Variety's Scores

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For 17,779 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: 9,134 out of 17779
  2. Mixed: 7,009 out of 17779
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17779
17779 movie reviews
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  1. Out of the Dark
    The lead actors are solid as usual, but you can feel them all knocking their heads against the low ceiling of material that’s afraid to take any risks — playing it so safe that the film ends up lacking anything in the way of real personality, scares or plot surprises.
  2. Last Knights
    Last Knights is a fairly ludicrous mystery and a so-so action movie, but it’s nonetheless been constructed with an earnest attention to detail that shouldn’t be taken for granted.
  3. Young Bodies Heal Quickly
    One part inspiration to two parts exasperation, Andrew T. Betzer’s debut feature, Young Bodies Heal Quickly, is an initially arresting road trip for some off-the-wall characters that takes its sweet time going nowhere in particular.
  4. Zombeavers
    Zombeavers is not a total wash, and seen at night, under the right combination of low expectations and controlled substances, it may even seem better than it really is.
  5. Straight Outta Tompkins
    Benson displays more energy and assurance behind the camera than he does in front of it; even still, his tonal command of his own narrative is wobbly at best, employing cynical humor and climactic eruptions of violence to jazz up what is ultimately an overly earnest and predictable cautionary tale.
  6. The Boy
    Despite the assiduous grinding of plot mechanics by William Brent Bell (“The Devil Inside”) and scripter Stacey Menear, the movie never fully distracts its audience from the inherent silliness of its premise...and, as a result, is more likely to elicit laughs and rude remarks rather than screams and rooting interest.
  7. Treading Water
    Emitting the unpleasant stench of over-affectation, Treading Water slaps together its particular peculiarities with such randomness, it’s as if the film were conceived from blindly throwing disparate elements at the wall.
  8. After the Ball
    This basic-cable-quality farce is as unobjectionable as it is unmemorable.
  9. The Girl Is in Trouble
    A textbook noir premise gets an overamped and undercompelling treatment in The Girl Is in Trouble.
  10. Monsters: Dark Continent
    Though the sequel features far more footage of the giant beasts, including a spectacular nighttime scene in which one of the bioluminescent creatures ejects phosphorescent spores into the desert sky, the story remains stubbornly focused on relatively uninteresting human concerns.
  11. Burnt
    Although John Wells’ dramedy is energized by its mouth-watering montages and an unsurprisingly fierce lead turn from Cooper, Steven Knight’s script pours on the acid but holds the depth, forcing its fine actors (including Sienna Miller and Daniel Bruhl) to function less as an ensemble than as a motley sort of intervention group.
  12. Robot Overlords
    Even with such generic scripting, however, there’s a genial, palpably enthusiastic chemistry between the four young, capable stars that gives their hijinks a bit of bounce.
  13. Survivor
    A sturdy wrong-woman thriller that feels grotesque in its citations of 9/11 and other intimations of real-world import, but also steals a few good moves from “North by Northwest” and “The Fugitive” for a solid middle section.
  14. Living in the Age of Airplanes
    In its avoidance of all ambiguity, this giant-screen opus ultimately boils down to a rhapsodic endorsement of the tourism and shopping industries.
  15. 7 Chinese Brothers
    “Brothers'” script hardly provides enough to hang a short on.
  16. 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.
  17. The Adderall Diaries
    Franco’s cultivated impenetrability makes for a pain-ridden but peculiarly passionless experience, with multiple clashing subplots — on such insufficiently explored themes as parental abuse, uxoricide and masochism — obstructing an already opaque character study.
  18. Fifty Shades Freed
    Departing only incidentally from E.L. James’s trashy tome, and making up for any short cuts with extra set dressing, this is brochure cinema of the most profuse order, selling its audience more on a lifestyle than on any of the lives inside it.
  19. Strangerland
    Too much of Strangerland simply feels dodgy and overdetermined, veering between art-film pretensions and melodramatic gestures, and governed by ambitions that outstrip the filmmakers’ abilities.
  20. The Ocean of Helena Lee
    This plotless reverie is easy to admire texturally, including an original soundtrack composed with the helmer’s spouse, singer-songwriter Maria McKee. But despite those virtues, and the pic’s determinedly idiosyncratic take on autobiographically inspired material, most viewers will find the script’s narrative shapelessness and pretentiously poetic dialogue hard to take.
  21. The 33
    In broad strokes, the events that unfold are undeniably riveting.... The trouble is, The 33 only knows broad strokes. Lacking any specific angle on the ordeal, the filmmakers give the once-over-lightly treatment to every aspect of it, which ensures that none of them will be properly served.
  22. My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2
    Every bit as sitcom-ish and saccharine as its predecessor, but considerably less distinctive.
  23. Sunset Edge
    However oblique it remains, Sunset Edge feels like the work of curious filmmakers, searching for intangible truths in sights of people exploring both a past that’s been forgotten by most, and a present that can’t seem to quite move forward in any meaningful, appreciable way.
  24. Patch Town
    Generally speaking, Goodwill doesn’t seem to know how to direct his cast, focusing more on big-picture details like the look and feel of the film. That makes for a frightfully uneven mix of acting styles, many of which are all too obviously from first-timers.
  25. The Equalizer 2
    Judging by the ponderous tone and pace, Fuqua thinks he’s making high art (likely aspiring to something existential like Jean-Pierre Melville’s “Le Samouraï”), but this is a grisly exploitation movie at best.
  26. The Runner
    The Runner doesn’t lack for drama, but the characters are so thinly and predictably drawn, and the movie’s supposed insights into the art of political compromise so banal, that nothing catches fire.
  27. The Strongest Man
    Thinly amusing, The Strongest Man stretches a short’s worth of potentially funny ideas to feature length, where they slowly and surely lead nowhere in particular.
  28. Mateo
    It’s easy to see what drew filmmaker Aaron I. Naar to his eponymous subject in Mateo, but it’s almost impossible to share his enthusiasm or even feel much sympathy for a figure who, for a good chunk of this sluggish yet disconcerting documentary, comes across as a genuinely creepy person.
  29. When Animals Dream
    When Animals Dream lacks peasants bearing flaming torches to hunt down Frankenstein’s monster outside the terrorized village. But it also lacks the depth to avoid seeming just as corny, albeit in a dressed-up, self-consciously important way.
  30. Lucky Stiff
    Another theater adaptation that remains stuck to the boards, despite the considerable talent and energy on tap..... equal parts diverting and strained, most likely to please the same niche audiences who have given the material a modest stage shelf life for the last quarter-century.
  31. Frank the Bastard
    Coley’s screenplay contains a few witty references and sharp one-liners, but they often work at cross-purposes with the overall narrative drive, drawing scenes out and stretching believability needlessly.
  32. Stonewall
    Stonewall is no disaster, and to all those waiting to tear it apart, perhaps the best that can be said is that Emmerich’s film is neither as bad nor as insensitive as predicted, though it’s politics certainly are problematic.
  33. One & Two
    There are simply too many loose ends to distract us, and too much empty air in which audiences can’t help but poke holes.
  34. Zipper
    Tawdry but cripplingly self-serious, the second feature from Mora Stephens (a full decade after her little-seen, also politically themed debut “Conventioneers”) benefits from Patrick Wilson’s committed star turn.
  35. Amnesiac
    Helmer Michael Polish and his spouse-star, Kate Bosworth, were reportedly attracted to the project for the change-of-pace role it afforded her. But even beyond its sketchy screenplay, the pic’s main problem is that Bosworth lacks the villainous authority required to make Mike Le and Amy Kolquist’s tricky if undercooked screenplay work.
  36. Air
    This first feature for videogame designer/writer Christian Cantamessa has an intriguing premise and two capable stars, none of which is utilized as memorably as one might hope.
  37. Freeheld
    Despite a credible and moving love story driven by strong performances from Julianne Moore and Ellen Page, director Peter Sollett’s film is an oppressively worthy and self-satisfied inspirational vehicle that views its story primarily as a series of teachable moments.
  38. The Perfect Guy
    Despite an appealing trio of leads, it seems likely to entice only those with an unquenchable thirst for thriller cliches.
  39. Contracted: Phase II
    The short running time means there’s nary a dull moment, but also that no new (or even old) ideas get explored in more than drive-by fashion, the occasion pause for gore aside.
  40. Goon: Last of the Enforcers
    Bloopers under the closing credits reveal how much improvisation was involved here — and how that’s a poor substitute for a good script, no matter how talented the cast.
  41. Underworld: Blood Wars
    There’s a story, and a mythology, and a prestige actress who knows how to push moodiness to the point that, in this series, it’s just about her only mood, but none of it, in the end, gets in the way of the splatter.
  42. Shanghai
    This derivative, ploddingly plotted WWII-set thriller goes through all the motions of an old-school wartime spy pic with plenty of technical competence but zero panache.
  43. Ashby
    McNamara’s second directorial feature (following 2003’s Aussie “The Rage in Placid Lake,” another teenage-misfits-make-good comedy) winds up a poorly mixed bowl of mismatched ingredients that is nonetheless tepidly, forgettably digestible.
  44. Miss You Already
    Helmer Catherine Hardwicke (“Twilight,” “Thirteen”) brings energy and craft to screenwriter-thesp Morwenna Banks’ maudlin, occasionally shameless script.
  45. The Park Bench
    Hayden and Perez do their best to generate sweetness and spark, but the obstacles separating these characters are as contrived as the cliches that animate them.
  46. Scoob!
    This attractive but calculated attempt to connect 'Scooby-Doo' to other Hanna-Barbera characters abandons the show's fun teen-detective format.
  47. Memories of the Sword
    A visually arresting but vacuous, instantly forgettable period martial-arts romance.
  48. A Sinner in Mecca
    Sensationalizing every moment of his hajj (pilgrimage) while calling attention to his devotion, the helmer comes across as far too pleased with himself, though countering the demonization of Islam is a necessary goal.
  49. Jack Reacher: Never Go Back
    Zwick barely manages to tickle our adrenaline, waiting till the climactic showdown amid a New Orleans Halloween parade to deliver a sequence that could legitimately register as memorable.
  50. The Beauty Inside
    The film reaches a narrative and emotional impasse once it gets past the will-they-or-won’t-they stage.
  51. I Saw the Light
    Despite a thoroughly committed, impressive performance from Tom Hiddleston as Williams (and an even better one from Elizabeth Olsen as his first wife, Audrey), the film tackles the life of one of the 20th century’s most seminal musicians with all the passion of a stenographer, making for a dull, unfocused slog through what should have been an effortlessly cinematic story.
  52. Mr. Right
    This peculiar high-danger romance — which plays like watered-down Elmore Leonard or imitation Tarantino — is a risky retro back-step for an up-and-coming young screenwriter with such hip credits as “Chronicle” and “American Ultra” to his name.
  53. Therapy for a Vampire
    If a diagram were the same thing as a script, then Therapy for a Vampire might be a smashingly silly lark. But as written and directed by Daniel Ruehl, the film is a blueprint of mild anemic kitsch.
  54. Kill Your Friends
    The film has its razor-sharp grace notes and a seductive stylishness, neither of which can override its relentlessly adolescent worldview.
  55. The World of Kanako
    While there’s something compelling about an antihero whose obsession is poised on the razor’s edge between love and hate, The World of Kanako buries it in grinding, agitated repetition.
  56. The Sound and the Fury
    The Sound and the Fury is certainly a folly, failing to capture the weird, entrancing, often maddening ambiance of the great writer’s elliptical masterpiece, and its surfeit of half-baked film-student flourishes and needless cameos occasionally give it an amateur-hour feel.
  57. Uncle Nick
    Even at a brisk 81 minutes, this indie can barely sustain its boozy comedic buzz.
  58. MI-5
    Bharat Nalluri’s chrome-colored thriller plays less as an organic extension of the series’ universe than an all-purpose genre piece nominally tailored to fit the “Spooks” franchise — not to mention the star quality of previously unaffiliated leading man Kit Harington.
  59. The Girl King
    It’s hectic, unsubtle, borderline cartoonish.
  60. Martyrs (2008)
    French splatterfest Martyrs offers a few genuine scares early on, but they're quickly washed away by all the blood tossed around by writer-director Pascal Laugier.
  61. Keanu
    An initially amusing but fatally overstretched action-comedy that marks a lamer-than-expected big-screen outing for Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele.
  62. King Arthur: Legend of the Sword
    Ultimately, “King Arthur” is just a loud, obnoxious parade of flashy set pieces, as one visually busy, belligerent action scene after another marches by, each making less sense than the last, but all intended to overwhelm.
  63. The Snowman
    There’s a lot happening on the surface of Alfredson’s perplexing winter wonder-why, but considerably less going on inside.
  64. The Emoji Movie
    There have been worse ideas, but in this case the execution isn’t good enough to bring the notion of an emoji movie to funky, surprising life.
  65. Pee-wee's Big Holiday
    The biggest surprise, frankly, might be that the funniest person here is frequently Manganiello. Indeed, the mere visual juxtaposition of the towering “Magic Mike” star and Reubens in the same frame together is practically a special effect in itself.
  66. The Perfect Match
    An attractive and appealing cast helps this formulaic pablum go down easy, but the genial tone buffs the edge out of every element.
  67. Antarctica: Ice and Sky
    A colossally overproduced white elephant of a movie that obfuscates both its own protagonist and his important message with layer upon layer of unnecessary “style.”
  68. Miracles from Heaven
    In a welcome gender reversal from the father-son dynamic of “Heaven Is for Real,” Garner and Rogers deliver fully committed performances that credibly convey the physical and mental anguish endured by sick children and their caregivers.
  69. The Free World
    [A] well-meaning, well-acted but otherwise clumsily executed parable about second chances.
  70. Fast X
    Leterrier’s bad with story but reasonably strong on the action front. Characters are constantly jumping in and out of speeding vehicles in these movies, and Leterrier’s job here must have felt somewhat similar, clambering aboard the juggernaut that is the “Fast” franchise in full steam.
  71. A Quiet Passion
    [Davies'] most mannered and least fulfilling work to date, A Quiet Passion boasts meticulous craft and ornate verbiage in abundance, but confines Cynthia Nixon’s melancholia-stricken performance as arguably America’s greatest poet in an emotional straitjacket of variously arch storytelling tones.
  72. Baskin
    Baskin becomes something of a monotonous dirge. Diverting to an extent, the film’s horrors aren’t shocking or distinctive enough, its surreal atmospherics not quite strong enough to cover for the sketchy script.
  73. 11 Minutes
    Given how much of 11 Minutes takes place in the glibly heightened realm of the Hollywood-molded actioner, its various fragments are rather short on intrigue, whether considered alone or in simmering context.
  74. The Predator
    All of this is silly, borderline senseless, lively, and without any real rooting value at all. The supposedly lovable misfits here aren’t, no matter how the cast members feign hilarity at their potty-mouthing. Not that it matters — because nothing does in this expensive toy of a film, which ultimately works on the level of a disco ball. It’s shiny, it moves, and is accompanied by much noise.
  75. Nina
    Even when not fighting with her makeup, Saldana’s Simone rarely feels fully formed.
  76. A Haunting in Cawdor
    Though never outright dull, A Haunting in Cawdor manages to provide few incidents of genuine interest while leaving potentially rewarding character and thematic elements unexplored.
  77. Boo! A Madea Halloween
    It’s another of Perry’s raucous and slovenly comedies of responsibility, which means that its heart is in a very old — and right — place. If only a message that was this solid equalled solid laughs.
  78. Boris Without Béatrice
    A brittle, no-joke comedy of unchecked privilege that maintains the tone of social satire without ever alighting on a specific target.
  79. Special Correspondents
    Gervais’ tale is primarily consumed with middle-of-the-road squabbling between its headliners, whose yin-yang chemistry never results in more than a few chuckle-worthy bon mots.
  80. Puerto Ricans in Paris
    Luis Guzmán and Edgar Garcia give the project much more than it ever gives them, sustaining audience interest and generating mild amusement more or less through sheer force of will as they amble through a threadbare plot.
  81. King Cobra
    King Cobra is all smut and no soul, a tacky, superficially titillating reunion between Franco and “I Am Michael” director Justin Kelly.
  82. When the Bough Breaks
    The presence of a predominantly African-American cast arguably is the only distinguishing characteristic of this by-the-numbers thriller.
  83. The Duel
    The Duel promises a battle of wits and wills, then turns into a violent grab-bag. But it does make you want to see Woody Harrelson get another movie worthy of his leering bald Nietzschean bravura.
  84. American Pastoral
    Groping for grand tragedy and finding only actorly melodrama, shooting for political contrarianism but landing instead on reactionary conventionalism, American Pastoral is as flat and strangled as its source is furious and expansive.
  85. Dog Eat Dog
    That’s not to say Dog Eat Dog is bereft of interesting choices. Far from it, though its infrequent bursts of gonzo brilliance are all in service of such an uninteresting premise.
  86. From the Land of the Moon
    Of course, Cotillard is your first call if you want an actress to suffer exquisitely, but the issue is her character Gabrielle is essentially a nightmare of self-involvement, whose emotional torture is very difficult to get invested in since she herself has already bought all the shares.
  87. Staying Vertical
    The technical bravura that Guiraudie summoned in “Stranger” — the subtle manipulation of light, weather, shot language, and temporal cunning — now falls by the wayside in a story that lurches from episode to disconnected episode.
  88. Kinatay
    Mendoza strengthens his gift for describing space with inquisitive cameras, but as the helmer’s star rises, his subtlety wanes, resulting in obvious statements made banal by heavy-handed ironies.
  89. To Life
    Given the complexity of everything the characters went through, it’s a shame to witness their lives reduced to a sequence of TV-movie moments.
  90. Traded
    Mostly due to the limp direction by Timothy Woodward Jr., Traded never really offers much in the way of suspense or excitement. But the sporadic outbursts of bloody violence are efficiently rendered.
  91. Adult Life Skills
    For the most part, the film is similarly content to repeat the past, all the way through to its predictable liberating-feel-good wrap-up.
  92. Ants on a Shrimp
    Dutch helmer Maurice Dekkers devotes most of his film to the celebrity chef’s extensive foraging, while his abstemious staff harps on about the onerous pursuit of perfection; one crucial missing ingredient, however, is the joy of eating or cooking.
  93. Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV
    Like many a poorly-plotted video game, “Kingsglaive” manages to skate by for a while on the sheer splendor of its visuals.
  94. Yarn
    It’s less than the sum of its attractive parts, with scant overall insight or weight. Like an old handmade sweater, this is a movie that might unravel too easily if you gave any single element a hard tug.
  95. The 9th Life of Louis Drax
    For Aja, who has demonstrated an appetite for truly twisted material in the past, it all adds up to a disappointingly tame outing.
  96. Rebirth
    The pitfall of a tantalizing set-up is that it requires a sterling payoff to match — a recipe for disappointment born out by Rebirth, whose premise-establishing early passages lead only to underwhelming revelations.
  97. For the Plasma
    Only faintly touching upon notions of intuitive collaboration and inspiration, For the Plasma wanders about as if it’s in a fog, ultimately to the point of pointlessness.
  98. Rupture
    This is a plot that feels lazily reverse-engineered from a collection of disparate, pre-existing scenes and elements, rather like one of those cooking shows where contestants are given a selection of random ingredients and forced to come up with a meal.
  99. Bad Santa 2
    It’s essentially a hangout movie populated exclusively with some of the worst people imaginable, rarely with any sort of solid scene-setting or straight-men to provide context.
  100. Level Up
    As it episodically flirts with absurdism, black comedy, and other offbeat flavors, Level Up seems to be simply trying on different attitudes without owning them.
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