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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    • 41 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Smokey and the Bandit II
    Sally Field tells Burt Reynolds in Smokey and the Bandit II that he is no longer having fun doing what used to come naturally. This stale sequel seems to be evidence of going through the motions for money instead of fun. Ironically, the best part of the film is the unusual end credit sequence, which shows the actors having fun when they blow lines in outtakes.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Octagon
    A wildly incredible but entertaining tale.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Xanadu
    Xanadu is truly a stupendously bad film whose only salvage is the music.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Final Countdown
    As a documentary on the USS Nimitz, The Final Countdown is wonderful. As entertainment, however, it has the feeling of a telepic that strayed onto the big screen. The magnificent production values provided by setting the film on the world's largest nuclear-powered aircraft carrier can't transcend the predictable cleverness of a plot that will seem overly familiar to viewers raised on Twilight Zone reruns.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    The Hunter
    Steve McQueen may have felt that the time had come to revise his persona a bit, but what’s involved here is desecration.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Caddyshack
    This vaguely likable, too-tame comedy falls short of the mark.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Dressed to Kill
    Brian De Palma goes right for the audience jugular in Dressed to Kill, a stylish exercise in ersatz-Hitchcock suspense-terror. Despite some major structural weaknesses, the cannily manipulated combination of mystery, gore and kinky sex adds up to a slick commercial package.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Big Red One
    It's a terrific war yarn, a picture of palpable raw power which manages both Intense intimacy and great scope at the same time. (Review of Original Release)
    • 45 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Prom Night
    Director Paul Lynch seems to capture the spirit of the genre here, but spends a little too much time setting up each murder, thus eliminating some suspense.
    • Variety
    • 68 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Used Cars
    Scripters have provided very little context or societal texture for their unmodulated tale, which disagreeably seeks to find humor in characters’ humiliation, embarrassment and even death. Nonetheless Robert Zemeckis directs with undeniable vigor, if insufficient control and discipline.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Airplane!
    Airplane! is what they used to call a laff-riot. Made by team which turned out Kentucky Fried Movie, this spoof of disaster features beats any other film for sheer number of comic gags.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Blue Lagoon
    Producer-director Randal Kleiser takes the pair through puberty and into parenthood with a charming candor that stresses natural, instinctive sexual development without leering at it. Their romance is enhanced by Nestor Almendros’ exquisite photography (and Basil Poledouris’ score), as is the stunning beauty of the Fiji island where it was filmed.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Stunt Man
    O’Toole is excellent in his best, cleanest performance in years. He smashingly delineates an omnipotent, godlike type whose total control over those around him makes him seem almost unreal.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Blues Brothers
    If Universal had made it 35 years earlier, The Blues Brothers might have been called Abbott & Costello in Soul Town. Level of inspiration is about the same now as then, the humor as basic, the enjoyment as fleeting. But at $30 million, this is a whole new ball-game.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Brubaker
    Even with a sharp cast topped by the star power of Robert Redford, it’s hard to imagine a broad audience wanting to share the two hours of agony in this one, all the way to a downbeat ending with Redford the loser in his righteous battle.
    • 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.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Bronco Billy
    Bronco Billy is a caricature of many of the strong heroes whom Eastwood has played in other pix and he's obviously having a wonderful time with the satire.
    • Variety
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Urban Cowboy
    Director James Bridges has ably captured the atmosphere of one of the most famous chip-kicker hangouts of all: Gilley’s Club on the outskirts of Houston.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Outsider
    The Outsider represents the first attempt to get behind the incessant headlines and into the minds and motives at work on one of the longest-fought terrorist campaigns of the times - through an intelligent fictional story with an Irish setting.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Mountain Men
    It’s a limp feature debut for director Richard Lang.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Shining
    The crazier Nicholson gets, the more idiotic he looks. Shelley Duvall transforms the warm sympathetic wife of the book into a simpering, semi-retarded hysteric.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Carny
    Edgy tale [from a story by Phoebe and Robert Kaylor and Robbie Robertson] of three born outsiders living on a tightrope vividly recalls, both in style and content, the doom-laden films noir of the late 1940s.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back
    A worthy sequel to "Star Wars," equal in both technical mastery and characterization, suffering only from the familiarity with the effects generated in the original and imitated too much by others.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Long Riders
    What’s ultimately missing is a definable point of view which would tie together the myriad events on display and fill in the blanks which Hill has imposed on the action by sapping it of emotional or historical meaning.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Fame
    Alan Parker has come up with an exposure for some of the most talented youngsters seen on screen in years. There isn't a bad performance in the lot. The great strength of the film is in the school scenes -- when it wanders away from the scholastic side as it does with increasing frequency as the overlong feature moves along, it loses dramatic intensity and slows the pace.
    • Variety
    • 49 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Humanoids from the Deep
    Given the nonsensical script and fact that considerable footage was added, editor Mark Goldblatt did a good job in making disparate elements at least hang together and play coherently. James Horner’s score makes it seem that more is happening than actually takes place.
    • 22 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Friday the 13th
    Lowbudget in the worst sense – with no apparent talent or intelligence to offset its technical inadequacies – Friday the 13th has nothing to exploit but its title.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    ffolkes
    The biggest attraction is the banter between Roger Moore and the various types with whom he comes in conflict during his preparations to save a hijacked supply ship.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Tin Drum
    Adheres to the book more than enough not to disappoint avid readers of the bestseller.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Changeling
    A superior haunted house thriller.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Little Darlings
    In his feature debut, director Ronald F. Maxwell isn’t perfect. But he gets several fine scenes from his performers, especially when O’Neal deals with her love interest, when NcNichol deals with her love interest, and best of all, when O’Neal and McNichol finally level with each other.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Coal Miner's Daughter
    A thoughtful, endearing film charting the life of singer Loretta Lynn from the depths of poverty in rural Kentucky to her eventual rise to the title of 'queen of country music'. Thanks in large part to superb performances by Sissy Spacek and Tommy Lee Jones, film [based on Lynn's autobiography, with George Vescey] mostly avoids the sudsy atmosphere common to many showbiz tales.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Lady Vanishes
    A midatlantic mish-mash with some moderately amusing moments but no cohesive style.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Foxes
    Foxes is an ambitious attempt to do a film relating to some of the not-so-acceptable realities among teenagers that ends up delivering far less than it is capable of.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Ninth Configuration
    The Ninth Configuration is an often confusing story concerning the effects of a new 'doctor' on an institution for crazed military men which manages to effectively tie itself together in the end. Problem is the William Peter Blatty film takes entirely too long to explain itself.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Wise Blood
    John Huston, with uncluttered direction and expert handling of actors, has fashioned a disturbing tale of the fringe side of overzealous religious preachers in the deep South.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Mad Max
    The film belongs to the director, cameraman and stunt artists: it’s not an actor’s piece, though the leads are all effective.
    • 9 Metascore
    • 10 Critic Score
    Saturn 3
    Douglas is sprightly, but he has to handle some pretty awful lines in this Martin Amis script [from a story by John Barry]. Keitel’s dialog, if quoted, would be on a par.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Cruising
    Like any approach to the bizarre, it is fascinating for about 15 minutes. In many respects, Cruising [from the novel by Gerald Walker] resembles the worst of the ‘hippie’ films of the 1960s. Taking away the kissing, caressing and a few bloody killings, Friedkin has no story, though picture pretends to be a murder mystery combined with a study of Al Pacino’s psychological degradation.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Fog
    John Carpenter is anything but subtle in his approach to shocker material. Story exposition and setting are well-established before the opening titles are over, and The Fog proceeds to layer one fright atop another.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    American Gigolo
    A hot subject, cool style and overly contrived plotting don’t all mesh in American Gigolo. Paul Schrader’s third outing as a director is betrayed by a curious, uncharacteristic evasiveness at its core.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Electric Horseman
    Even though Redford, as an ex-rodeo champ, and Fonda don’t create the romantic sparks that might be expected, it’s their dramatic professionalism that salvages Horseman and makes it a moving and effective film by the time the final credits roll by.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Black Hole
    What ensues is sometimes talky but never dull. Director Gary Nelson’s pacing and visual sense are right on target.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Cuba
    Cuba is a hollow, pointless non-drama.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    All That Jazz
    All That Jazz is a self-important, egomaniacal, wonderfully choreographed, often compelling film which portrays the energetic life, and preoccupation with death, of a director-choreographer who ultimately suffers a heart attack.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Kramer vs. Kramer
    Kramer vs. Kramer is a perceptive, touching, intelligent film about one of the raw sores of contemporary America, the dissolution of the family unit.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Being There
    Being There is a highly unusual and an unusually fine film. A faithful but nonetheless imaginative adaptation of Jerzy Kosinski's quirky comic novel, pic marks a significant achievement for director Hal Ashby and represents Peter Sellers' most smashing work since the mid-1960s.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Human Factor
    Graham Greene's low-keyed, highly absorbing 1978 novel of an aging English double agent finding himself trapped into defecting to Moscow and leaving his family behind may have seemed like ideal material for Otto Preminger's style of dispassionate ambiguity, but helmer doesn't seem up to the occasion, bringing little atmosphere or feeling to the delicate ticks of the story.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    1941
    Billed as a comedy spectacle, Steven Spielberg’s 1941 is long on spectacle, but short on comedy. The Universal-Columbia Pictures co-production is an exceedingly entertaining, fast-moving revision of 1940s war hysteria in Los Angeles spawned by the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and boasts Hollywood’s finest miniature and special effects work seen to date.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Jerk
    An artless, non-stop barrage of off-the-wall situations, funny and unfunny jokes, generally effective and sometimes hilarious sight gags and bawdy non sequiturs.
  51. Star Trek: The Motion Picture
    Producer Gene Roddenberry and director Robert Wise have corralled an enormous technical crew, and the result is state-of-the-art screen magic.
    • Variety
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Rose
    Result is an ultra-realistic look at the infusion of money, sex, drugs and booze into the simple process of singing a song, a chore Midler does faultlessly in several excellent concert sequences.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    When a Stranger Calls
    More than anything else, When a Stranger Calls resembles a good, old-fashioned grade B thriller.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Great Santini
    Robert Duvall gives an excellent portrayal of a semi-psychotic, softened with a warmer side. But Duvall has to fight for every inch of footage against the overwhelming performances by several others in the cast - and that's the strength of The Great Santini.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    ...and justice for all.
    And Justice for All is a film that attempts to alternate between comedy and drama, handling neither one incompetently, but also not excelling at either task.
    • 27 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Meteor
    Meteor really combines several disasters in one continuous cinematic bummer.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Black Stallion
    The Black Stallion is a perfect gem.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Starting Over
    Starting Over takes on the subject of marital dissolution from a comic point of view, and succeeds admirably, wryly directed by Alan J. Pakula, and featuring an outstanding cast.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Time After Time
    A delightful, entertaining trifle of a film that shows both the possibilities and limitations of taking liberties with literature and history. Nicholas Meyer has deftly juxtaposed Victorian England and contemporary America in a clever story, irresistible due to the competence of its cast.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Onion Field
    James Woods as the near-psychotic Powell is chillingly effective, creating a flakiness in the character that exudes the danger of a live wire near a puddle.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Yanks
    Director John Schlesinger has done a beautiful job with both cast and craft in Yanks, a multiple love story set in England in World War II. Yet little that's exciting ever happens in the picture.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    The Legacy
    The Legacy tries for an added dimension of satanic possession, but winds up a tame, suspenseless victim of its own lack of imagination.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Love and Bullets
    Director Stuart Rosenberg could have glossed over the plot’s less believable twists with a brisker style and a lot more attack.
    • 32 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Hanover Street
    Hanover Street is reasonably effective as a war film with a love story background. Unfortunately it's meant to be a love story set against a war background.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Monty Python's Life of Brian
    Just as wacky and imaginative as their earlier film outings. (Review of Original Release)
    • 39 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Concorde... Airport '79
    Unintentional comedy still seems the Airport series' forte, although excellent special effects work, and some decent dramatics help Concorde take off.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    My Brilliant Career
    This Australian film is a charming look [from the book by Miles Franklin] at 19th-century rural days in general and the stirrings of self-realization and feminine liberation in the persona of a headstrong young girl who wants to go her own way.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Seduction of Joe Tynan
    Adroitly combining humor and intimate drama, Joe Tynan joins that list of exemplary Washington-set pix, including Advise and Consent and The Best Man.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Apocalypse Now
    Apocalypse Now was worth the wait. Alternately a brilliant and bizarre film, Francis Coppola’s four year ‘work in progress’ offers the definitive validation to the old saw, “war is hell.”
    • 47 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Sunburn
    Grodin works overtime to carry the picture and does so marvelously, displaying a savvy low-key comedy style.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    North Dallas Forty
    What distinguishes this screen adaptation of Peter Gent’s bestseller is the exploration of a human dimension almost never seen in sports pix. Most people understand that modern-day athletes are just cogs in a big business wheel, but getting that across on the screen is a whole different matter. And in large measure, that success is due to a bravura performance in the lead role by Nick Nolte.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    More American Graffiti
    While dazzling to the eye, the flirtation with split-screen, anamorphic, 16mm and 1:85 screen sizes does not justify itself in terms of the film’s content. What Norton and producer Howard Kazanjian are attempting, and what a variety of technicians pull off flawlessly, is daring, but ultimately pointless.
    • 28 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Amityville Horror
    Flies swarm where they shouldn't, pipes and walls ooze ick, doors fly open, and priests and psychic sensitives cringe and flee in panic. It's definitely a house that audiences will enjoy visiting, especially if unfamiliar with the ending.
    • Variety
    • 22 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Villain
    Rarely has so much talent been used to so little purpose.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Lady in Red
    Lewis Teague, a former second-unit director, guides his large cast reasonably well through John Sayles’ craftsmanlike script.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Breaking Away
    Though its plot wins no points for originality, Breaking Away is a thoroughly delightful light comedy, lifted by fine performances from Dennis Christopher and Paul Dooley. The story is nothing more than a triumph for the underdog through sports, this time cycle racing.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Dracula
    Director John Badham and Frank Langella pull off a handsome, moody rendition, more romantic than menacing.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Frisco Kid
    Director Robert Aldrich has always adroitly mixed comedic and dramatic aspects in his films, and Frisco Kid is no exception. For audiences expecting Mel Brooks belly-laughs amidst the Yiddishisms, however, there’s bound to be disappointment.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Wanderers
    Despite an uneasy blend of nostalgia and violence, The Wanderers is a well-made and impressive film. Philip Kaufman, who also co-scripted with his wife, Rose [from the novel by Richard Price], has accurately captured the urban angst of growing up in the 1960s.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Moonraker
    The visual effects, stuntwork and other technical contributions all work together expertly to make the most preposterous notions believable. And Roger Moore, though still compared to Sean Connery, clearly has adapted the James Bond character to himself and serves well as the wise-cracking, incredibly daring and irresistible hero.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Meatballs
    Scripters have managed to gloss over the stereotypes and come up with a smooth-running narrative that makes the camp hijinks part of an overall human mosaic. No one is unduly belittled or mocked, and Meatballs is without the usual grossness and cynicism of many contempo comedy pix.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Muppet Movie
    Jim Henson, Muppet originator, and Frank Oz, creative consultant, have abandoned the successful format of their vidshow, and inserted their creations into a well-crafted combo of musical comedy and fantasy adventure.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Escape from Alcatraz
    Screenwriter Richard Tuggle and director Don Siegel provide a model of super-efficient filmmaking. From the moment Clint Eastwood walks onto The Rock to the final title card explaining the three escapees were never heard from again, Escape from Alcatraz is relentless in establishing a mood and pace of unrelieved tension.
    • Variety
    • 61 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Rocky II
    Rocky II follows much the same theme as its predecessor – that is fighter Rocky Balboa’s path to a stab at the heavyweight crown. In its boxing and training scenes Rocky II packs much of the punch the original did, complete with an exciting pugilistic finale that’s even better than its predecessor.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Prophecy
    Director John Frankenheimer has made a frightening monster movie that people could laugh at for generations to come, complete with your basic big scary thing, cardboard characters and a story so stupid it's irresistible.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The In-Laws
    Under Arthur Hiller’s fast-paced and engaging direction, everything keeps moving quickly enough to stymie audience qualms about plotting, character developments and a rapidly-compressed time frame.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Phantasm
    Strong point of the feature is that it’s played for both horror and laughs.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Brood
    A horror entry which casts children in the role of malevolent little monsters, The Brood is an extremely well made, if essentially unpleasant, shocker.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Dawn of the Dead
    Dawn pummels the viewer with a series of ever-more-grisly events - decapitations, shootings, knifings, flesh tearings - that make Romero's special effects man, Tom Savini, the real 'star' of the film - the actors are as woodenly uninteresting as the characters they play. Romero's script is banal when not incoherent - those who haven't seen Night of the Living Dead may have some difficulty deciphering exactly what's going on at the outset of Dawn.
    • 22 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Beyond the Poseidon Adventure
    A virtual remake of the 1972 original, without that film's mounting suspense and excitement.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    La Cage aux Folles
    Though predictable, the film has one solid trump in Michel Serrault who makes the more feminine member of the happy couple a very shrewd limning of outsize campy gay attributes that avoid tastelessness.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Winter Kills
    If there's a decent film lurking somewhere in Winter Kills, writer-director William Richert doesn't want anyone to see it in his Byzantine version of a presidential assassination conspiracy [from a book by Richard Condon].
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Jubilee
    Derek Jarman's Jubilee is one of the most original, bold, and exciting features to have come out of Britain in the 1970s.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    A Little Romance
    Scripter Allan Burns has craftily kept the point of view of the youngsters, Diane Lane and Thelonious Bernard, while the adults, with certain exceptions, are seen as suitably grotesque and ridiculous, giving Romance a crest of humor on which to ride.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Love at First Bite
    Director Stan Dragoti keeps the chuckles coming, spaced by a few good guffaws.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Saint Jack
    Shot entirely on location in Singapore, the film (produced by Roger Corman, who gave Bogdanovich his start of The Wild Angels in 1964) is extremely well crafted, finely acted, and conjures up a positively intriguing milieu.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Champ
    Even those unfamiliar with the 1931 pic will feel resonances in the current Champ and in this edition Schroder projects a comparable emotional range and depth.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens
    This is the umpteenth in Meyer’s vixen series. But are they satire, as Meyer would have one believe, or fantasy, or both? If anything, they are funny and though a bit too long, Meyer, who does everything (directs, edits, photographs and produces), keeps the action fast and furious.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The China Syndrome
    A moderately compelling thriller about the potential perils of nuclear energy, whose major fault is an overweening sense of its own self-importance.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Silent Partner
    The Silent Partner is one of the films that run the gamut from intrigue to violence.
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