Variety's Scores

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For 17,771 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 2.5 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: 9,130 out of 17771
  2. Mixed: 7,005 out of 17771
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17771
17771 movie reviews
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    • 49 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Brigadoon
    In transferring Brigadoon, a click as a [1947] Broadway musical play, to the screen, Metro has medium success. It's a fairly entertaining tunefilm of mixed appeal.
    • 100 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Rear Window
    Hitchcock confines all of the action to this single setting and draws the nerves to the snapping point in developing the thriller phases of the plot. He is just as skilled in making use of lighter touches in either dialog or situation to relieve the tension when it nears the unbearable. Interest never wavers during the 112 minutes of footage.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Magnificent Obsession
    It is a sensitive treatment of faith told in terms of moving, human drama which packs emotional impact.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
    This is a happy, hand-clapping, foot-stomping country type of musical with all the slickness of a Broadway show. Johnny Mercer and Gene de Paul provide the slick, showy production with eight songs, all of which jibe perfectly with the folksy, hillbilly air maintained in the picture.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    On the Waterfront
    Under Elia Kazan's direction, Marlon Brando puts on a spectacular show, giving a fascinating, multi-faceted performance.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Caine Mutiny
    The Caine Mutiny is highly recommendable motion picture drama, told on the screen as forcefully as it was in the Herman Wouk best-selling novel. The intelligently adapted screenplay retains all the essence of the novel.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Them!
    This science-fiction shocker has a well-plotted story [by George Worthington Yates, adapted by Russell Hughes], expertly directed and acted in a matter-of-fact style.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Monsieur Hulot's Holiday
    Though not as funny as Fete, due to a lesser story peg, this one generates a load of yocks, with fine observation of types at a vacation resort.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Dial M for Murder
    There are a number of basic weaknesses in the setup that keep the picture from being a good suspense show for any but the most gullible. Via the performances and several suspense tricks expected of Hitchcock, the weaknesses are glossed over but not enough to rate the film a cinch winner.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Salt of the Earth
    Salt of the Earth is a good, highly dramatic and emotion-charged piece of work that tells its story straight. It is, however, a propaganda picture which belongs in union halls rather than theatres.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Wild One
    Inspired by an episode when a mob of youths on motorcycles terrorized a Californian town for an entire evening, this feature is long on suspense, brutality and sadism. Marlon Brando contributes another hard-faced 'hero' who never knew love as a boy and is now plainly in need of psychoanalysis.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Knights of the Round Table
    The carefully developed script plus knowing direction by Richard Thorpe give the legendary tale credibility. It’s storybook stuff – and must be accepted as such – but the astute staging results in a walloping package of entertainment for all except, perhaps, the blase.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Hondo
    Hondo is an exciting offbeat western. The stereoscopic 3-D cameras and WarnerColor successfully capture the vast natural beauty of Camargo, Mexico, where the picture was filmed on location.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Calamity Jane
    Giving such Wild West characters as Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickok a workout in a tuned-in western doubtless had strong possibilities but Warners comes close to missing the stagecoach. Colorful settings and costumes add the entry some sparkle but the 'book' is lacking in originality and the players simply are uneasy.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mogambo
    The lure of the jungle and romance get a sizzling workout in Mogambo and it's a socko package of entertainment, crammed with sexy two-fisted adventure.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    A Lion Is in the Streets
    The Adrian Locke Langley novel was a long time coming to the screen since first purchased by the Cagneys for filming. Along the way it lost a lot of the shocker quality and emerges as just an average drama of a man's political ambitions.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    From Here to Eternity
    An outstanding motion picture...It’s still raw, tough dramatic stuff of great entertainment pull for adult ticket buyers. Only a few will find it too strong for their effete tastes. Importantly, the distaffers will like it.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Roman Holiday
    [William Wyler] times the chuckles with a never-flagging pace, puts heart into the laughs, endows the footage with some boff bits of business and points up some tender, poignant scenes in using the smart script and the cast to the utmost advantage.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The War of the Worlds
    A socko science-fiction feature, as fearsome as a film as was the Orson Welles 1938 radio interpretation of the H.G. Wells novel.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Caddy
    Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis dig a lot of divots among the fairways of The Caddy. It's an amusing romp [from a story by Danny Arnold] that, while not always parring previous M & L successes, comes close enough.
    • 93 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Band Wagon
    Astaire, as the film star, shows his ability with a song and dance character.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Lili
    Aumont is delightful as the magician and his act with Gabor, staged almost as a production piece, is a high-light.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Stalag 17
    The legit hit about GI internees in a Nazi prison camp during the Second World War is screened as a lusty comedy-melodrama, loaded with bold, masculine humor and as much of the original’s uninhibited earthiness as good taste and the Production Code permit.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    It Came from Outer Space
    Direction by Jack Arnold whips up an air of suspense and there is considerable atmosphere of reality created, which stands up well enough if the logic of it all is not examined too closely.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    House of Wax
    Andre de Toth's direction, while uneven, nonetheless gears it to the medium.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Shane
    George Stevens handles the story and players in a manner that gives his production and direction a tremendous integrity. The casting is exceptionally good and the male stars have never been seen to better advantage.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    I Confess
    An interesting plot premise holds out considerable promise for this Alfred Hitchcock production, but I Confess is short of the suspense one would expect.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Ivanhoe
    Ivanhoe is a great romantic adventure, mounted extravagantly, crammed with action, and emerges as a spectacular feast.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Peter Pan
    James M. Barrie's childhood fantasy, Peter Pan, many times legit-staged, and previously filmed with live actors, is a feature cartoon of enchanting quality.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Niagara
    Niagara is a morbid, cliched expedition into lust and murder.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Bad and the Beautiful
    The screenplay of the George Bradshaw story is exceptionally well-written.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Road to Bali
    There’s no story to speak of in the script [from a story by Frank Butler and Harry Tugend] but the framework is there on which to hang a succession of amusing quips and physical comedy dealing with romantic rivalry and chuckle competition between the two male stars.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Star
    A strong performance by Bette Davis, in a tailor-made role, gives a lift to The Star that it might not have had otherwise.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Million Dollar Mermaid
    This is a gaudy, conventional biopic based on the career of Australian swimmer Annette Kellerman, appropriately tagged ‘Million Dollar Mermaid’.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Limelight
    Departing from most forms of Hollywood stereotype, the film has a flavor all its own in the sincere quality of the story anent the onetime great vaudemime and his rescue of a femme ballet student from a suicide attempt and subsequently from great mental depression.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Snows of Kilimanjaro
    The script broadens the 1927 short story considerably without losing the Hemingway penchant for the mysticism behind his virile characters and lusty situations.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Quiet Man
    Despite the length of the footage, film holds together by virtue of a number of choice characters, the best of which is Barry Fitzgerald’s socko punching of an Irish type. Wayne works well under Ford’s direction, answering all demands of the vigorous, physical character.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Don't Bother to Knock
    Marilyn Monroe, co-starred with Richard Widmark, gives an excellent account of herself in a strictly dramatic role which commands certain attention, but the story of a psycho baby-sitter lacks interest.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    High Noon
    Cooper does an unusually able job of portraying the marshal. (Review of Original Release)
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men
    For his second British live-action production, Walt Disney took the legend of Robin Hood and translated it to the screen as a superb piece of entertainment, with all the action of a western and the romance and intrigue of a historical drama.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Pat and Mike
    Tracy is given some choice lines in the script and makes much of them in an easy, throwaway style that lifts the comedy punch.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Tales of Hoffmann
    Film is a brilliant integration of dance, story and music.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Gone to Earth
    Primarily a simple yarn about simple people, it is without finesse, polish or sophistication. Dialog just about emerges from the monosyllabical state.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Greatest Show on Earth
    As has come to be expected from DeMille, the story line is not what could be termed subtle. While it may draw some critical catcalls, it does effectively serve the purpose of a framework for all the atmosphere and excitement of the circus on both sides of the big canvas. In any case, what bleacher fan wants to get mixed up with a plot he’s going to have to wrestle with?
    • 99 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Singin' in the Rain
    Concocted by Arthur Freed with showmanship know-how, it glitters with color, talent and tunes, and an infectious air that will click with ticket buyers in all types of situations.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The African Queen
    An engrossing motion picture. Just offbeat enough in story, locale and star teaming of Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn to stimulate the imagination. It is a picture with an unassuming warmth and naturalness that can have a bright boxoffice chance
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Room for One More
    A happy combination of good humor and warm drama has been put together with neat results in Room for One More.
    • 98 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Rashomon
    Unveiled at the Venice film fest [in August 1951], this caused a flurry in critical circles for its brilliance of conception, technique, acting and its theme of passion.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Quo Vadis
    Quo Vadis is a super-spectacle in all its meaning. That there are shortcomings [in this fourth version of the tale] even Metro must have recognized and ignored in consideration of the project’s scope.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Miracle in Milan
    Miracle in Milan, an involved and rambling screenplay, originally written by Cesare Zavattini in 1940 and later published as a novel entitled Toto the Good, contrasts sharply with the simplicity and warm humanity of [the same writer-director team's] Bicycle Thief and gives director Vittorio De Sica less opportunities to guide his thespers to those extremely human, heart-warming performances which are his speciality. Whereas Thief was aimed at the audience heart, Miracle is aimed at the brain.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    On Dangerous Ground
    Ray manages to inject an occasional bit of excitement into the yarn, and had the psychotic touches been eliminated in the script, film could have qualified as okay, even if grim, melodrama.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    When Worlds Collide
    Top honors for this inter-planetary fantasy rest with the cameramen and special effects technicians rather than with performances of the non-name cast.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    An American in Paris
    One of the most imaginative musical confections turned out by Hollywood in years...Kelly is the picture’s top star and rates every inch of his billing. His diversified dancing is great as ever and his thesping is standout. But he reveals new talents in this one with his choreography.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Detective Story
    William Wyler has polished the legit hit by Pulitzer-prizewinner Sidney Kingsley into a cinematic gem. Scripters have stuck almost to the letter of the original play. Even the location seldom changes from Kingsley's single set, the realistic headquarters room of the detective squad.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Angels in the Outfield
    Clarence Brown has carved a tremendously satisfying filmization from a script [based on a story by Richard Conlin] that, from every evidence, could have gone completely haywire if handled clumsily, dealing as it does with fantasy. Religious angle also presented a delicate situation, but Brown has handled it all masterfully.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Lavender Hill Mob
    With The Lavender Hill Mob, Ealing clicks with another comedy winner.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    La Ronde
    Ophuls has used a dearth of closeups, brilliant decor playing a vital part. Film gains an opulence in the expert lensing of Christian Matras. There is much filming through carved glass, linen, silks and mirrors to create the aura of romance.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Day the Earth Stood Still
    Cast, although secondary to the story, works well.
    • 97 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    A Streetcar Named Desire
    Tennessee Williams' exciting Broadway stage play - winner of the Pulitzer Prize and New York Drama Critics award during the 1947-48 season - has been screenplayed into an even more absorbing drama of frustration and stark tragedy.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Alice in Wonderland
    Walt Disney has gone a long way towards tightening the leisurely, haphazard adventure of Alice in the wonderland of her imagination. He has dropped some characters and sequences in the interest of a better picture, but the deletions are not missed.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Flying Leathernecks
    Actual color footage of battle action in the Pacific has been smartly blended with studio shots to strike a note of realism.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    A Place in the Sun
    Stevens has mounted his production lavishly. Undoubtedly cognizant of the shortcomings of the story itself as popular entertainment, studio toppers have wisely permitted the film every possible compensating advantage. The result is a big picture in both concept and execution.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Oliver Twist
    From every angle this is a superb achievement.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    On Moonlight Bay
    All of the characters are good for some hefty laughs, and Del Ruth’s direction and the writing supply plenty of touches that keep punching the risibilities and jogging nostalgic memory.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Strangers on a Train
    Given a good basis for a thriller in the Patricia Highsmith novel [script adaption by Whitfield Cook] and a first-rate script, Hitchcock embroiders the plot into a gripping, palm-sweating piece of suspense.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Harvey
    Harvey, Mary Chase's Pulitzer Prize play, loses little of its whimsical comedy charm in the screen translation.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    King Solomon's Mines
    King Solomon's Mines has been filmed against an authentic African background, lending an extremely realistic air to the H. Rider Haggard classic novel of a dangerous safari and discovery of a legendary mine full of King Solomon's treasure.
    • 98 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    All About Eve
    All About Eve has substance in virtually every dramatic and romantic mood, which have been given proper shading and projection by producer Darryl F. Zanuck and Mankiewicz.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Sunset Boulevard
    Performances by the entire cast, and particularly William Holden and Gloria Swanson, are exceptionally fine.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Treasure Island
    Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson's classic, has been handsomely mounted by Walt Disney. Settings are sumptuous and a British cast headed by American moppet Bobby Driscoll faithfully recaptures the bloodthirsty 18th-century era when pirates vied for the supremacy of the seas.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Winchester '73
    Stewart brings real flavor and appeal to the role of Lin, in a lean, concentrated portrayal.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Gunfighter
    The Gunfighter is a sock melodrama of the old west. There's never a sag or off moment in the footage as it goes about depicting a lightning draw artist, the fastest man with a gun in the old west, and what his special ability has done to his life.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Father of the Bride
    Minnelli could have timed many of the scenes so that laughs would not have stepped on dialog tag lines. Also he permits the wedding rehearsal sequence to play too long, lessening the comedic effect.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Asphalt Jungle
    Ironic realism is striven for and achieved in the writing, production and direction. An audience will quite easily pull for the crooks in their execution of the million-dollar jewelry theft around which the plot is built.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Stage Fright
    Alfred Hitchcock doesn't stress melodrama throughout. He plays a surprising number of sequences strictly for lightness. Also, he has a choice cast to put through its paces, and there's not a bad performance anywhere [In this adaption by Alma Reville of a novel by Selwyn Jepson]. The dialog has purpose, either for a chuckle or a thrill, and the pace is good.
    • 99 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Rules of the Game
    As an experiment it’s interesting, but Jean Renoir, who directs, wrote the scenario and dialog, and takes a leading role, has made a common error: he attempts to crowd too many ideas into 80 minutes of film fare, resulting in confusion.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Cinderella
    The cartoon, in fact, has far more success in projecting the lower animals than in its central character, Cinderella, who is on the colorless, doll-faced side, as is the Prince Charming.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Sands of Iwo Jima
    It's loaded with the commercial ingredients of blazing action, scope and spectacle, but it falls short of greatness because of its sentimental core and its superficial commentary on the war.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Young Man with a Horn
    For the jazz devotee this is nearly two hours of top trumpet notes. For the regular filmgoer, it is good drama.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Gun Crazy
    Script points up the physical attraction between Dall and Cummins but, despite the emphasis, it is curiously cold and lacking in genuine emotions. Fault is in the writing and direction, both staying on the surface and never getting underneath the characters.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    On the Town
    The pep, enthusiasm and apparent fun the makers of On the Town had in putting it together comes through to the audience and gives the picture its best asset.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Adam's Rib
    Adam's Rib is a bright comedy success, belting over a succession of sophisticated laughs. Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin have fashioned their amusing screenplay around the age-old battle of the sexes.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    They Live by Night
    Nicholas Ray adapted the novel and directed, demonstrating a complete understanding of the characters. It’s a firstrate job of moody storytelling.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    She Wore a Yellow Ribbon
    She Wore a Yellow Ribbon is a western meller done in the best John Ford manner.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Under Capricorn
    Under Capricorn is overlong and talky, with scant measure of the Alfred Hitchcock thriller tricks.
    • 97 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Third Man
    Supporting characters turn in excellent portrayals. Camera work on an exceptionally high plane, and in his painstaking direction Carol Reed lives up to his high reputation.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    White Heat
    The tight-lipped scowl, the hunched shoulders that rear themselves for the kill, the gargoyle speech, the belching gunfire of a trigger-happy paranoiac - one with a mother complex, no less - these are the standard and still-popular ingredients that constitute the James Cagney of White Heat.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mighty Joe Young
    Mighty Joe Young is fun to laugh at and with, loaded with incredible corn, plenty of humor, and a robot gorilla who becomes a genuine hero.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Neptune's Daughter
    Neptune's Daughter is a neat concoction of breezy, light entertainment. It combines comedy, songs and dances into an amusing froth.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Little Women
    The tender story, with its frank and unashamed assault on the emotions, still has its effective moments at times when the sentiment doesn’t grow a little too thick.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Take Me Out to the Ball Game
    Take Me Out to the Ball Game, backgrounded by an early-day baseball yarn, is short on story, but has some amusing moments - and Gene Kelly.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Force of Evil
    Force of Evil fails to develop the excitement hinted at in the title. Makers apparently couldn't decide on the best way to present an expose of the numbers racket, winding up with neither fish nor fowl as far as hard-hitting racketeer meller is concerned. A poetic, almost allegorical, interpretation keeps intruding on the tougher elements of the plot. This factor adds no distinction and only makes the going tougher.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    A Canterbury Tale
    Sincerity and simplicity shine through every foot of this oversized modern version of the Chaucer epic tale. Here is rare beauty.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Snake Pit
    The Snake Pit is a standout among class melodramas. Based on Mary Jane Ward's novel, picture probes into the processes of mental illness with a razor-sharp forthrightness, giving an open-handed display of the make-up of bodies without minds and the treatments used to restore intelligence.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Hamlet
    This is picture-making at its best.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Rope
    Hitchcock could have chosen a more entertaining subject with which to use the arresting camera and staging technique displayed in Rope. Theme is of a thrill murder, done for no reason but to satisfy a sadistical urge and intellectual vanity.
    • 96 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Red River
    Howard Hawks' production and direction give a masterful interpretation to a story of the early west and the opening of the Chisholm Trail, over which Texas cattle were moved to Abilene to meet the railroad on its march across the country.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    A Foreign Affair
    While subject is handled for comedy, Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder have managed to underlay the fun with an expose of human frailties and, to some extent, indicate a passive bitterness among the conquered in the occupied areas.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Key Largo
    A tense film thriller has been developed from Maxwell Anderson's play, Key Largo. Emphasis is on tension in the telling, and effective use of melodramatic mood has been used to point up the suspense.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Paradine Case
    The Paradine Case offers two hours and 11 minutes of high dramatics.
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