men. These flawed women are plenty.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Harold and Maude
    Director Hal Ashby’s second feature is marked by a few good gags, but marred by a greater preponderance of sophomoric, overdone and mocking humor.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Red Sonja
    Red Sonja [based on stories by Robert E. Howard] returns to those olden days when women were women and the menfolk stood around with funny hats on until called forth to be whacked at.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Billy Jack
    Screenplay attempts to encompass too many story facets. Result is that the action frequently drags.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Deliverance
    In the depiction of sudden, violent death, there is the rhapsodic wallowing in the deadly beauty of it all: protruding arrows, agonizing expiration, etc. It’s the stuff of which slapdash oaters and crime programmers are made but the obvious ambitions of Deliverance are supposed to be on a higher plane.
  15. Destination Wedding
    Destination Wedding barely holds together as a coherent film. It’s too callous for coos, too chipper to examine the dark corners of the soul. Yet it works as a valentine to old-fashioned star power — two modern legends, older if no wiser, daring the audience to somehow love them for all their faults, and on that level, somehow succeeding.
  16. The Bookshop
    This is a frustratingly patchy adaptation, in which some of Fitzgerald’s shrewdest observations on the savage politics and politesse of supposedly tranquil English village life get a little bit lost in the Europudding. A fine, sensitive leading turn from Emily Mortimer helps shore up these quiet, lightly dust-covered proceedings, but can’t quite put The Bookshop in the black.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Light of Day
    Despite the over-the-edge quality of her character, Rowlands makes even the most ludicrous lines seem feasible. Fox is basically miscast as the good-natured brother who idolizes his sister and tries to cover for her. Jett looks the part and even manages to hit the mark from time to time, but for every hit there’s a miss.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Hang 'Em High
    Hang 'em High comes across as a poor-made imitation of a poor Italian-made imitation of an American western.
  19. Discreet
    Opaque and formally ungainly, this itchy meditation on a host of contemporary social ills offers audiences a vividly, deliberately ugly worldview, but finally makes for hollow viewing.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Four Seasons
    Tale is populated strictly with Ordinary People, but Alda’s script doesn’t begin to scratch the surface to discover what makes them tick and is particularly stingy in giving Carol Burnett and Rita Moreno anything to work with.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Dragonslayer
    A well intentioned fantasy with some wonderful special effects, Dragonslayer falls somewhat short on continuously intriguing adventure.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Breezy
    Clint Eastwood's third directorial effort is an okay contemporary drama about middle-aged William Holden falling for teenage Kay Lenz. Associate producer Jo Heims' script works the problem over with perhaps too much ironic, wry or broad humor for solid impact.
  23. Summer of 84
    Summer of ’84 is only cute and competent enough to be diverting; it’s neither funny nor scary enough to leave a lasting impression.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Comfort of Strangers
    Neither the beguiling romance of Venice nor the undraped bodies of Natasha Richardson and Rupert Everett can disguise the hollowness of The Comfort of Strangers.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Burnt Offerings
    The horror is expressed through sudden murderous impulses felt by Black and Reed, a premise which might have been interesting if director Dan Curtis hadn't relied strictly on formula treatment.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Enforcer
    The spitball script [from a story by Gail Morgan Hickman and S.W. Schurr] lurches along, stopping periodically for the blood-lettings and assorted running and jumping and chasing stuff.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Super Fly
    Best that can be said for this quickie is its unpretentiousness in not seeking any pseudo-sociological meaning or theme, or assuming any airs that one is supposed to be enriched or provoked by it all. It's strictly action-adventure, alternating, like clockwork, drugs-sex-violence for its duration with hardly a plot line to hold it together.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Convoy
    Sam Peckinpah’s Convoy starts out as Smokey and the Bandit, segues into either Moby Dick or Les Miserables, and ends in the usual script confusion and disarray, the whole stew peppered with the vulgar excess of random truck crashes and miscellaneous destruction.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Touch
    Paul Schrader's first feature since Light Sleeper five years ago boasts a colorful cast and some vivid individual scenes, but unsuccessfully mixes tones while strenuously reaching for offbeat humor.
  30. Race 3
    The movie, while giddily entertaining and exciting in fits and starts, fails to coalesce into a satisfying whole.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Bad News Bears Go to Japan
    Producer Michael Ritchie (who directed the first installment) and writer-creator Bill Lancaster encore with Japan resulting in a more vigorous film than the sodden Bad News Bears in Breaking Training.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    American Ninja 2: The Confrontation
    Script by actors Gary Conway (who plays the narcotics overlord) and James Booth trades heavily upon the notion of Americans inherent mental and physical superiority to native warriors, who are a dime a dozen, but in such a comic way that the viewer can laugh with it rather than at it.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Karate Kid Part II
    Script delivers any number of wise old Eastern homilies. Anyone over the age of 18 is liable to start fidgeting when Macchio dominates the action, but then viewers beyond that advanced age are irrelevant with this film.
  34. The Next Karate Kid
    Leisurely and overly familiar pic should appeal to young teen girls, but won't be breaking any B.O. bricks with its bare hands.
    • 28 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Ernest Rides Again
    The fifth in the series of slapstick comedies about Ernest P. Worrell will please his fans but is unlikely to convince anyone else as to it merits.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze
    Though Turtles II suffers from a lack of novelty and an aimless screenplay, the bottom line is that the pic won't disappoint its core subteen audience.
  37. The Lighthouse
    Economically deployed effects lend the gathering storm a genuine sense of anxious bluster, but tension and terror are harder to conjure in a narrative this sparse and emotionally one-note.
  38. Constructing Albert
    Constructing Albert remains an oddly unsatisfying movie about food that’s so tasteful you can barely imagine what it tastes like.
  39. Jungle Cruise
    It’s like watching a romantic comedy while strapped to a roller-coaster with a VR headset on. Jungle Cruise is at once a love story, a made-for-4DX action movie, a “Pirates of the Caribbean”-style fairy tale featuring a ghostly conquistador (Edgar Ramirez) and his pewter-armored henchman with digital snakes slithering through them, and God knows what else.
  40. Jungle 2 Jungle
    An extremely handsome physical production, with breathtaking Venezuelan vistas by Tony Pierce-Roberts, Jungle 2 Jungle is an otherwise modest effort. Simple truths are often the most effective, but in this instance they are only banal and mildly amusing.
  41. Nine Months
    An exceedingly safe and conventional Chris Columbus comedy.
  42. Barney's Great Adventure
    Arguably the most critic-proof picture of the decade, Barney's Great Adventure will delight everyone who can't wait to see it and be a grin-and-bear-it experience for those who must accompany members of the former group.
  43. Richie Rich
    Decently crafted but oddly charmless.
  44. Flipper
    The effectively offbeat casting of Paul Hogan and some impressive underwater cinematography do much to enliven Flipper, an otherwise unremarkable attempt to revive the franchise that spawned two features and a popular TV series in the mid-1960s.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Vanishing
    Some last-reel thrills and cathartic violence provide commercial oomph to the otherwise tedious thriller The Vanishing. This is one remake that sacrifices much of what made the original work so well.
  46. The Little Rascals
    Those who grew up watching The Little Rascals may well be intrigued by the idea of introducing their kids to this full-color, bigscreen version. Still, the challenge of stretching those mildly diverting shorts to feature length remains formidable, and one has to wonder whether an audience exists beyond nostalgic parents and their young children.
  47. Snapshots
    Snapshots wallows a little too readily in cliché to be quite as stirring as its story — one drawn from Corran’s own family history — sounds on paper.
  48. McHale's Navy
    Time and adapters have not been kind to the fun-loving series.
  49. Angels in the Outfield
    The term “crowd-pleasing” is frequently overused, but it applies to this — the latest in a line of so-so baseball movies, which serves up its corn so unabashedly it’s hard to take offense at its sappiness.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Sgt. Bilko
    Even Steve Martin back in his wild-and-crazy mode can't breathe much life into Sgt. Bilko - a somewhat unlikely candidate for translation from the TV sitcom vaults to the bigscreen. Bilko can't really be much more than the series - the exploits of an unscrupulous army scam artist constantly looking for new ways to make a buck.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    A Walk in the Clouds
    Aa glossy, fairy-tale romance that's longer on wishfulness than believability.
  52. The Indian in the Cupboard
    Indian in the Cupboard is yet another example that Hollywood can make movies in which critics of sex and violence can find nothing to complain about. It’s also a reminder that family values can be, well, kind of boring.
    • 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.
  54. The Ranger
    Diehard gorehounds may be disappointed by its relatively infrequent reliance on graphic and grisly mayhem (relative to this particular subgenre’s standards, that is), but Wexler’s discretion in this area turns out to be one of her film’s few distinguishing characteristics.
  55. The Motive
    Whatever attracted Cuenca (“Cannibal”) to this material is seldom evident in his handling of it. Yet the material itself still lends the film its genuine if all-too-modest pleasures.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Gleaming the Cube
    Slater, who sounds as if he is trying to imitate Jack Nicholson, is the only character who has a shading of personality. His skateboarding buddies are funny, considering one needs a glossary to translate their dialog, while the Vietnamese are mostly sleazy cardboard figures.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Little Drummer Girl
    A disappointingly flat film adaptation of one of John Le Carre's top novels.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Brainstorm
    Producer-director Douglas Trumbull’s effects wizardry – and the concept behind it – is the movie...On the downside, majority of players, including stars Christopher Walken and Wood as a married couple in a research environment, seem merely along for the ride.
  59. King of Thieves
    As the film slackens its pace and shifts awkwardly from caper mode to sober moral deliberations, its one-note characters can’t quite carry it.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Lookin' to Get Out
    Hal Ashby's Lookin' to Get Out is an ill-conceived vehicle for actor (and co-writer) Jon Voight to showcase his character comedy talents in a loose, semi-improvised environment.
  61. The Haunting
    A wannabe horror classic that turns deadly dull once the sense of anxious expectation wears off.
  62. A Land Imagined
    "Land” will feel overly familiar to those looking for more than well-intentioned musings on the horrendous treatment of guest workers.
  63. Sibel
    Weaving together folklore, gender roles and a fitful kind of emancipation in the story of a mute young woman desperate to counter the ostracism of her fellow villagers, the writer-director couple have created an attractive package that doesn’t hold up to close inspection.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Kentuckian
    The rather simple story of a pioneer father, his son and their dream of new lands is the basis for this adventure-drama. The footage is long and often slow, with the really high spots of action rather scattered.
  65. Charlie Says
    The film Harron delivers is so ambivalent as to be frustratingly gun-shy about truly asserting a point of view, or adding anything meaningful to the already thriving cottage industry of Manson-adjacent storytelling.
  66. Ride
    All three actors labor to make it work, demonstrating their professional skill sets (Thorne sings, Usher recites Shakespeare) to somewhat admirable effect — even if overall credibility and tension remain elusive.
  67. The Command
    Vinterberg’s Kursk occasionally lands an emotive blow but only in its more fictionalized stretches, while it pulls its punches with the thorniest and most provocative elements of the real story, an instinct that unduly submerges much of the real horror and lasting consequence of this tragically, enragingly, heartbreakingly bungled incident.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Torn Curtain
    Alfred Hitchcock's direction emphasizes suspense and ironic comedy flair but some good plot ideas are marred by routine dialog, and a too relaxed pace contributes to a dull overlength.
  69. Teen Spirit
    Teen Spirit is too tidy, concocted, and safe. It longs to channel the high of great pop, but as a movie it lacks the ecstatic imagination to do what great pop does. It never soars.
  70. Downton Abbey
    As a series, Downton Abbey sprawled, giving viewers the drama and chaos they wanted before a season-ending resolution of conflicts. Here, there’s only time for the resolutions, even before the drama happens.
  71. Call Her Ganda
    With access to only one side of its central conflict, and a scattershot approach that skims over key details and points of interest, this well-intentioned documentary leaves audiences feeling like they’re only getting part of a much larger story.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Exorcist II: The Heretic
    Since any title containing Roman numerals invites comparison, the answer is: No, Exorcist II is not as good as The Exorcist. It isn't even close. Gone now is the simple clash between Good and Evil, replaced by some goofy transcendental spiritualism.
  73. The Chaperone
    The Chaperone leaves you wanting to see a movie about the star Louise Brooks became, on camera and off. It could be the great movie that has yet to be made about the silent era, and about the things that women in Hollywood have always faced. Especially one who was unlike any woman the world had seen.
  74. The King's Man
    The film oscillates, rather awkwardly, between grandiose cartoon heroics and a kind of dutiful flatness.
    • 98 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Wild Bunch
    Film at 145 minutes is far over-length, and should be tightened extensively, particularly in first half. After a bang-up and exciting opening, it appears that scripters lost sight of their narrative to drag in Mexican songs, dancing and way of life, plus an overage of dialog, to the detriment of action.
  76. Return of the Living Dead III
    A pedestrian and gruesome, but never really scary, story of how the undead zombies interact with the living.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child
    Unfortunately, Aussie helmer Stephen Hopkins adopts a music-video approach, delaying the boring exposition for several reels and usually cutting away from climaxes to destroy much of the film’s impact. Acting is highly variable. Saving grace is the series of spectacular special effects set pieces featuring fanciful makeup, mattes, stopmotion animation and opticals.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Damien: Omen II
    Alas, Little Orphan Damien, lucky enough to be taken in by a rich uncle after bumping off his first pair of foster parents, can’t resist killing the second set, too, along with assorted friends of the family. Damien is obviously wearing out his welcome.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Piranha
    This is one film where the fish win.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Son of Kong
    This is the sequel to and wash-up of the King Kong theme, consisting of salvaged remnants from the original production and rating as fair entertainment.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Psycho III
    A few amusing little notions are streched to the point of diminishing returns in Psycho III.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Night of the Living Dead
    The story faithfully follows the original except for the bonehead decision to replace the ending with a ‘meaningful’ twist that reeks of pretentiousness.
  83. The Curse of La Llorona
    An efficiently formulaic shocker.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Hellbound: Hellraiser II
    Hellraiser II is a maggotty carnival of mayhem, mutation and dismemberment, awash in blood and recommended only for those who thrive on such junk.
  85. Bikini Moon
    Dubbed “a documentary about a fairytale,” Manchevski’s film leaps around in time before eventually indulging in some magic realism, but it’s most compelling when simply fixating on Rashad, who makes Bikini at once wounded and tough, conniving and kind, desperate and volatile.
  86. Miss Bala
    Miss Bala no longer serves as a critique of a system that might allow innocent people to get caught in the crossfire of the drug war, but as the kick-ass origin story for a new kind of action hero.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Rescuers Down Under
    This sort-of sequel to the 1977 hit The Rescuers boasts reasonably solid production values and fine character voices. Too bad they're set against such a mediocre story that adults may duck.
  88. Isn't It Romantic
    While there’s virtually no risk that “Isn’t It Romantic” will make you to love your favorite rom-coms any less, Strauss-Schulson hasn’t figured out how to have his cake and eat it, too — to look down on the very confection he’s so busy peddling.
  89. Postcards from London
    Pretty but hollow, Postcards From London isn’t quite clever enough to get away with being this deeply frivolous. It exudes a sense of high amusement at itself but doesn’t make that satisfaction so easy to share.
  90. Weightless
    The result is artful (and well-acted) enough to intrigue, yet underdeveloped enough in the writing to frustrate. Not the least frustrating thing here is that Nivola gives a serious, hardworking performance in a role that nonetheless remains more opaque than many past ones in which he’s had a fraction of the screen time.
  91. Bird Box
    Heisserer’s script endeavors to give Bullock a rich psychological backstory to play — something to do with her reluctance to accept motherhood and the redemption she experiences in accepting that role — and the wonderfully self-reliant actress plays that arc earnestly enough. But there’s no getting around that this is a monster movie without a monster.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Rough Cut
    Rough Cut emerges as an undistinctive, frothy romantic comedy that will charm a few and probably miss the eye of many.
  93. Asher
    That blend of action genre content and character study is a comfortable mix for Perlman, even if Asher doesn’t quite have the stuff to be truly memorable on either count.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Semi-Tough
    Semi-Tough begins as a bawdy and lively romantic comedy about slap happy pro football players, then slows down to a too-inside putdown of contemporary self-help programs.
    • 93 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Magnificent Ambersons
    This film hasn't a single moment of contrast; it piles on and on a tale of woe, but without once striking at least a true chord of sentimentality.
  96. The Frighteners
    Story was originally conceived as an episode of Tales From the Crypt, and that is perhaps what it should have remained, as the thinness of the conceit shows throughout, painfully so in the first half.
  97. Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché
    The enterprise would be something to celebrate if the movie itself weren’t so flawed, not just in scholarly terms but in her mania for visualizing seemingly every phone call she made in the hunt for Guy-Blaché material. Sadly, all these problems overwhelm Green’s noteworthy success in tracking down previously unknown documents and photos.
  98. The Cleaners
    The Cleaners has the effect of scanning three dozen grim tweets. There’s not much to latch onto besides an overwhelming sense of helplessness; like the internet itself, it’s crowded with opinions but lacking in intimacy.
  99. Back Roads
    It now takes more than it once did to shock us, and Back Roads wants to do just that, but the effect, in this case, is more audacious than it is convincing.
  100. The Vanishing
    Falling between the stools of thriller and drama, this speculative tale grows steadily less satisfying, despite a handsome look and a strong cast.
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