Variety's Scores

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For 17,786 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: 9,137 out of 17786
  2. Mixed: 7,013 out of 17786
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17786
17786 movie reviews
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  1. Neighbors
    Lewder, weirder, louder, leaner, meaner and more winningly stupid than anything its director Nicholas Stoller and star Seth Rogen have ever been involved with before, frat comedy Neighbors boasts an almost oppressive volume of outrageous gags.
  2. Inequality for All
    Covering a broad swath of liberal economic theory in brisk, simply stated fashion, Inequality for All aims to do for income disparity what “An Inconvenient Truth” did for climate change.
  3. Drew: The Man Behind the Poster
    The director commissioned Struzan to paint the one-sheet for his debut, “Sexina: Popstar P.I.,” and while this sophomore effort is no masterpiece, it’s far more deserving of Struzan’s talent.
  4. We the Parents
    While no doubt a more evenhanded documentary remains to be made on this issue, the Takatas’ effort is polished and convincing on its own terms.
  5. Ted 2
    Both “Ted” movies are, ultimately, one-joke affairs rooted in the idea of taking some emblem of childhood innocence and vulgarizing it.... That joke, though, turns out to be a resilient one, and the chemistry between Wahlberg and MacFarlane is infectiously puerile.
  6. Million Dollar Arm
    Sometimes a hard-hitting expose, sometimes a big-hearted crowdpleaser, Million Dollar Arm wants it both ways to be sure, but its instincts are mostly right on the money, as are its actors.
  7. Escape from Tomorrow
    Escape From Tomorrow is a sneakily subversive exercise in low-budget surrealism and anti-corporate satire.
  8. Go Grandriders
    Hua Tien-hau’s sentimental, conventionally inspiring film offers good-natured insights on the importance — and the difficulty — of living life to the fullest at any age.
  9. Broadway Idiot
    A straightforward account of the show’s journey from conception to rehearsal to Great White Way triumph, it effectively doubles as a traditional let’s-put-on-a-show musical in its own right, albeit one with heavier guitars.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Gung Ho
    Drawn from real life, the conflict between cultures is good for both a laugh and a sober thought along the way.
  11. The Last Christeros
    The final days of a band of 1930s Christian rebels in the central Mexican wilderness are depicted with majestic stoicism in Matias Meyer’s elegant ode to independence.
  12. We Are What We Are
    That We Are What We Are steers just shy of silliness even at its most outrageous is in large part thanks to a committed cast of non-disposable character actors.
  13. Red Obsession
    The film’s rather simplistic cultural juxtapositions, pitting artistic appreciators against status-seeking philistines, work best when narrowly focused on the subject of wine.
  14. Bounty Killer
    Cheerfully gory, derivative and silly, Bounty Killer aspires to nothing more or less than trashy fun for genre fans, and this umpteenth “Mad Max”-style dystopian actioner delivers on that modest but admirable score
  15. I Am Breathing
    Not so much harrowing as achingly reflective.
  16. Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie
    Filmmakers take a shotgun approach to comedy, inundating the viewer with wisecracks that, more often than not, don't go over. But those that do still add up to lotsa laughs, and the sheer weight of them eventually builds an atmosphere of mild lunacy that it's useless to resist.
  17. Get On Up
    Boseman is an empathic presence, and nothing he does smacks of mimicry. He feels Brown from the inside out, the way Brown felt his own distinctive rhythms, and even when the movie itself seems to be on autopilot, Boseman never leaves the captain’s chair.
  18. TV Man: The Search for the Last Independent Dealer
    Charged by alternating currents of nostalgic bemusement and wistful melancholy, TV Man: The Search for the Last Independent Dealer evinces all the amiable enthusiasm and discursive rambling one might expect from a do-it-yourself labor of love.
  19. All Is Bright
    This engaging if somewhat underwhelming tale of unlikely redemption builds a funny-sad web of intersecting interactions around its strong central perfs.
  20. Money for Nothing: Inside the Federal Reserve
    A thoughtful, detailed chronicle of the Fed’s origins, responsibilities and shifting monetary policies.
  21. 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.
  22. The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him
    It’s a measure of Benson’s sure, skillful hand with actors that all the relationships in the movie — husband and wife, parent and child — feel lived-in and true, even when the dialogue strains too hard for the meaningful and poetic.
  23. Enemy
    Ultimately, the enigmatic surface conflict — in which a man must contend with his own carbon copy as rival — proves to be the film’s own worst enemy, for its dark, David Lynchian allure proves almost too compelling, obscuring the material’s deeper themes.
  24. What If
    Roughly three parts charming to one part cloying, The F Word attempts and largely succeeds at pulling off a smart, self-aware riff on romantic-comedy conventions while maintaining a core of earnest feeling.
  25. American Promise
    American Promise succeeds in touching on a wealth of subjects without overreaching.
  26. Palo Alto
    While Palo Alto doesn’t seem to be saying anything new exactly, it boasts a clear and confident voice of its own, and it will be exciting to see where the young Coppola goes from here.
  27. Life of Crime
    Flavorful yet brisk like the book, Life of Crime loses some of its source material’s character development as well as a few minor narrative pieces (the dialogue remains nearly all Leonard’s), but the excellent casting fills in any resulting gaps well enough.
  28. Philomena
    It’s an undeniable whopper of a yarn and, coming after a string of middling efforts from Frears, easily the director’s most compulsively watchable picture since “The Queen."
  29. Miss Violence
    Avranas’ film employs an irony-free meter that certainly distinguishes his work from that of Lanthimos or Athina Rachel Tsangari, and lends the film’s most explicitly severe sequences of domestic and sexual abuse a kind of cumulative numbing power.
  30. How I Live Now
    Wisely sticks to its protagonist’s p.o.v. while avoiding a longer view of the calamitous events around her, making up in emotional immediacy what it lacks in broad dramatic sweep.
  31. Bridegroom
    It may not be balanced or especially sophisticated filmmaking, suffering from a misty-eyed oversimplification of what relationships (gay or straight) actually demand. But for many, it’s precisely the sort of emotional eye-opener needed for young people to find inspiration and naysayers to reconsider their attitudes.
  32. Big Sur
    Michael Polish’s Big Sur offers an elegantly muted take on the midlife ennui of Kerouac’s autobiographical 1962 novel.
  33. Zero Charisma
    Affectionately captures the tail end of a culture in which specialized dice, character sheets and hand-painted figurines were the gateway to elaborate flights of imagination.
  34. Maggie
    Though Henry Hobson’s hugely promising debut feature is generating buzz from the casting of a fine, low-key Arnold Schwarzenegger as the anguished father of a semi-zombified teen, it’s Abigail Breslin’s gutsy, nuanced turn as the reluctantly undead title character — at once a heroine to be protected and a mutant threat to be destroyed — that makes the film unique within its grisly canon.
  35. Cinderella
    Though this Cinderella could never replace Disney’s animated classic, it’s no ugly stepsister either, but a deserving companion.
  36. Big Ass Spider!
    An exceedingly good-natured Z-grade creature feature.
  37. Babygirl
    Nevertheless, Babygirl has sufficient authenticity and charm as a summer-in-the-city miniature to easily hold attention, however modest its payoff.
  38. These Birds Walk
    Instead of explaining the system through conventional narration, which would have been extremely helpful, the filmmakers immerse auds in the world they found, capturing its subjects’ behavior with startling candor.
  39. God Loves Uganda
    Roger Ross Williams’ forceful polemic succeeds to a startling degree, rightly decrying the use of the gospel to incite homophobia, and allowing the most fervent interviewees to damn themselves with their own proselytizing words.
  40. When I Walk
    The pic is a bit clunky at times in its structure of blackout-separated chapters, and its subjects aren’t the most articulate folks, but it’s all kept relatable by their almost unshakably upbeat attitudes.
  41. Forgetting the Girl
    First-time feature helmer Nate Taylor, working from an adroitly constructed screenplay by Peter Moore Smith, skillfully evokes a clammy sense of dread in this stealthily suspenseful indie.
  42. The New Black
    Laid-back yet incisive, The New Black examines the complexity of black attitudes toward same-sex marriage, which the mainstream media tend to oversimplify as church-dominated and uniformly negative.
  43. Medora
    Filmmakers Andrew Cohn and Davy Rothbart uncover and illuminate a strain of stoic resilience that could be the last best defense against bottomless despair. Unfortunately, as Medora repeatedly suggests, that invaluable resource may not be inexhaustible.
  44. Cut to Black
    Although the film wears its dated genre affectations on its sleeve, the script avoids pretension, its hero’s believably alienated exhaustion overriding mere nostalgia.
  45. Life According to Sam
    A straightforward, solidly crafted inspirational tale.
  46. Remington and the Curse of the Zombadings
    Exuberantly silly, Remington and the Curse of the Zombadings sends up Filipino horror, romance, gaysploitation and other genre cliches in service of a pro-tolerance message.
  47. Angels Sing
    Working from a script by Lou Berney, which in turn was adapted from a novel by Turk Pipkin, director Tim McCanlies maintains an even hand throughout, so that neither the moments of broad comedy nor the stretches of tearjerking sentimentality get out of hand.
  48. Sweet Dreams
    Sweet Dreams finds and sustains a delicate balance, seizing on small moments of hope in a place where the horrors of 1994 are in many ways still an open wound.
  49. It's Me, It's Me
    Most of the comedy in It’s Me, It’s Me is behavioral, playing off the plausible notion that meeting exact copies of yourself would not be terrifying so much as socially awkward.
  50. Pad Yatra: A Green Odyssey
    A trek across the Himalayas to raise climate-change awareness is respectfully packaged as inspirational comfort food in Pad Yatra: A Green Odyssey.
  51. Approved for Adoption
    It’s impossible not to be charmed on some level by Jung Henin and Laurent Boileau’s Approved for Adoption, though it’s best not to ask for too much.
  52. Paradise: Hope
    Paradise: Hope has humor and warmth, and shows more genuine affection and kindness toward its characters than Seidl usually allows.
  53. Swerve
    Packs enough pace, suspense and quality thesping to overcome some minor plot wobbles.
  54. The Banshee Chapter
    Proving the “Paranormal Activity” formula can still work when used with canny restraint, Erickson achieves good results with long, eerie found-footage takes that end in jolts.
  55. Krrish 3
    All credit to Krrish 3 for not being an audience-pummeling industrial product like most of Hollywood’s superhero films. It has the off-hand, anything-is-possible spirit of a children’s book or fairy tale.
  56. Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens
    The reassuring familiarity of Abrams’ approach has its limitations: Marvelous as it is to catch up with Han Solo, Leia and the rest of the gang, fan service takes priority here over a somewhat thin, derivative story that, despite the presence of two appealing new stars, doesn’t exactly fire the imagination anew.
  57. Caucus
    [A] fascinating but only intermittently insightful film.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Assault on Precinct 13
    Novelty of a gang swearing a blood oath to destroy a precinct station and all inside is sufficiently compelling for the gory-minded to assure acceptance. John Carpenter’s direction of his screenplay, after a pokey opening half, is responsible for realistic movement.
  59. Detroit Unleaded
    A lively slice-of-life that uses familiar romantic-comedy tropes and a vibrant cast of characters to humorously explore family relationships, cultural identity and love.
  60. Kingsman: The Secret Service
    While seriousness has overtaken the Bond franchise in recent years (hardly a bad thing, mind you), Kingsman runs no such risk. Vaughn welcomes details that might seem silly in another director’s hands, such as a bulletproof umbrella or tiny microchips that can make one’s head explode, presenting everything playfully enough that plausibility isn’t a factor.
  61. Paddington
    Affectionately honoring the everyday quirks of Bond’s stories, while subtly updating their middle-class London milieu, King’s film may divide loyal Paddingtophiles with its high-stakes caper plot, but their enraptured kids won’t care a whit.
  62. The New Rijksmuseum
    Hoogendijk has created an artifact that, while not exactly elegant, 400 years hence may prove as vital a window into Amsterdam culture as any of the Dutch masterpieces hanging in the museum itself.
    • 99 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    City Lights
    It’s not Chaplin’s best picture, because the comedian has sacrificed speed to pathos, and plenty of it. This is principally the reason for the picture running some 1,500 or more feet beyond any previous film released by him. But the British comic is still the consummate pantomimist, unquestionably one of the greatest the stage or screen has ever known. Certain sequences in “City Lights” are hilarious.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Night of the Comet
    Night of the Comet is a successful pastiche of numerous science fiction films, executed with an entertaining, tongue-in-cheek flair that compensates for its absence in originality.
  65. Jane Got a Gun
    A solidly made and conventionally satisfying Western.
  66. Shored Up
    Eschews hysteria, preachiness and self-importance in favor of calm, persuasive scientific arguments.
  67. Draft Day
    Draft Day affords the simple but uncommon pleasure of watching intelligent characters who are passionate about what they do trying to do the best that they can.
  68. Lucy
    Giddily recycling everything from “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “The Matrix” to yakuza actioners and National Geographic documentaries, it’s a garish, trippy, wildly uneven and finally quite disarming piece of work, graced by a moment-to-moment unpredictability.
  69. UnHung Hero
    The film’s brisk progress is always genial and lively, hitting the expected off-color-humor marks without getting too juvenile.
  70. Beyond the Lights
    Beyond the Lights is a strange beast, a music-industry romance that alternates freely between wisdom and mawkishness, caustic entertainment-biz critique and naive wish fulfillment, heartfelt flourishes and soap-opera shenanigans.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Ms. 45
    By keeping the picture short and busy, Ferrara makes its far-fetched elements play.
  72. What's in a Name?
    The directors have brought onboard the entire original cast. This makes their job much easier, as countless performances have perfected the timing and tone of each single line.
  73. Justin Bieber's Believe
    A slickly entertaining piece of work that will doubtless delight the young pop star’s fan base, and possibly engage curiosity-seekers who have heretofore remained immune or indifferent to Bieber Fever.
  74. Journey to the South Pacific
    Structurally, the film is somewhat rambling and unfocused even within its tight 40-minute running time, cutting away periodically to address the ways in which overfishing and rising water levels have severely impacted the reef and its ability to support plant and animal life. The lessons are valuable and necessary, but they’re not particularly well integrated.
  75. Desert Runners
    There’s an upbeat tenor to Desert Runners that develops real rooting value for the protags.
  76. The Raid 2
    It’s hard to shake a nagging feeling of more is less; with its convoluted plot mechanics clearly cribbed from past thriller templates, the film never quite generates or sustains its predecessor’s pure sense of menace.
  77. Ice Age: Collision Course
    It may be a slight entertainment in the grand scheme of things, but it’s been made with a busy, nattering joy that is positively infectious
  78. The Great Flood
    Morrison has always closely collaborated with musicians, but here the helmer goes one better, making music the ultimate product of the Great Flood.
  79. Everest
    Kormakur doesn’t make the mistake of exalting his subjects as extraordinary individuals, or suggesting that they were obeying some sort of noble higher calling. Everest is blunt, businesslike and — as it begins its long march through the death zone — something of an achievement.
  80. Masterminds
    It’s this improv-ready ensemble’s wit and Galifianakis’ own gift for physical humor that account for most of the laugh-out-loud moments, heightened by silly flourishes so eccentric...they could only be found in a Jared Hess movie.
  81. Bethlehem
    The film comprises an impressive directorial debut for Adler who demonstrates a confident grasp of pace, place and thesp handling.
  82. Far from the Madding Crowd
    What does register at every turn is a vibrant sense of time and place that pulls us into Hardy’s bygone world even when the drama falters.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Explorers
    Throughout, director Joe Dante and writer Eric Luke load the proceedings with references to sci-fiers of an earlier day, such as War of the Worlds, This Island Earth, Journey to the Center of the Earth and many others, but this is nothing compared to what happens when the trio of youngsters finally take off into outer space and make contact with an alien race.
  84. G.B.F.
    Genially cartoonish but also rather sweet.
  85. The Drop
    The Drop is at once upfront and highly effective in its manipulations, tugging at our heartstrings even as it flicks away at our nerves.
  86. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2
    One could argue that “Mockingjay” didn’t really merit being split in two (and surely a single three-hour movie could be made of it), but we benefit from the fact that the film has been given room to breathe, which allows for subtle character moments...and the gradual building of suspense during the actual siege in the Capitol.
  87. Knight of Cups
    Those who have had their fill of the director’s impressionistic musings will find his seventh feature as empty as the lifestyle it puts on display; for the rest of us, there’s no denying this star-studded, never-a-dull-moment cinematic oddity represents another flawed but fascinating reframing of man’s place in the modern world.
  88. Suite Française
    Clumsy storytelling decisions, however, can’t entirely get in the way of a good story, and it’s when Suite francaise focuses on the simplest human dynamics of its yarn that it forges a sincere emotional connection.
  89. True Story
    While never as gripping as a good piece of fiction, Goold’s treatment actually manages to improve on the book, even if that meant fabricating a few things along the way.
  90. They Came Together
    A lively comic jamboree that’s sometimes smarter than it is funny and hits about as often as it misses, but is, on balance, a good deal of fun.
  91. Song One
    Perhaps the cleverest thing about Barker-Froyland’s delicately contrived debut is how uncontrived she manages to make it seem.
  92. Ping Pong Summer
    A sweetly amusing ode to the underdog sports movies that proliferated during that widely derided decade.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Killing Fields
    A story of perseverance and survival in hell on earth, The Killing Fields represents an admirable, if not entirely successful, attempt to bring alive to the world film audience the horror story that is the recent history of Cambodia.
  94. Laggies
    If the narrative progression feels too tidy and circumscribed, Shelton’s talent for bringing out the best in her actors remains satisfyingly intact.
  95. White Bird in a Blizzard
    It’s naughty, campy and wildly uneven.
  96. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
    Snyder has set a Sisyphean task for himself. That this very long, very brooding, often exhilarating and sometimes scattered epic succeeds as often it does therefore has to be seen as an achievement.
  97. Camp X-Ray
    Camp X-Ray is most commendable for believably depicting the U.S. military from a female’s point of view.
  98. Towheads
    Works better as a series of well-conceived, impeccably timed and executed physical gags, with light dustings of pathos, than as the story of a woman sacrificing her artistic identity on the altar of motherhood.
  99. A Birder's Guide to Everything
    The constant, genial comic undercurrent of teenspeak exchanges, penned by the writing team of helmer Meyer and Luke Matheny, contrasts satisfyingly with Kingsley’s wry musings and the more serious treatment given to David’s evolving maturity.
  100. Rob the Mob
    Unexpectedly but effectively cast in a role that plays to his sullen strengths, Pitt has a palpable, playful rapport with Arianda, a Tony-winning Broadway ingenue whose warm, expressive features and tinderbox comic timing recalls the young Marisa Tomei.
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