Variety's Scores

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For 17,777 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: 9,133 out of 17777
  2. Mixed: 7,008 out of 17777
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17777
17777 movie reviews
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  1. Gods and Monsters
    Doesn’t always convince, particularly in the last lap. But it’s an engrossing, unusual, imaginatively executed bit of psychological gamesmanship nonetheless.
  2. A Couple
    The final film is elegant and empathetic, but never quite emotionally involving: For all its rich, heightened articulation of a woman’s distress and unrest, the sense of a life being academically magnified under glass never quite leaves the endeavor.
  3. Higher Ground
    A satirical yet sensitive portrait of life in an evangelical Christian community, Higher Ground marks a startlingly bold directing debut for actress Vera Farmiga.
  4. Golden Door
    An imaginative, intelligent and attractive Italo pic precisely when the country needs it most, Emanuele Crialese's Golden Door reps a solid piece of cinema that neither panders nor preaches.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Suspicion
    Alfred Hitchcock’s trademarked cinematic development of suspenseful drama, through mental emotions of the story principals, is vividly displayed in Suspicion, a class production [from the novel Before the Fact by Francis Iles] provided with excellence in direction, acting and mounting.
  6. Stonewall Uprising
    In astounding detail, Stonewall Uprising recalls the now-famous three-day riots in June 1969 after a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a popular Greenwich Village gay bar, as homosexuals finally, openly fought back.
  7. I Used to Be Funny
    That convoluted storytelling tack at times threatens to muffle “Funny’s” potent narrative agenda. Yet in the end, this ambitious, imperfect drama does pull off a complex thematic mix.
  8. The Town
    The behind-the-camera talent Ben Affleck displayed so bracingly in "Gone Baby Gone" is confirmed, if not significantly advanced, in The Town. Again proving a fine director of actors (this time with himself in a starring role), Affleck delivers another potent, serious-minded slice of pulp set on Boston's meanest streets, where loyalty among thieves runs thicker than blood.
  9. Plimpton! Starring George Plimpton as Himself
    An entertaining profile of the self-avowed participatory journalist and his tumultuous life and times.
  10. Ain't Them Bodies Saints
    Slow as molasses but every bit as rich.
  11. The Trials of Muhammad Ali
    It’s an inspiring picture, particularly given the difficulty of imagining one of today’s sports superstars going so far out on a limb for unpopular beliefs.
  12. Miss Hokusai
    Animation proves the ideal medium for Miss Hokusai’s relatively tame story, allowing audiences to admire the family’s artwork within a world that they were partially responsible for creating.
  13. In Darkness
    For the film to work, Holland needs audiences to connect as deeply with the trapped Jews as Socha eventually does. With the exception of the group's leader, movie-star handsome Mundek Margulies (German-born, internationally recognized Benno Furmann), the characters are flat as shadows.
  14. Cyrus
    Think of Cyrus as the Duplasses for the masses, as the keenly observant sibs upgrade their scrappy, relationship-based formula to work with movie stars and a Fox Searchlight-size budget without sacrificing the raw, naturalistic feel of their first two features, "The Puffy Chair" and "Baghead."
  15. Liam
    This depiction of the trials and tribulations of a working-class Catholic family during the Depression is a far more intimate viewing experience than the similarly themed "Angela's Ashes."
  16. Little Otik
    An unsettling piece of filmmaking whose grimly vivid images are guaranteed to give impressionable viewers nightmares.
  17. In the Realms of the Unreal
    Documentarian Jessica Yu employs everything from animation and voiceover thesping to archival documents and eyewitness accounts while examining Henry Darger, a self-taught artist who has been posthumously lionized as a visionary genius.
  18. Radio Dreams
    Radio Dreams is a witty, low-key exercise in deferred gratification.
  19. The Witches of the Orient
    For all the film’s playful artistry, the effect is more scattershot.
  20. Daughter of Mine
    Even when it trips up in its later stages, Daughter of Mine is a noble rarity, passionately involved in the exploration of oppositional ideas of motherhood not just as an abstract concept, but as a real and vivid, painfully sacrificial thing.
  21. Hollywoodgate
    The power of documentary filmmaking often lies in discovering seams of humanity running though even the bleakest environments. But the sledgehammer impact of Hollywoodgate comes from director Nash’at peering into the Taliban leadership’s inner circle for a year and finding not even a glimmer of goodness. Finding, in fact, nothing — a terrible emptiness.
  22. Ballet 422
    The documentary moves with the same fluidity that characterizes Peck’s choreography.
  23. After Tiller
    Well contextualized and sensitively shot with extraordinary access, the pic reflects the personal, moral and ethical struggles of the doctors as well as their patients.
  24. Father Soldier Son
    Finely cut gem of a documentary.
  25. Lost in Paris
    Who wouldn’t want a picturesque trip to the French capital that delivers more laughs than a nitrous oxide leak near the hyena compound? In fact, I’d go as far as to promise that Lost in Paris offers the three most delightful sight gags you’ll see on screen all year.
  26. Flame and Citron
    An absorbing, shades-of-gray look at home-front intrigue in Nazi-occupied Denmark during World War II. Ole Christian Madsen’s accomplished fourth feature plays out on a much larger canvas than he’s used previously and offers nuance and ambiguity in equal measure with violence and tragedy.
  27. The Russian Woodpecker
    Deftly cramming a terrific amount of history, breaking news, personal drama, culture and context into a trim runtime, The Russian Woodpecker is surprisingly inventive, even buoyant in its presentation of several issues that could scarcely be more sobering.
  28. Sully
    With his snowy white hair and moustache to match, Hanks conveys a man confident in his abilities, yet humble in his actions, which could also be said of Eastwood as a director.
  29. Go
    An overly calculated concoction that nonetheless delivers a pretty good rush.
    • Variety
  30. Neighborhood Watch
    There’s no great effort at building tension, or orchestrating major setpieces. But the narrative moves along at an engaging clip, and there’s a pleasing emotional payoff to the way things ultimately come together in Farley’s screenplay.
    • 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.
  32. Involuntary
    Perfs, by a mixture of non-pros and little-known thesps, are impressively naturalistic and spontaneous. Ostlund has a knack for comedy, although his script, co-written with Erik Hemmendorff, is a little opaque about where it stands on the morality of each strand’s situation.
  33. Into the Abyss
    These days, true-crime docs are a dime a dozen, and yet, returning to the "In Cold Blood" analogy, Into the Abyss dares to plumb the dark hole in America's soul. Herzog's investigation may not work as an anti-death-penalty editorial, but its findings are undeniably profound.
  34. Interstellar
    An exhilarating slalom through the wormholes of Christopher Nolan’s vast imagination that is at once a science-geek fever dream and a formidable consideration of what makes us human.
  35. Genesis
    Eye-poppingly intimate footage of various critters evolving from the fetal stage or eating, strolling, fighting and courting that can only be obtained via infinite patience with special equipment in exotic locations.
  36. Bridge to Terabithia
    Some literal-minded attempts at magical realism are redeemed by the film's emotional texture, winning chemistry between the tyke leads and scrupulous adherence to a childlike point of view.
  37. The Heart of the Game
    Compelling but traditional feature.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Daughters of Darkness
    Daughters of Darkness is so intentionally perverse that it often slips into impure camp, but Kumel and Seyrig hold interest by piling twists on every convention of the vampire genre.
  39. Scrapper
    Regan’s debut rehashes a host of familiar elements from assorted kitchen-sink dramas and dysfunctional parent-child stories, painting them colorfully enough that audiences won’t mind the odd bit of rust.
  40. Circus of Books
    Circus of Books is an affectionate look at one of the most unusual mom and pop businesses in America, directed by the person who knew Mom and Pop best.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Hollywood Shuffle
    Most amusing of these is a school for black actors, run by whites, of course, where the students are trained to shuffle, jive and generally fit the preconceived notion of what blacks are like. Another brilliantly conceived bit is Sneakin’ into the Movies, a takeoff of the Siskel & Ebert film reviewing TV show.
  42. The New Girlfriend
    This delectable entertainment is as surprising for its continually evolving (and involving) dynamics of desire as for its slow-building emotional power.
  43. Enemies of the State
    While Enemies of the State does not necessarily provide all the answers, it sneakily sharpens your analytical radar by its haunting end. And in today’s conspiracy-theory-fueled world, that just might be everything.
  44. Youth (Spring)
    Youth (Spring) uses the workshops of Zhili City to illustrate — again and again, to the point of dulling its impact — the desolate truth that in the lower echelons of China’s industrial sector, youth is not wasted on the young. It is methodically ripped from them, day by day, seam by seam, stitch by stitch.
  45. The Dish
    A feel-good comic ensembler that's hard to resist.
  46. Looking for Cheyenne
    Suspenseful, funny, touching, sexy and painlessly pertinent.
  47. The Hurricane
    In what's easily his most zealous and fully realized performance since "Malcolm X," Washington elevates the earnest, occasionally simplistic narrative to the level of a genuinely touching moral expose.
  48. Billy Elliot
    Strikes a delicate balance of comedy and pathos with an uplifting final act that delivers a resoundingly satisfying emotional payoff.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Violet Perfume: No One Is Listening
    Has a poignant emotional core in the truthful description of its characters' despairing lives.
  50. The Keys to the House
    Radiates a warm humanity and uplifts the spirit. Subtle rather than sentimental, it lacks easy tears though attentive viewers will find it lacerating enough.
    • 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.
  52. Ahead of Time
    Wisely letting his lively, articulate nonagenarian subject narrate her life story through interviews and lectures, debuting director Bob Richman (a noted indie cameraman) compellingly blends a plethora of choice archival materials and contempo footage.
  53. An Oversimplification of Her Beauty
    As the work of one young man bursting with inspiration, the film is a giddy thing to absorb, allowing complete strangers to witness someone performing open-heart surgery on himself.
  54. Running Wild: The Life of Dayton O. Hyde
    Beautiful lensing by Mauro Brattoli and an evocative score Steve Poltz enrich the pic’s flavor as a document of, and a tribute to, an iconic cowboy’s indomitable spirit.
  55. Musicwood
    Maxine Trump’s feature loses focus as it progresses, though its insights into guitar making, forestry harvesting and environmental shortages resonate strongly.
  56. Far From Men
    Despite his movie-star reputation and looks, Mortensen remains a remarkably humble screen presence, a trait that’s perfect for a part that demands considerable empathy from whoever’s playing it.
  57. Forbidden Films
    Contemporary issues pale before the fascination exerted by the generously sampled films themselves, executed throughout with masterful classical film vocabulary.
  58. The Creation of Meaning
    Throughout the film, the beauty of the landscapes and the totally natural insertion of human, animal and insect movement within the frame lend The Creation of Meaning a particular grace.
  59. Ben-Gurion, Epilogue
    The new documentary Ben-Gurion, Epilogue offers a rare intimate look at what went on inside Ben-Gurion’s heart and mind.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Rescuers
    There’s real terror in the story, and the Gothic setting of the swamp where the girl is held captive; the maudlin pitfalls of the plot are avoided through deft use of humor, and the plucky character of the young captive.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Intermezzo: A Love Story
    Bergman is beautiful, talented and convincing, providing an arresting performance and a warm personality that introduces a new stellar asset to Hollywood. She has charm, sincerity and an infectious vivaciousness. Picture unwinds at a leisurely pace, without theatrics of too great intensity in the romantic passages.
  62. Been So Long
    In the close, doting way the camera caresses its stars, Been So Long certainly shows where it chief strengths lie: Coel and Kene may both capably handle their songs, but the film’s real music is in their faces, singing, silent or otherwise.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Last American Hero
    After a fumbling start which looks like bad editing for TV, The Last American Hero [based on two articles by Tom Wolfe] settles into some good, gritty, family Americana, with Jeff Bridges excellent as a flamboyant auto racer determined to succeed on his own terms and right a wrong to his father, played expertly by Art Lund.
  64. See You Yesterday
    Eden-Smith makes the film her own, right up to the surprising, challenging and altogether sharp final note.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Days of Wine and Roses
    Miller’s gruelling drama illustrates how the unquenchable lure of alcohol can supersede even love, and how marital communication cannot exist in a house divided by one-sided boozing.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Vixen!
    Russ Meyer’s film is another of his technically polished sexplicit dramas, this time free of physical violence and brutality, and hyped with some awkwardly developed draft-dodging and patriotism angles.
  67. The Stranger
    The Stranger confirms that Wright has arrived, even if his treatment sometimes feels more oblique and self-consciously arty than the material demands.
  68. Subject
    It’s easy to form an opinion about the subject of a great many docs, but unsettling to realize how little we know about how they were treated.
  69. Lost Soulz
    Inspired by Sidle’s experience as a musician on the rise, Lost Soulz tells a raw personal story in a fragmented structure deriving its strength from the original music composed and performed by its talented cast.
  70. Art College 1994
    In re-creating life out of life, Liu is quite successful; whether he makes it into drama is another question. Like its characters, Art College 1994 gives the impression of having just too much time on its hands.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    One of Our Aircraft Is Missing
    Script, production, direction and photography are splendid.
  72. Joy Ride
    The movie may not be “Bridesmaids”-level brilliant, but it’s got more than a couple hall-of-fame-worthy comedy set-pieces.
  73. Kung Fu Panda
    A nice looking but heavily formulaic DreamWorks animation entry.
  74. Cryptozoo
    In this zoo, the story may be tame, but the images, and the imagination that releases them, run wild.
  75. 40 Acres
    Though R.T. Thorne’s dynamic siege thriller has some familiar moves, it is full of fresh ideas.
  76. Crazy Rich Asians
    Director Jon M. Chu (“Step Up 2: The Streets”) has crafted a broadly appealing charmer in which practically anyone can identify with Wu’s character as she’s whisked into this elite milieu.
  77. In Order of Disappearance
    Schemes like this have a way of spiraling out of the characters’ control, but Moland and Aakeson maintain a firm grasp on the pacing, progressively building both carnage and suspense as the situation escalates toward a Mexican standoff of which even Sam Peckinpah would be proud.
  78. My Father's Dragon
    [A] winningly sweet-natured, visually transporting adaptation.
  79. The Duke
    The Duke is a romp first and foremost: Michell’s merry direction makes sure of that. But its stars put a small, dignified lump in its throat.
  80. Touch
    This gentle, unfussy romance contains a heart-clutching finale that’s as classically restrained as it is emotionally resounding.
  81. Omaha
    A humble marvel, Omaha introduces a filmmaker with a privileged sensibility to translate these opposing forces into a tapestry of scenes imbued with loving compassion for the characters experiencing them.
  82. The Secret Garden
    Executed to near perfection in all artistic departments, this superior adaptation of the perennial favorite novel will find its core public among girls , but should prove satisfying enough to a range of audiences to make it a solid performer for Warner Bros.' family entertainment banner.
  83. I Didn't See You There
    I Didn’t See You There is affecting even when it shuts us out, coming across as the sincere, frustrated expression of someone who’s tired of explaining himself and his position even to a sympathetic audience.
  84. The History Boys
    Audiences coming cold to this largely faithful adaptation of Alan Bennett's clever but contrived classroom comedy won't be so wowed, given picture's irrevocably stagy feel. Nicholas Hytner's flat-footed direction doesn't help, nor do picture's younger cast members' over-rehearsed performances, although the seasoned thesps shine.
  85. When Fall Is Coming
    Nobody is exactly who they appear to be in “When Fall is Coming,” but Ozon’s nimble, perceptive little film takes that as a given: When winter and mortality are beckoning, the past only counts for so much.
  86. Hercules
    Directors John Musker and Ron Clements, who’ve collaborated on Mermaid and Aladdin, here combine smooth, state-of-the-art animation with a funky razzledazzle. They bring Hercules the vitality and insouciance that make Disney an undisputed champ in the arena.
    • 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.
  88. A Mighty Heart
    In his first studio venture, Michael Winterbottom coaxes forth a staggering wealth of detail from this terse, methodical account of Pearl's kidnapping and murder in Pakistan.
  89. Breakdown
    In his bigscreen feature debut, director and co-writer Jonathan Mostow displays real flair for visceral cinema while adroitly sidestepping many of the usual tripwires of this sort of film, particularly silly coincidences, stupid decisions on the part of characters with whom you're supposed to identify, and superheroics performed by ordinary people.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Body Snatcher
    Based on a short story by Robert Louis Stevenson, and given tightly scripted adaptation, Snatcher seldom lacks interest.
  91. You Are Not My Mother
    Steeped in local folklore, it lets mythic and mind-based terrors exist side by side, allowing the viewer to interpret and believe what they will. This leeway comes at no cost, however, to its effective atmospherics, which sink into the bones like an unexpected twilight chill.
  92. Raise Hell: The Life & Times of Molly Ivins
    The late journalist’s career and witticisms are smoothly encapsulated by veteran documentarian Janice Engel’s slick feature.
  93. Fastball
    A film that captures the underlying essence of baseball at the beginning of the 21st century: both humbly wistful and progressively cutting-edge.
  94. Sir! No Sir!
    Because it's bolstered by proud memories of Vietnam vets who turned against the war, Sir! No Sir! rings with an exultant, even elated tone.
  95. Dream Scenario
    Is this a fantasy? A fable? A new kind of horror movie? Actually, Dream Scenario is all of the above and then some, for it also shares a certain postmodern DNA with two of Cage’s most boundary-pushing movies, “Adaptation” and “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.”
    • 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.
  97. The Ghost of Peter Sellers
    So what is The Ghost of Peter Sellers? It’s a record of what it was like to shoot an empty shambolic piece of junk that drained the coffers of everyone involved. It’s a record of the kind of damage that a debonair misfit like Peter Sellers could cause when he put his mischievous (and maybe, in some ways, unstable) mind to it.
  98. Wild Nights with Emily
    If the film has a flaw, its that it’s so preoccupied with balancing its furious feminism with gags about Victorian life that there’s little running time to lavish on Dickinson’s actual poetry.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Place Vendôme
    Taut and nuanced from start to finish, with memorable, lived-in central characters and an appealingly melancholy tone, helmer/co-scripter Nicole Garcia’s third feature has what it takes.
  100. Music by John Williams
    It is not a documentary so much as a fan-friendly tribute, designed to celebrate Williams’ legacy without getting too personal or technical in the process.
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