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. La Cocina
    A chaotic symphony of nearly two dozen characters, this black-and-white indie confection (garnished with sparing touches of color) mixes biting social critique with stylistic bravura.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Finian's Rainbow
    Overall, the $4 million film has an ethereal quality: it’s a blend of real elements, such as love, greed, compassion, prejudice, and other aspects of human nature both noble and otherwise; yet it’s also infused with mystical elements of magic, leprechauns, pixies and wishes that come true.
  3. Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin
    Using archival material and fresh interviews — including testimonials from at least two of his former lovers — Kates and Singer underscore Rustin’s matter-of-fact courage and self-effacing pragmatism.
  4. Crossing
    With Crossing, writer-director Levan Akin wants to open our eyes to the easily overlooked.
  5. A Traveler's Needs
    If Huppert’s endearingly scatty, offhand performance lends proceedings a veil of comfy familiarity, however, A Traveler’s Needs nonetheless finds the indefatigable Korean auteur at his most puckishly cryptic.
  6. The Roundup: Punishment
    The Roundup: Punishment minimizes unnecessary originality, while gloriously maximizing the opportunities for Lee to crack wise, or look aggrieved and a little bored, as though he’s just remembered he needs to do laundry, all while his meaty forearms land a flurry of sledgehammer punches so rapid their recipients, often quite literally, do not know what hit them. This, truly, is cinema.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    You're a Big Boy Now
    Francis Coppola has drawn topflight performances from his talented cast.
  8. Superman
    The new movie isn’t “dark” (Zack Snyder’s ambitious mistake) so much as it’s a loopy, spinning, multifaceted story with genuine emotional stakes. That’s why it treats Superman’s powers as the most spectacular and least interesting thing about him.
  9. Art Talent Show
    Whether you view this illuminating doc as a portrait of an institution, a snapshot of a generation or a sketch of the dedication and stamina shown by those in the teaching profession, Art Talent Show bears sprightly comparison to the various styles and modes of artistic expression it showcases.
  10. Dandelion
    The evocative visuals here sing in unison with the characters’ yearning to fulfill the promise of their lifelong dreams. They are chasing a glimmer of light before twilight.
  11. The Wild Robot
    There’s never been an animated movie that reflects the world in quite this way.
  12. Hard Miles
    Daniel Hanna (“Miss Virginia”) and a strong cast, making for a satisfying scenic ride that picked up several festival audience awards last year.
  13. Copa 71
    As subjects share vivid memories of taking the field, their stories appear to stir back up the attitudes that made them great competitors.
  14. Dead Mail
    Set in the 1980s Midwest with a mix of the drab and the eccentric, Dead Mail is an effective, twisty thriller with a singular edge of off-kilter black comedy.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Boston Strangler
    The Boston Strangler, based on Gerold Frank's book, emerges as a triumph of taste and restraint with a telling, low-key semi-documentary style. Adaptation is topnotch not only in structure but also in the incisive, spare dialog which defines neatly over 100 speaking parts.
  16. Omni Loop
    Time may unravel in Omni Loop, but admirably, it opens up the space to think less about the secrets of the larger universe than to take stock of the smaller ones that exist around us.
  17. Much Ado About Dying
    Death isn’t an ending in this achingly funny-sad film, just an anxiety passed between loved ones.
  18. My Dead Friend Zoe
    Hausmann-Stokes’ message is simple, and his movie is a perfect place to start: Take an interest in our veterans.
  19. Timestalker
    Timestalker may get a lot of mileage out of unrequited affection, but it still gives audiences plenty to love.
  20. Lovely Rita (2001)
    A deliciously observed, ironic take on middle-class Austrian life through an introverted teen's eyes, "Lovely Rita" reps a strong step up to the feature plate by 28-year-old Jessica Hausner after a couple of well-remarked shorts.
  21. Alien: Romulus
    This is closer to a grandly efficient greatest-hits thrill ride, packaged like a video game. Yet on that level it’s a confidently spooky, ingeniously shot, at times nerve-jangling piece of entertainment.
  22. The Gutter
    For all its bawdy humor, it’s good clean fun.
  23. Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead
    Genuinely funny, charming and sincere, it’s a respectful and revelatory update in a world where those are few and far between.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Charley Varrick
    Charley Varrick is a sometimes-fuzzy melodrama but so well put together that it emerges a hardhitting actioner with a sock finale.
  25. 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.
  26. Fly Me to the Moon
    Fly Me to the Moon only needs to sell one thing: that beneath Kelly and Cole’s fast-paced dialogue and combative flirtation, there exists a mutual attraction compelling enough to keep us guessing. We already know how the lunar mission turns out, but never tire of gazing upon stars such as these.
  27. The Phoenician Scheme
    The dense but undeniably enjoyable saga doubles as a moving father-daughter tale and ultimately seems far more interested in exploring the robber baron spirit of 20th-century capitalism than its consequences.
  28. Indigo Girls: It's Only Life After All
    Bombach’s movie finds its real flavor in exploring the differences in the duo’s two very distinct personalities, which up till now might have seemed like a fuzzy, singular unit by all but the most hardcore fans.
  29. Alam
    This intelligent, sensitive treatment of the rarely seen, everyday lives of young Palestinian citizens of Israel marks tyro feature writer-director Firas Khoury as a talent to watch.
  30. Young Woman and the Sea
    Throughout Rønning’s sophisticated film and alongside Ridley’s stunning performance — a career highlight for her — we all hold our collective breath and swim with Trudy. Talk about the kind of film they hardly ever make anymore.
  31. Zootopia 2
    These movies are comedies first and crime-film homages second, but it’s their tertiary value as social commentary that makes the franchise so indispensable: Behind the laughs are teachable moments.
    • 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.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Harder They Fall
    Budd Schulberg's vehement novel about the fight racket is given a strong pictorial going-over in The Harder They Fall. It's main-event stuff.
  34. The Grab
    The big picture here is so elusive and vast that it helps Cowperthwaite to have a few intrepid investigators to follow, letting their research drive the shape of the film (which, when you unpack it, must have been one hell of a task to structure).
  35. Wild Diamond
    After all the despair, the piling up of glitzy delusion, there’s a feeling of redemption to it connected to what a good movie can do.
  36. My Best Friend
    My Best Friend is a sex farce on steroids, overflowing with energy and excessive curiosity about what the movie camera actually can do.
  37. When the Light Breaks
    Rúnarsson’s film eschews easy melodrama for a more tacit, sensory exploration of the sudden connections that death forges among the living. The future waits in limbo; simply getting through the day is drama enough.
  38. Drop
    It’s a junk-food thriller fried to near-perfection, balancing the tensions of kidnapping, conspiracy and murder with those of a nerve-wracking first date. It’s crisp and delicious.
  39. Black Dog
    Achieving a delicate balance between drama and deadpan comedy, Guan’s approach gives the scenes of violence or tragedy a certain antic, Buster Keaton quality, which is enhanced by both Peng’s impassive yet physically expressive performance, and that of his wonderful canine co-star.
  40. Christmas Eve in Miller's Point
    Tyler Taormina‘s delightful stocking-stuffer Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point is as alive to the domesticated magic of the season as a classic carol.
  41. Rumours
    The massed foibles and outright idiocies of the seven principals — all sharp individual comic creations, but collectively a devastating hot-air hydra of enfeebled contemporary democracy — add up to a frustrated protest against our elected elite fiddling while Rome (or the planet, rather) burns, offering mealy-mouthed sentiments that gesture toward coordinated action without ever getting there.
  42. The Other Way Around
    Trueba has drawn a funny little valentine, shot through by a bright, sharp arrow of feeling.
  43. Universal Language
    Rankin may have conceived Universal Language in the spirit of homage, but there’s something undeniably original about the end result. Don’t be surprised if that translates into a modest cult following and more creative ideas in the future.
  44. Souleymane's Story
    If the hero’s dire situation is a ticking clock, Lojkine’s intelligent and empathetic film places us right alongside him, with each cog of circumstance and each gear of good fortune grinding against him at every turn.
  45. The Nature of Love
    The Nature of Love refreshingly centers the female adulterer’s experience, in a richly comic mode.
  46. Backspot
    It is Jacobs’ performance that makes “Backspot” such an exciting watch, even as it hits well-known beats and otherwise expected character arcs.
  47. Big Boys
    With low-budget Big Boys, Sherman crafts a memorable outing on limited means, brought to life by an unusually endearing cast.
  48. Invisible Nation
    There are no fancy flourishes in Invisible Nation. This is strong, effective observational documentary filmmaking that does not employ voiceover or text narration, and allows viewers to form their own views.
  49. Under Paris
    As a sensory experience, Under Paris is never less than seaworthy.
  50. It Ends with Us
    When I say it’s a soap opera, I mean that as praise. Based on Colleen Hoover’s 2016 novel (the script is by Christy Hall) and directed by Justin Baldoni (who is one of the film’s costars), it’s an avid and emotional movie that pulls you right along. If you go in not knowing what it’s about, and are therefore all the more surprised by where it goes, it may be even more effective.
  51. Family Portrait
    While free-floating and airy in its construction, the film’s deceiving familiarity slowly erodes, morphing into an unsettling, formally astute brain-tickler observing the placid domesticity of an affluent Texas family in their natural habitat.
  52. Jazzy
    At first glance, Jazzy might seem more polished and traditionally structured than its predecessor. But the two films share a proudly scrappy and loose-limbed spirit in their soulful, tranquil pace.
  53. The Vourdalak
    Everything about the film manages to be forward-thinking and old-school at the same time, giving the genre a bite in the neck it might not have wanted but certainly needed.
  54. The Sheep Detectives
    The filmmakers have lightened and brightened their source material to a kid-friendly degree — even the English countryside, as glisteningly shot by George Steel, has never looked less overcast. Yet there’s wisdom amid the silliness, as the story gently makes a case for the necessity of grief, mindfulness and mortal awareness, even in a life otherwise unburdened by adult human responsibility.
  55. Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale
    Despite the nostalgic glow that prettily coddles the film, there is a delectably unsubtle passing-the-baton theme that runs through the richly populated affair.
  56. The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie
    The entire project — including a handful of fun fourth-wall-shattering asides — is crafted with love and a genuine respect for the franchise.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Murder by Decree
    Murder by Decree is probably the best Sherlock Holmes film since the inimitable pairing of Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce in the 1940s series at Universal.
  58. Panopticon
    Panopticon may not have quite the all-seeing eye its title implies, but its gaze is piercing and sharp and strange.
  59. 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.
  60. Great Absence
    Even though Great Absence, is a little overlong and its framing device, an avant-garde theater piece, feels unnecessary, in another way its multiple strands and many endings are extraordinarily, poetically appropriate.
  61. Never Let Go
    Though not all of its clever ideas come together efficiently in the finale, its thematic ruminations on grief, sanity, rebellion and redemption are intrinsically intertwined to harrowing, claustrophobic effect, heightening the hallucinatory horrors and dread-soaked atmospheric pull.
  62. The Sparrow
    [An] elegantly vicious domestic horror movie, which forensically unpicks the compacted resentments, betrayals and traumas underpinning a single weekend family gathering, with a touch as icy as the lighting is consistently, relentlessly warm.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Tales of Hoffmann
    Film is a brilliant integration of dance, story and music.
  64. Transformers One
    Transformers One approaches the well-known characters with a degree of nuance and complexity (as well as violent finality, in a few cases) that marks the most sophisticated onscreen portrait of them to date.
  65. Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes
    Taylor’s voice is singular in its expressiveness — she is insolent, mournful, sexy, outraged, dripping with debauched delight, and always casually candid. Her words invest even the most familiar events with a revealing intimacy.
  66. Rule of Two Walls
    With the concise, but still singularly haunting Rule of Two Walls, Ukrainian American director David Gutnik has assembled a collection of portraits highlighting the experiences of artists from across the country who’ve found shelter in the city of Lviv, including some of the people behind the making of this very documentary.
  67. Sirocco and the Kingdom of the Winds
    A truly spectacular psychedelic excursion in the vein of head-trip classics “The Fantastic Planet” and “The Yellow Submarine.”
  68. Blue Sun Palace
    More akin to European art films than to American indies, “Palace” prioritizes mood over plot. Tsang allows her experienced actors plenty of breathing space to convey the melancholy of their existence in situations where dreams are more likely to be deferred than to come true, but are necessary nevertheless.
  69. Youth (Hard Times)
    At nearly four hours in length, it surpasses even its gargantuan predecessor “Youth (Spring),” but it also uses that film as a platform for deeper exploration.
  70. Unstoppable
    It has plenty of familiar tropes, but in its no-frills way it touches a nerve of authenticity. The true story it tells is nothing short of extraordinary, and that may be why the filmmakers didn’t feel the need to overhype it.
  71. Drowning Dry
    Audiences open to a different sort of world cinema that repays careful attention should find it a stimulating and imaginative work.
  72. Pavements
    It’s impossible not to be won over by the director’s efforts, which come to include at least four separate modes of production.
  73. Elton John: Never Too Late
    The portrait of Sir Elton today — the astonishingly gracious gentleman he is, the family life he found — is revealing and moving.
  74. Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
    At the end, Bruce, speaking to us in voiceover, says that he plans to just keep going, to play in concert “until the wheels come off.” Watching Road Diary, you hope they never do.
  75. 40 Acres
    Though R.T. Thorne’s dynamic siege thriller has some familiar moves, it is full of fresh ideas.
  76. Hard Truths
    Leigh’s films can feel shaggy and unstructured on first viewing, and Hard Truths is no different. But there’s profound poetry in every scene.
  77. Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
    It’s a delight to find these two, plus their penguin nemesis, back on the big screen.
  78. Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight
    Precisely the sort of intelligent, human-scale adult drama audiences insist no one makes anymore.
  79. Eight Postcards from Utopia
    Eight Postcards From Utopia lingers in the mind as a sharp sociopolitical tangram that could be assembled any number of ways to differing academic and emotional effect: a vision of rebuilding or destruction, hope or nihilistic collapse, depending on what you’re willing to buy.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    My Uncle
    Somewhat long for a comedy, Jacques Tati's film has inventiveness, gags, warmth and a 'poetic' approach to satire.
    • 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.
  82. Harvest
    Tsangari’s vigorous, yeasty period piece occasionally loses the thread of its sprawling ensemble narrative, but transfixes as a whole-sackcloth immersion into another time and place.
  83. Wicked: For Good
    The emotions are real; everything else is movie magic, representing where we now stand — at the apex of artificiality — for better or worse.
  84. Stranger Eyes
    Solving one mystery unexpectedly quickly before diving into deeper, more searching uncertainties of human behavior and relationships, the third feature from Singaporean writer-director Yeo Siew Hua gradually reveals a broken heart beneath its sleek, chilly veneer.
  85. The Bibi Files
    The Bibi Files is an important documentary, because it takes in the big picture of how Benjamin Netanyahu became so entrenched that he remade Israel in his own image, in much the same way that Trump has done in the U.S. and will now try to do even more.
  86. Happyend
    As befits the son of the late Ryuichi Sakamoto (and director of acclaimed documentary Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus) Sora displays a subtly fervent faith in music as perhaps the ultimate expression of nascent individuality, and therefore, ever and eternally, a threat to regimes that rely on conformity and obedience.
  87. Afternoons of Solitude
    The film’s gaze is arguably as mocking as it is dazzled — with the macho posturing and hero-worship of Roca Rey a tacit source of comedy — while Serra, living up to his reputation for challenging arthouse fare, doesn’t flinch in his presentation of animal abuse and suffering.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Major Barbara
    Adapted from an old Shaw play, circa 1905, it still carries the lightning thrusts of Shavian caustic satire at any and all levels of society.
  89. Juror #2
    As always, Eastwood respects our intelligence. And yet, Juror No. 2 registers as something of an anomaly in his oeuvre: It ranks among his quietest films, forgoing spectacle in favor of self-reflection.
  90. Carville: Winning Is Everything, Stupid!
    A revealing and fascinating documentary portrait of James Carville.
  91. 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.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Revenge of Frankenstein
    The production is a rich one. The screenplay is well-plotted, peopled with interesting characters, aided by good performances from Francis Matthews as Cushing’s chief assistant and others.
  93. Song Sung Blue
    Brewer navigates this terrain like a jukebox Jonathan Demme.
  94. Endurance
    It’s better to let us imagine what we can’t see. But what we do see in “Endurance” is quietly staggering.
  95. Hot Frosty
    Underneath the gimmicky title of Hot Frosty lies a sweet, disarming feature about healing from tragedy. It’s also just a goofy, lovable no-brainer to click play on when craving escapism.
  96. Rita
    Bustamante remains a narratively resourceful and exciting artist. If not a flat-out consummation of his talents, Rita certainly expands his scope into more intricate tonal and stylistic experimentation, as he completely frees himself from the chains of straightforward realism.
  97. One Of Them Days
    Palmer, though she has the “straight” role, is so witty in her attack that she commands the screen. And SZA, in her film debut, simply sizzles. She’s a volcano of camp fury. The director, Lawrence Lamont, is a helmer of hip-hop videos making his feature-film directing debut, and while it might seem his main task is to keep the comedy crackling, the film’s secret weapon is the visual and rhythmic flow he imparts to it.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Winchester '73
    Stewart brings real flavor and appeal to the role of Lin, in a lean, concentrated portrayal.
  99. Heart Eyes
    Thoroughly self-aware (perhaps to a fault), stocked with self-reflexive gags and gorily-orchestrated kills, the picture is endearing with its delightfully zippy charms.
  100. Companion
    Directing his first feature, Hancock brings an impressive degree of control to a project that’s entirely execution dependent. If the timing and tone weren’t just right, the satirical edge would sour, and the entire project might seem silly or in extremely bad taste.
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