Variety's Scores

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For 17,782 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: 9,136 out of 17782
  2. Mixed: 7,010 out of 17782
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17782
17782 movie reviews
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  1. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
    T3 delivers the goods. A hard-hitting, straight-ahead sci-fi actioner with none of the pretentions and ponderousness that have put at least a portion of the public off of "The Matrix Reloaded" and "Hulk."
  2. Seaside
    The whole endeavor pleases with its wealth of tiny observations that add up to an affecting whole.
  3. The Lost Arcade
    The Lost Arcade is an engaging minor movie, but it touches on something that’s being lost in the age of technology that’s much bigger than video-game arcades: the feeling that there’s a reason — driving and inescapable and romantic — to leave home.
  4. The Exiles
    Columbus and Klein present a palimpsest of erratically overlapping perspectives. The results are untidy and unbalanced, but derive considerable energy from that eccentric approach.
  5. Julie & Julia
    This middling melange of Child biopic and contempo dramedy feels overstuffed and predigested as it depicts two ladies who found fame and fulfillment in their respective eras by cooking and writing about it.
  6. Emma
    A fine cast, speedy pacing and playful direction make this a solid contender for the Austen sweepstakes.
  7. Avengers: Age of Ultron
    The new movie is a sleeker, faster, funnier piece of work — the sort of sequel (like “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan,” “Superman II” and “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” before it) that shrugs off the self-seriousness of its predecessor and fully embraces its inner Saturday-morning serial.
  8. Captain America: The First Avenger
    As Marvel heroes go, Captain America must be the most vanilla of the lot.
  9. Glassland
    Rather than presenting a nuanced ending that’s open to interpretation, Barrett simply leaves us scratching our heads as to what just happened.
  10. Three... Extremes
    Plenty of vile little secrets and ghastly urges are explored in the stylishly made Asian-fusion horror triptych.
  11. Born to Be Wild
    Sticks faithfully to the giantscreen brand's impress-and-educate formula.
  12. Smash & Grab: The Story of the Pink Panthers
    Marking does an admirable job of ceding centerstage to the Panthers without letting the film turn soft or letting her subjects turn themselves into latter-day Robin Hoods.
  13. An Open Secret
    The amazing invincibility of Hollywood-entrenched pedophiles creates a thematic unity of its own in Berg’s otherwise somewhat shakily constructed film.
  14. Our New President
    The relentless flow of manufactured scandal and over-the-top lies in Our New President, all packaged with “authentic” video footage and flash-cut techniques, is sometimes funny, and sometimes depressing.... But mostly it’s scary.
  15. Brian and Charles
    A deceptively unserious movie it may be, but Brian and Charles leaves a serious trace through its pure sense of optimism.
    • 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.
  17. The Kitchen
    Even at its shakiest, however, “The Kitchen” gets by on the steam of its own fury, and on its tender depiction of a trampled underclass staving off defeat through small, everyday acts of care and empathy.
  18. Missing
    An improbable escalation of events and more than a few niggling questions about who’s doing what and how renders this screenlife thriller in dimensions that unfortunately resonate better on an intimate, handheld scale than the big screen.
  19. Something's Gotta Give
    Jokes about impotence, menopause and other middle-aged maladies reside where a screenplay ought to live.
  20. Patti Smith: Dream of Life
    The textured, thoughtful results may prove too cerebral and abstract for audiences beyond Smith's hardcore followers,
  21. The Girlfriend Experience
    Fascinating study of free enterprise in free fall. While it may disappoint thrill-seekers, "Girlfriend" should still delight Soderbergh fans and niche auds.
  22. Sausage Party
    Sausage Party is something far short of Shavian in terms of sophisticated dialogue — really, there is just so much novelty value one can milk from repetitious fusillades of F-bombs launched by animated characters — but it is difficult to deny the hilarity quotient of a movie so exuberantly and unapologetically rude and crude.
  23. Shin Godzilla (Godzilla Resurgence)
    The Original Gangsta Lizard gets a largely satisfying reboot in Shin Godzilla, a surprisingly clever monster mash best described as the “Batman Begins” of Zilla Thrillers.
  24. Mind Game
    Brain-teasing, wildly unpredictable animated feature.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Beverly Hills Cop
    Beverly Hills Cop is more cop show than comedy riot. Expectations that Eddie Murphy's street brand of rebelliousness would devastate staid and glittery Beverly Hills are not entirely met in a film that grows increasingly dramatic.
    • Variety
  26. Sunshine on Leith
    It’s a chirpy heart-on-sleeve confection that’s populist in a somewhat generic way.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Dark Star
    Dark Star is a limp parody of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey that warrants attention only for some remarkably believable special effects achieved with very little money. The dim comedy consists of sophomoric notations and mistimed one-liners.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask
    Allen's gift is in the depiction of a contemporary intellectual shlump who cannot seem to make it with the chicks always tantalizingly out of reach. That persona could well have served him once more as the focus for a good bit of caustic comedy on today's sexual mores.
    • Variety
  29. The Last Dalai Lama?
    The thing you want from a documentary about his holiness the 14th Dalai Lama is the chance to get right up close to him, in the way that movies can do. You want the chance to bask in his presence and come out with a heightened sense of what he’s about. The Last Dalai Lama? accomplishes that, and with an offhand eloquence, though it’s a sketchy, catch-as-catch-can movie.
  30. Survivors Guide to Prison
    If ever a proselytizing documentary could be described as assaultive, Survivors Guide to Prison might sport that label as a badge of honor.
  31. King Cohen: The Wild World of Filmmaker Larry Cohen
    There’s nothing particularly inspired about Mitchell’s treatment here — he’s directed a lot of DVD extras, and this first feature feels like a plus-sized version of one — but there’s considerable entertainment value in its subject.
  32. The Life Ahead
    The film, modest and often maudlin on its own storytelling terms, runs on a current of beyond-the-screen devotion that makes it compelling. Without that unquantifiable x-factor presence in the frame, it’s hard to say what reason this Netflix release would really have for being.
  33. Diary of the Dead
    Gripping, intimate genre triumph.
  34. Peterloo
    When Peterloo’s unaligned fingers form a fist, for a punching, unyielding, robustly choreographed finale of rage against the right-wing machine, the film makes good on its most taxing demands.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    White Hunter Black Heart
    Clint Eastwood's film isn't an African adventure epic, as those unaware of Peter Viertel's 1953 book may surmise from the title. It's an intelligent, affectionate study of an obsessive American film director who, while working on a film in colonial Africa, becomes sidetracked by his compulsion to hunt elephants.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Alan Partridge
    A scissor-sharp comedy of ineptitude and failure.
  37. Take Every Wave: The Life of Laird Hamilton
    Even at two full hours, “Take Every Wave” must do a lot of condensing. Still, as ample and awesome as Hamilton’s exterior doings are, one gets something of a classic “authorized portrait” vibe here in that he’s not about to let us get too far into his head.
  38. Innocent Voices
    While the respectable result is a more meaningful film than just about anything Mandoki worked on during his 17 years in Hollywood ("Angel Eyes," "Message in a Bottle"), pic suffers from an overindulgence of triumph-over-adversity cliches and a meandering narrative.
  39. Afterschool
    Unsettles without illuminating, marred by narcotic pacing and a blank lead performance.
  40. Stuart Little 2
    Slight but lively sequel. Aimed squarely at moppets with piddling attention spans.
  41. Bolivia
    A dignified second film for Caetano.
  42. Auto Focus
    Schrader directs with a very smooth hand, providing a good-natured and frequently amusing spin to eventually grim material that aptly reflects the protagonist's almost unfailing good humor.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Miller's Crossing
    Substance is here in spades, along with the twisted, brilliantly controlled style on which filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen made a name.
  44. Clara's Ghost
    Clara’s Ghost is determinedly quirky, but its ideas are seldom all that original or funny, too often degenerating into rote scatological humor. Nonetheless, there’s a formative creative sensibility that seems on the verge of defining itself — something that never quite happens before the film ends, its anecdotal story having drifted nowhere in particular.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Slaughterhouse-Five
    Slaughterhouse-Five is a mechanically slick, dramatically sterile commentary about World War II and afterward, as seen through the eyes of a boob Everyman. Director George Roy Hill's arch achievement emphasizes the diffused cant to the detriment of characterizations, which are stiff, unsympathetic and skin-deep.
  46. Desert of Namibia
    Like Kana, it’s gloomy, purposeless and hard to love — but that only makes the film, and its lead, feel more pulsating alive.
  47. Devotion
    Director JD Dillard dazzles with see-it-in-Imax airborne sequences, but the meat of the film focuses on the friendship between Brown (“Da 5 Bloods” star Jonathan Majors) and his white wingman, played by Glen Powell, the “Hidden Figures” actor who most recently appeared in “Top Gun: Maverick.”
  48. Dark Horse
    Result is far less abrasive than some of its predecessors, but for that very reason seems unlikely to generate the attention needed to meet Solondz's already modest commercial standards.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Dead Again
    Engaging film style is buoyed by an infectious sense of fun and punctuated by wild and woolly character turns.
  50. The Optimists
    Explores another courageous, little-known chapter in the saga of resistance and heroics during World War II.
  51. Creed II
    Creed II has been made with heart and skill, and Jordan invests each moment with such fierce conviction that he makes it all seem like it matters.
  52. Nina Wu
    Nina Wu is a thrillingly complicated sort of corrective, living out the progressive ideal of giving the victim back her story, even when that story, told with lacerating self-criticism and a deep undercurrent of dismay, includes a great deal that falls far short of progressive ideals.
  53. Ben Is Back
    The entire film is that rarest of gifts for its cast, providing virtually every character with a chance to play not only the present moment, but the complicated history they’ve established with Ben in the past, as well as whatever chance they see in the troubled young man’s future.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Rush
    Head-swiveling directorial debut of Lili Fini Zanuck lays out a tough masculine scenario [based on Kim Wozencraft's book] in a way that is always emotionally riveting.
  55. Wiener-Dog
    This elegantly wrought oddity appears at the halfway mark to be heading into uncharacteristically hopeful territory for Solondz — until a toe-tapping intermission marks a reassuring plunge into abject despair.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    L.A. Story
    Goofy and sweet, L.A. Story constitutes Steve Martin's satiric valentine to his hometown and a pretty funny comedy in the bargain.
  57. Pamela, a love story
    Even as a thoughtful chronicle of the ups and downs of her life, Ryan White’s film plays slightly as a retread that amplifies the public’s love story with redemption arcs — especially for celebrities — more than it offers anything that has not already been revealed to the world.
  58. Ever After
    Barrymore continues to prove herself as a performer of extraordinary range and charisma, and is simply sublime in the leading role.
  59. The Founder
    Keaton plays Kroc as a man both pathetic and singularly possessed, cannily resisting lovability at every turn, while delivering the internalized self-help speak of his sales pitches with chillingly glib precision.
  60. Rabin, the Last Day
    In keeping with Gitai’s typically austere oeuvre, it’s a long, slow and sober piece — one could even call it a documentary, despite the fact that actors have been hired to perform deposition scenes derived directly from Shamgar transcripts.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Thomas Crown Affair
    the Norman Jewison film tells a crackerjack story, well-tooled, professionally crafted and fashioned with obvious meticulous care. McQueen is neatly cast as the likeable, but lonely heavy. Dunaway makes an excellent detective who gradually develops a conflict of interests regarding her prey. The only message in this film is: enjoy it.
  62. The Intruder
    Perhaps the key issue, aside from the inherent silliness of the unsubstantiated mystical psychobabble that is fielded as an explanation for Inés’ “condition” is that Inés herself is not a particularly well-developed character.
  63. Charlatan
    Caught between a respectful tribute to Mikolášek’s medical achievements and a more salacious examination of his moral transgressions — with a tender if speculative gay romance propped somewhere in between — it’s an ambitious portrait of human imperfection that doesn’t strain to arouse much affection for its subject in the audience.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Pollyanna
    In Walt Disney's Pollyanna Hayley Mills' work more than compensates for the film's lack of tautness and, at certain points, what seems to be an uncertain sense of direction.
  65. Taking Venice
    Taking Venice is a very good documentary, though with a hint of pearl-clutching. There’s a “We were shocked, shocked…” undercurrent to the whole thing.
  66. Mulan
    Storyboarded to within an inch of its life, then translated to screen with stunning energy and attention to detail, the film represents Hollywood’s most enthusiastic embrace of blockbuster Asian cinema tropes since “The Matrix” trilogy.
  67. The Angels' Share
    An amiable comedy about young Glaswegian roughnecks discovering the world of whisky, The Angels’ Share finds helmer Ken Loach and long-term screenwriting partner Paul Laverty in better, breezier form than their rebarbative prior effort, “Route Irish.”
    • 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.
  69. Michael Jackson's Journey from Motown to Off the Wall
    This bouncily entertaining doc may boast only a notch more formal ambition than a very well-assembled “Behind the Music” special, but is no less essential than Lee’s first MJ opus, the excellent “Bad 25.”
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Rain People
    Writer-director Francis Coppola, scrutinizing the flight of a neurotic young woman and her efforts to assist a brain-damaged ex-football player, has developed an overlong, brooding film incorporating some excellent photography. Often lingering too long on detail to build effects, he manages to lose character sympathy.
  71. You Cannot Kill David Arquette
    Is Arquette a has-been actor trumping up his biggest failure so that he can exploit it? Or is he a lionhearted wrestler who finds triumph by going the distance? The weird thing is that there’s no difference.
  72. By Sidney Lumet
    The movie is simply Lumet and his films, which turns out to be an astonishingly satisfying experience, because he’s an incredible talker, with the same earthy electric push that powers his work.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Aristocats
    Helped immeasurably by the voices of Phil Harris, Eva Gabor, Sterling Holloway, Scatman Crothers and others, plus some outstanding animation, songs, sentiment, some excellent dialog and even a touch of psychedelia.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Frantic
    Frantic is a thriller without much surprise, suspense or excitement. Drama about an American doctor's desperate search for his kidnapped wife through the demi-monde of Paris reveals director Roman Polanski's personality and enthusiasm only in brief humorous moments.
  75. Fast Five
    The 10-year run of the “Fast and Furious” roadshow isn’t slowing down a bit in Fast Five, by most measures the best of the bunch, combining fresh casting choices, interesting Rio locales and literally smashing bookended action sequences.
  76. The Sound of Silence
    The Sound of Silence is a deeply silly movie that takes itself incredibly seriously, and believe it or not, that’s its great pleasure.
  77. OC87: The Obsessive Compulsive, Major Depression, Bipolar, Asperger's Movie
    OC87 serves both its subject and its viewers well by chronicling a process that is actually insightful, entertaining and apparently successful.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Roberta
    Roberta is musical picture-making at its best - fast, smart, good looking and tuneful.
  79. Hollywood Stargirl
    Hart and her team have carefully and craftily built the ultimate sequel. The narrative advances the perky protagonist’s internal and external objectives with a gentle yet profound arc; technical contributions complement her journey, both visually and sonically. The film never betrays its lead character in any fashion.
  80. Sasquatch Sunset
    Sasquatches may not exist, but miraculously enough, this movie does, and like the creatures it depicts, it must be seen to be believed.
  81. Spanking the Monkey
    The story is undoubtedly weird, but perhaps more so on paper than on the screen, since Russell and his actors have played it mostly straight in attempting to confer psychological validity on all the untoward developments.
  82. Bloody Marie
    Given their evident talent for packaging (as opposed to content), Hillege and van Driel might next consider doing something of a more purely genre-based nature, where depth or its lack thereof won’t matter much.
  83. What You Wish For
    Filmmaker Nicholas Tomnay’s sophomore feature percolates with atmospheric dread and austerity, but only superficially explores the twisted amorality of the 1% and those who service their whims. While not always successful in cooking up tantalizing commentary on human behavior, it offers a decent helping of Hitchcockian intrigue.
  84. Seven Psychopaths
    Compared to McDonagh's best work for stage ("The Lieutenant of Inishmore") and screen ("In Bruges"), Seven Psychopaths feels like either an older script knocking around the bottom of a drawer or a new one hastily tossed off between more ambitious projects.
  85. Small Town Murder Songs
    It's a rare film that feels too short, but Small Town Murder Songs leaves one wanting more -- more murder story, mystery and revelations from lead thesp Peter Stormare and virtuoso helmer Ed Gass-Donnelly.
  86. Bumblebee
    Bumblebee shows that there’s room for a bit more nuance within the formula, but if you break it down, this relatively enjoyable film is made entirely from recycled parts.
  87. Holy Spider
    Before a final act dealing with the fascinating social fallout once Saeed’s crimes are known and he becomes, in some quarters including his own household, a hero on a righteous moral crusade, Abbasi’s film hews close to this established template.
  88. Tuck Everlasting
    Disney's tradition of intelligent, live-action family period cinema is magnificently revived in Tuck Everlasting.
  89. Dog Days
    An acid portrait of contemporary Austria (and by extension, the whole middle class) as unspeakably dull, violent and stupid. The film itself, miraculously, is just the opposite: vibrantly inventive, aesthetically rigorous, sardonic and occasionally quite brilliant.
  90. Steamboy
    Dry storytelling and boy's-toys mechanics will stop this from being the next "Spirited Away"-style crossover hit.
  91. Phantom Boy
    Though Felicioli and Gagnol’s visuals suggest colorful kidlit illustrations come to life, their labor-intensive style isn’t for everyone.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    American Me
    The criminal life is portrayed with all the glamour of a mugshot in American Me, a powerful indictment of the cycle of violence bred by the prisons and street culture.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Blue Thunder
    Blue Thunder is a ripsnorting live-action cartoon, utterly implausible but no less enjoyable for that.
  94. Yellow Letters
    At its core is the kind of cinema that has long sustained the medium at large: the family drama. But it’s presented here with invigorating flourishes that encircle the story within specific moments in time, while also granting it a stirring dramatic transcendence. The scope of its ambition is met, at every turn, by deft control over what is witnessed, and how.
  95. Fly Away
    Exceptional performances by two femme leads and sensitive but unsentimental storytelling throughout.
    • 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.
  97. Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story
    Deeply influential, even to his enemies, Atwater's career is viewed here with fascination and some sympathy.
  98. Megan Leavey
    Often too clunky for its own good, and (ahem) doggedly apolitical throughout, this earnest feel-good tale nonetheless manages to pull on the heartstrings with sufficient gentleness.
  99. The Bling Ring
    The Bling Ring traces an intriguing feedback loop of which it is knowingly a part: a movie that affords its subjects the very immortality they so aggressively sought.
  100. Dinosaur 13
    [An] engrossing documentary.
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