Variety's Scores

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For 17,847 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: 9,172 out of 17847
  2. Mixed: 7,036 out of 17847
  3. Negative: 1,639 out of 17847
17847 movie reviews
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  1. Little Odessa
    A highly charged, coolly assured directorial bow graced by riveting work from a trio of accomplished leads, Little Odessa immediately etches a firm place on the map for 25-year-old New York newcomer James Gray.
  2. Crimson Tide
    While skillfully crafted to maximize visual excitement and dramatic fireworks through the first hour, relentlessly paced pic sports a fancy new package for a rather shopworn doomsday scenario that unravels to increasingly familiar effect as the finale breathlessly approaches.
  3. Wild Reeds
    As always, Techine is excellent at exploring “tiny” personal flashes that assume larger meaning when placed against the broader historical context.
  4. Crumb
    A frank, intimate look at a phenomenal popular artist and his extraordinarily dysfunctional family, Crumb is an excellent countercultural documentary.
  5. The Underneath
    On its most successful level, the film represents a slashing dramatic essay on the dismaying human tendency not to accept full responsibility for one's actions.
  6. Village of the Damned
    Awful scripting and an unimaginative approach to re-imagining material's potential have left Universal with a theatrical in-and-outer on its hands.
  7. Friday
    Rather like a cross between "Up in Smoke" and an episode of "The Jeffersons, Friday is a crudely made, sometimes funny bit of porchfront humor from the 'hood.
  8. While You Were Sleeping
    Director Jon Turteltaub has a smooth style suited to classic farce and knows just how to pace the material to accentuate the positive.
  9. 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.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Swimming with Sharks
    Within its very limited range, pic has verve, a fine control of tone and a stylish look given its low budget and three-week sked. Spacey dominates, but Whaley makes a convincing transition from goody-goody to icy insider, and Forbes manages well despite being forced to flip-flop on command between sarcastic bitchiness and softer intimacy.
  11. Kiss of Death
    A very loose and contemporized remake of one of the more celebrated late '40s films noir, Kiss of Death is a crackling thriller that feels unusually attuned to its lowlife characters.
  12. Stuart Saves His Family
    This feeble comedy isn't the worst pic ever to be spun off from a "Saturday Night Live" sketch --"It's Pat!" maintains a firm grip on that dubious distinction -- but it is woefully lacking in the humor and charm needed to attract mainstream audiences.
  13. Bad Boys
    Crucially, the teaming of standup favorite and "Martin" star Lawrence and "Fresh Prince" Smith clicks from the outset, with both right at home handling action and comedy on the bigscreen. Even when it's not particularly funny, their interplay is engaging, and their lively, raucous personalities keep the proceedings punchy and watchable for the slightly overlong running time.
  14. Rob Roy
    This handsome, not unappealing look at a Scottish legend of nearly 300 years ago is too solemn, wooden and dour for its own good, and feels oddly of another era.
  15. 3 Ninjas Knuckle Up
    There’s barely enough plot for a half-hour episode of a weekly TV series spinoff. And there’s even less here in terms of acting, writing and filmmaking polish to appeal to anyone over the age of 10.
  16. A Goofy Movie
    Brightly drawn, fast-moving and mercifully short, efficient effort is a male bonding saga that hinges upon the fears of teenage pooch Max that he’ll grow up to be just as goofy as Dad.
  17. Jefferson in Paris
    This decorous look at the great man's five years as ambassador to France in the period leading up to the French Revolution touches upon much significant history, incident and emotion but, ironically, lacks the intrigue and drama of great fiction.
  18. Tommy Boy
    Chris Farley's first star turn is loaded with fat jokes, excrement gags and other banality, but also offers more goofy charm than most of its recent brethren -- which is to say, not much.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Tank Girl
    A classic case of kitchen-sink filmmaking, in which the principals have thrown everything into the stew, hoping enough will stick to the audience...What’s missing from the mix is an engaging story to bind together its intriguing bits. And Lori Petty as Tank Girl, aka Rachel Buck, has the spunk but, sadly, not the heart of the post-apocalyptic heroine.
  20. Dolores Claiborne
    Deftly cutting between the past and the present, director Taylor Hackford manages to establish a compelling mood and pace even though the pic lacks a thriller's true "Aha!" moment
  21. Major Payne
    It’s relatively foolproof light entertainment, undone only when it strays too far into the absurd or wears the mantle of Wayans’ comedy persona.
  22. Exotica
    There's demonstrable growth in his visual and narrative skills here but the writer/director isn't likely to expand his audience with the sometimes oblique, unnerving saga of interwoven lives whose paths cross with alternately comic and tragic results.
  23. Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh
    The script is constructed too much like a novel, which slows the pace of the early, establishing sections. Director Bill Condon works too hard to tie all the plot strands into a neat bow.
  24. Circle of Friends
    Naturally charming without being beautiful, Driver brings extraordinary intensity and tenderness to a role that easily could have become sappy.
  25. The World of Jacques Demy
    The World of Jacques Demy is a major addition to films about filmmakers, and achieves its purpose in making the viewer immediately want to see the key films again.
  26. Muriel's Wedding
    Most of the action is played for broad laughs, and Hogan demonstrates the ability to generate them, even if the humor is very base and often cruel, making fun of people's looks and ineptitude.
  27. Outbreak
    Whether scarily charting the spread of the virus or choreographing a cat-and-mouse chase of choppers above a winding riverbed, Petersen demonstrates a smooth stylistic savvy that keeps the film highly absorbing from beginning to end.
    • 8 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    The Mangler
    With its clunky narrative and lack of solid scares or gory effusions until the obligatory all-stops-out climax, pic ends up with little to excite fans of “Elm Street”-style shockers or Hooper’s own “Poltergeist.”
  29. Once Were Warriors
    Pic deserves nurturing, because it’s one of the best to emerge from New Zealand in quite a while. Tamahori, working from Riwia Brown’s intelligent script, has done a marvelous job in depicting the day-to-day horror of the Heke family, which is held together only by its women, the sorely tried Beth and her eldest daughter, 16-year-old Grace.
  30. The Brady Bunch Movie
    Part homage, part spoof, the deft balancing act is a clever adaptation -- albeit culled from less than pedigreed source material.
  31. Heavyweights
    There's never been a remotely significant summer camp film, and Disney's Heavyweights does nothing to advance the genre. Far worse, this yarn about an adolescent fat farm is shameful in its execution and content.
  32. Just Cause
    The flip-flops, coincidences, surprising disclosures, far-fetched happenings, TV-style chases and illogically protracted confrontations come flying virtually all at once, obliterating the plausible character work and making the film feel like a hundred others.
  33. Billy Madison
    There are a few bursts of sheer, irresistible idiocy -- along the lines of "Wayne's World" or even "Pee-wee's Big Adventure"-- but not enough to sustain the more arid stretches.
  34. Shallow Grave
    Shallow Grave, a tar-black comedy that zings along on a wave of visual and scripting inventiveness.
  35. Boys on the Side
    Yet even with those slightly different chords, Ross manages to pluck the right heartstrings, in the process delivering a grade-A tear-jerker.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    In the Mouth of Madness
    While the pic doesn't really have meaty characters, the presence of Neill, Carmen, Heston and Prochnow lends an air of credibility that heightens the proceedings. The film is also blessed with an arsenal of special effects that work with tinker-toy precision.
  37. The Secret of Roan Inish
    John Sayles’ latest marks his entry into family-pic terrain, a crossing that draws pleasant but unexciting results.
  38. Before Sunrise
    While pic remains sympathetic and appealing, the endless dialogue and repetitive settings become wearing through the couple's one long night together, and the artifice of the premise may contribute to the difficulty the film has in coming to romantic life.
    • 28 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Highlander: The Final Dimension
    An unbelievably trashy meltdown of the tartan warrior franchise, Highlander III checks in as a breakneck, roller-coaster genre ride that’s brainless fodder for undiscriminating auds.
  40. Legends of the Fall
    While emotionally intense, it's neither hurried nor charged with false drama. It's also one of the most handsome of recent films, with sterling work by cameraman John Toll and production designer Lilly Kilvert.
  41. Nobody's Fool
    Nobody's Fool is a gentle, flavorsome story of a loose-knit, dysfunctional family whose members essentially include every glimpsed citizen of a small New York town. Fronted by a splendid performance from Paul Newman as a spirited man who has made nothing of his life, Robert Benton's character-driven film is sprinkled with small pleasures; the dramatic developments here don't take place in the noisy, calamitous manner that is customary these days.
  42. Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight
    Mix "Night of the Living Dead" with Sam Raimi's "Evil Dead" movies, then add a hefty dose of "Beavis and Butt-Head"-style silliness, and you have "Tales From the Crypt Presents Demon Knight," a fang-in-cheek horror thriller that likely will please fans and turn off non-devotees.
  43. Ladybird Ladybird
    Though the movie sounds irredeemably depressing on paper, there’s a real warmth to the central relationship that lifts “Ladybird” above similar-sounding exercises in Brit self-loathing.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Madness of King George
    The effective strategy of Bennett, who adapted his 1991 play for the screen, is to demythologize the members of the royal family without trivializing their lives. Hawthorne brings to his complex part a strong screen presence, light self-mockery and pathos that set divergent moods throughout the film.
  45. Ready to Wear (Prêt-à-Porter)
    While the surfaces, backgrounds and sense of constant motion are authentic to their tinselly cores, what goes on among the fictional participants resembles gag-reliant improv routines that haven’t been entirely worked out.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    I.Q.
    A paean to movies past, I.Q. recalls the style and attitude of a bygone era while retaining a contemporary spirit and polish. The material provides Robbins with the kind of likable, charismatic role that gained him early recognition.
  47. The Jungle Book
    A full-throttled, technically superb adventure — with more bite than most Disney live-action fare — that offers some winning moments but, ultimately, isn’t as involving as it needs to be.
  48. Death and the Maiden
    As vivid and suspenseful as Roman Polanski has made this claustrophobic tale of a torture victim turning the tables on her putative tormentor, one is still left with a film in which each character represents a mouthpiece for an ideology.
  49. Nell
    A cocoon of somber self-seriousness envelopes some fine performances and intelligent craftsmanship in Nell.
  50. Street Fighter
    Avid users of the videogame and Van Damme’s loyal fans may embrace the film out of curiosity, but this uninvolving movie will fail to achieve the results of the star’s last outings.
  51. A Man of No Importance
    Despite fine work from his actors and smooth technical polish, the more provocative elements of the tale arise awkwardly and grate against the early section's almost whimsical nature.
  52. Little Women
    This handsomely produced period piece is easily the most emotionally effective bigscreen melodrama since "The Joy Luck Club," as well as the most intelligent.
  53. Richie Rich
    Decently crafted but oddly charmless.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Dumb and Dumber
    A flat-out celebration of stupidity, bodily functions and pratfalls. Yet the wholeheartedness of this descent into crude and rude humor is so good-natured and precise that it's hard not to partake in the guilty pleasures of the exercise.
  55. Disclosure
    Disclosure is polite pulp fiction, a reasonable rendition of potentially risible material. This lavishly appointed screen version of Michael Crichton's page-turner about sexual harassment and corporate power has what it takes to deliver plenty of year-end bounty into Warner Bros.' coffers, although it might have been even more commercial had it been more shamelessly trashy.
  56. Cobb
    Audiences will be confused by what the picture is not. It’s not really about Cobb or baseball or a bygone era. It’s neither character study nor historic drama. It’s ambitious but oblique and unfocused, and only the most generous of viewers will forgive its numerous lapses and vagaries. The film’s prospects of breaking out of a specialized niche are remote.
  57. Trapped in Paradise
    An agreeable Middle American comedy intent upon reviving oldfashioned virtues, George Gallo's second feature doesn't serve up the big yocks needed to make it a breakout sleeper.
  58. Three Colors: Red
    Red, the beautifully spun and splendidly acted tale of a young model’s decisive encounter with a retired judge, is another deft, deeply affecting variation on Krzysztof Kieslowski’s recurring theme that people are interconnected in ways they can barely fathom. If it’s true — as the helmer has announced — that this opus will be his last foray into film directing, Kieslowski retires at a formal and philosophical peak.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Junior
    What separates this straightforward chuckler from the pack is its shrewd reliance on character rather than plot, and that human dimension proves surprisingly poignant.
  60. Love and a .45
    What holds the film back, however, in addition to its less than compelling schema and central relationship, is its utter lack of visual style. At a time when most pictures feature form almost at the expense of content, this one has an utterly undesigned look that’s virtually distinctive in its blandness.
  61. The Professional
    Widescreen lensing favors tight close-ups, and multiple shoot-'em-ups are edited with panache.
  62. Star Trek: Generations
    It may not "boldly go where no one has gone before," but Star Trek Generations has enough verve, imagination and familiarity to satisfy three decades' worth of Trekkers raised on several incarnations of the television skein. [14 Nov. 1994, p.47]
    • Variety
  63. The Swan Princess
    Technically impressive but rather flat and languid storywise, Richard Rich's first feature since leaving Disney only serves to reinforce the stranglehold his old studio still has on the animation market. While a perfectly serviceable confection for small fry, "The Swan Princess" will likely have its neck wrung commercially by all the high-profile competition aimed at the children's/family market this holiday season.
  64. Heavenly Creatures
    An exhilarating retelling of a 1950s tabloid murder, it combines original vision, a drop-dead command of the medium and a successful marriage between a dazzling, kinetic techno-show and a complex, credible portrait of the out-of-control relationship between the crime’s two schoolgirl perpetrators.
  65. Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles
    But the film also has its turgid, dialogue-heavy stretches, and the leading performances, if acceptable, are not everything they needed to be to fully flesh out these elegant immortals.
  66. The Santa Clause
    This is a hip, likable spin on the seasonal icon told with a deft mixture of comedy and sentimentality.
  67. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
    Far from the definitive version of the tale, this lavish but overwrought melodrama is in many ways less compelling than even a recent made-for-cable movie and a 1973 miniseries starring Michael Sarrazin that was less faithful to the source material.
  68. Double Dragon
    Even kids won't get much of a kick out of this high-energy, low-IQ futuristic slugfest, which plays down to, and in many ways, below the level of some Saturday-morning cartoons.
  69. Stargate
    What this juvenile adventure has in spades is special effects and picturesque locations. What it lacks is an emotional link to make the Saturday afternoon he-man posturing palatable, or at least bearable.
  70. The Last Seduction
    Pacing is on the button, and the film moves inexorably, without any flat moments, toward the suspenseful, if morally indefensible, finale.
  71. Love Affair
    A film of gorgeous surfaces and negligible emotional resonance, this third rendition of a perennial sentimental favorite is easy on the eyes and has its share of beguiling moments in the early going, but crucially lacks a compelling climax and any sense of urgency in its storytelling.
  72. Clerks
    A randy, irreverent, slice-of-life no-budgeter that's played for laughs and gets them.
    • 95 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Pulp Fiction
    A spectacularly entertaining piece of pop culture, Pulp Fiction is the "American Graffiti" of violent crime pictures.
    • Variety
  74. Hoop Dreams
    A prodigious achievement that conveys the fabric of modern American life, aspirations and incidentally, sports, in close-up and at length, Hoop Dreams is a documentary slam dunk.
  75. Wes Craven's New Nightmare
    An ingeniously conceived and devilishly clever opus.
  76. Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation
    Manages the difficult feat of being genuinely scary and sharply self-satirical all at once.
  77. See How They Fall
    See How They Fall, a deft interlocking tale of two small-time hoods and an unlikely avenger, is morally ambiguous and dosed with irony in the noir tradition. Dark, compelling helming debut by veteran scripter Jacques Audiard should do nicely at Gallic wickets and rack up healthy tube sales.
  78. Dear Diary
    Offering intimate self-exposure, Moretti solders his bond with fortysomethings who have lived through years of political disenchantment.
  79. The River Wild
    A tense, sharply made thriller about a family held hostage during a river rafting vacation.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Ed Wood
    Always engaging to watch and often dazzling in its imagination and technique, picture is also a bit distended, and lacking in weight at its center.
  81. Timecop
    For the most part, Hyams’ lackluster direction and the repetitive quality of the action sequences squander an intriguing premise and impressive production design, leaving few moments that elicit the sort of “Wow!” response such fare needs in order to prosper.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The New Age
    At one point in The New Age, the terminally stylish post-yuppie couple played by Peter Weller and Judy Davis put on their fanciest threads in order to commit double suicide, but can't go through with it. Like them, Michael Tolkin's film gets all dressed up but doesn't quite know where to go.
  83. Quiz Show
    Robert Redford's handsome, smartly constructed new film stands likely to capture the imagination of the educated, culturally inclined public.
  84. 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.
  85. 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.
  86. What Happened Was...
    Off-Broadway actor Tom Noonan, best known for his offbeat, crazy and villainous roles on stage and screen, emerges as a talented writer and director in What Happened Was, an intriguing, often mysterious drama about a date between two lonely misfits.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Arizona Dream
    Impeccably lensed in Alaska, New York and Douglas, Ariz, pic remains stuck in an awkward netherworld between slapstick and pathos.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Fresh
    This portrait of a childhood both incredibly resourceful and tragically deprived is memorable in an era of numerous outstanding preteen performances, and the final image of Fresh cracking, for the first time, from the cumulative pressure of his life is indelible. Performances are terrifically intense from top to bottom. Esposito is particularly riveting as the sinewy drug baron, and Ron Brice also scores as a rival dealer.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Shawshank Redemption
    Central to the film's success is a riveting, unfussy performance from Robbins. Freeman has the showier role, allowing him a grace and dignity that come naturally.
    • Variety
  90. Killing Zoe
    The truly chilling aspect of Killing Zoe is the correlation Avary makes between the gang’s nihilistic attitude and its penchant for violence. He pinpoints the schism in a precise and unnerving manner.
    • 11 Metascore
    • 10 Critic Score
    Police Academy: Mission to Moscow
    An inept, geriatric romp that's for completists only.
  92. It's Pat: The Movie
    Sweeney, who first invented the character while a member of the L.A.-based Groundlings comedy troupe, has almost perversely turned the relatively harmless TV character into a boorish, egotistical creep for the bigscreen. Fans of the “SNL” sketches will be disappointed. Non-fans won’t bother.
  93. Color of Night
    Color of Night is a knuckleheaded thriller that means to get a rise out of audiences, but will merely make them see red. It's confounding and sad that director Richard Rush waited 14 years to make another film after his striking "The Stunt Man," only to choose a script as dismal as this.
  94. The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
    A cheerfully vulgar and bitchy, but essentially warmhearted, road movie with a difference, which boasts an amazing star turn by Terence Stamp as a transsexual, Stephan Elliott's second feature is a lot of fun.
  95. Airheads
    Though it’s little more than a one-joke premise, director Michael Lehmann gets maximum mileage from the low-octane script by Rich Wilkes. Wisely, there’s minimal interest accorded the narrative, with emphasis on the off-kilter characters and their social milieu.
  96. 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.
  97. Clear and Present Danger
    Narrative complexity and momentum make this a true cinematic equivalent of an absorbing page-turner.
  98. Eat Drink Man Woman
    The overall result is a cinematic feast that will have audiences returning for Lee’s next movie meal.
  99. The Mask
    This showcase for the talents of Jim Carrey is adroitly directed, viscerally and visually dynamic and just plain fun.
  100. Barcelona
    After examining the rarefied world of debutante socialites with wit and obvious expertise in “Metropolitan,” Stillman opens up his artistic universe a bit more here and displays an increased ease with filmmaking craf
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