Variety's Scores

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For 17,847 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 2.3 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: 9,172 out of 17847
  2. Mixed: 7,036 out of 17847
  3. Negative: 1,639 out of 17847
17847 movie reviews
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  1. The Bronze
    Though no one would accuse The Bronze of not being funny, it somehow manages not to be funny often enough.
  2. Queen and Country
    Queen and Country lacks the immediacy of “Hope and Glory,” in part because there’s no single animating event here to rival the Blitz... But it remains a pleasure to spend time in the presence of these characters, and a third volume — perhaps focused on Bill’s entrance into the British film industry — would hardly be unwelcome.
  3. The Principle
    It’s easy to see a skewed argument in the making.
  4. Boychoir
    Boychoir may be soft, but it’s not run-of-the-mill TV-movie treacle, offering just enough edge to lend credibility.
  5. Salvation Army
    Transitioning his story to the screen, Taia retains the bare bones but strips away warmth and insight, without any fresh perceptions that would compensate.
  6. Mortdecai
    There’s a fatal shortage of zingers to supplement its exhausting zaniness.
  7. Strange Magic
    A thoroughly derivative and unengaging fantasy.
  8. We'll Never Have Paris
    A sporadically amusing, more often grating romantic comedy.
  9. The Boy Next Door
    The film’s initial formulaic competence gives way to outright preposterousness rather quickly, hinging on idiot-plot character motivations.
  10. I
    Star Chiyaan Vikram delivers a knockout three-pronged performance, but this cinematic bravura is offset by underdeveloped scripting, flatly one-dimensional villains and overdone lone-hero-vs.-swarms-of-murderous-attackers setpieces.
  11. Vice
    Conveying zero grit, atmosphere or texture (exterior shots are repetitively bathed in cobalt blue), and gathering little in the way of force or dramatic momentum, “Vice” barely engages with its potential ideas beyond the most blandly expository, bullet-ridden level.
  12. Loitering with Intent
    Loitering With Intent is essentially a 75-minute hangout movie, which would work better if the characters were worth hanging out with.
  13. Spare Parts
    Even though it’s easy to identify all the recycled elements — bits and pieces of several inspirational-teacher scenarios, ranging from “To Sir, With Love” to “Stand and Deliver” — in this “based on a true story” concoction, there can be no denying the feel-good effect of the finished product.
  14. Ex Machina
    Ex Machina turns out to be far wittier and more sensual than its coolly unblemished exterior implies; it’s a trick that mirrors Ava’s own apparent Turing-test-defying evolution.
  15. Medeas
    A primal tragedy rendered with exquisite imagery and very little dialogue or exposition, Andrea Pallaoro’s Medeas is a striking debut feature that will fascinate some viewers and exasperate others.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Guitar Mongoloid
    One of the quirkiest Swedish films of recent memory, “The Guitar Mongoloid” has all the makings of a cult classic.... A dark, but also humorous, depiction of a society with lonely people and sudden outbursts of violence.
  17. Play
    Pic is a little too pleased with its own evenhanded presentation of liberal moral conundrums, but there’s no gainsaying Ostlund’s remarkable achievement in coaxing entirely naturalistic perfs from his young core cast
  18. 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.
  19. When Marnie Was There
    Yonebayashi’s open-hearted tale, more than any other Ghibli offering, could conceivably have worked just as well in live-action, and yet the tender story gains so much from the studio’s delicate, hand-crafted approach.
  20. Joy of Man's Desiring
    Static, strikingly composed documentary stretches are interspersed with actors playing workers who voice a variety of complaints, appreciations and parables that deliberately, even pointedly, fail to encompass the sense of being there amid the unfolding spectacle.
  21. The Wedding Ringer
    A well-cast but clumsily assembled buddy-for-hire comedy that increasingly smacks of desperation as it approaches its big-day climax.
  22. Wild Card
    As usual, Statham gets a lot of mileage out of his droll, ever-present scowl, but as in “Heat,” the movie’s disparate narrative strands never really come together, and the climactic showdown feels pretty anticlimactic.
  23. Match
    Without sacrificing the piece‘s warm comic undertones, this minimally adapted theatrical piece remains richer and far more thought-provoking than a typical night at the movies — if only the entire cast were as strong as Stewart.
  24. Blackhat
    The film is a snarl of contradictions, starting with the discrepancy between Mann’s obsessive demand for realism and the consistently implausible screenplay.
  25. Gangs of Wasseypur
    The love child of Bollywood and Hollywood, Gangs of Wasseypur is a brilliant collage of genres, by turns pulverizing and poetic in its depiction of violence.
  26. Phoenix
    Because Petzold is such a gifted storyteller, with the lean, driving narrative sense of the film noir masters, he also keeps those twists and turns chugging smoothly along, building to a climax so expertly orchestrated that one imagines he started with it in mind and worked the rest of the movie backward from there.
  27. Something, Anything
    Marked by an affecting and understated performance from newcomer Ashley Shelton, this lovely drama tends toward the over-emphatic at times, but overall demonstrates a warm, subtle intelligence in the way it captures a person’s growing sense of dislocation from the traditional pressures of marriage, family and career.
  28. Vessel
    The film is an intriguing story passionately told, shot through and through with activist zeal, although a greater deal of distance might have allowed it to make a stronger case.
  29. Effie Gray
    This admirable, watercolor-delicate tale of individual feminist emancipation never quite blooms into living color, hampered by spotty casting and Richard Laxton’s overly deliberate direction.
  30. It's All So Quiet
    The character development here is understated but beautifully laid bare by a quartet of top actors.
  31. Let's Kill Ward's Wife
    [A] torturously unfunny exercise, which doesn’t even rise to the level of competent misogyny.
  32. Preservation
    Preservation ultimately impresses as an arrestingly suspenseful thriller that takes clever narrative twists and turns while moving through familiar territory.
  33. The World Made Straight
    This evenly paced drama holds interest with its uneasy character dynamics, interesting milieu and effective performances, though a story so frequently on the verge of violence ought to build more tension than Burris manages.
  34. Dark Summer
    While competently made, Dark Summer makes no effort to lend its characters any psychological complexity, or even much distinguishing personality. Nor are the proceedings very scary.
  35. Hits
    The effort of sussing out this satire’s attitude seems silly for the fact that its jokes just aren’t funny enough.
  36. La Última Película
    A few droll and/or silly moments poke through the general boredom. But Martin and Peranson’s snarkfest doesn’t really offer any critique that Hopper didn’t already aim at himself, however incoherently, in the supremely self-conscious “Last Movie.”
  37. Valley of Saints
    Leaves just an anecdotal impact, but handsome lensing, acoustic score and male leads’ playful rapport lend it gentle appeal.
  38. When Evening Falls on Bucharest or Metabolism
    Porumboiu so carefully intellectualizes every outwardly inconsequential exchange that the picture has no room to breathe, forcing audiences to work hard to catch the sly playfulness and cunning within.
  39. Farewell, Herr Schwarz
    In Reuveny’s subtle hands, any uplift to emerge from this extraordinary tale is earned, not gratuitously extracted.
  40. [REC] 4: Apocalypse
    This supposedly final though none-too-conclusive chapter is fast-paced and entertaining, if not especially scary.
  41. The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death
    A handsomely made but dramatically inert and not very scary sequel.
  42. The Taking of Tiger Mountain
    The film’s strength really lies in its thrilling pace and robust action, elaborately choreographed and executed to involve a large ensemble of characters in a gripping way.
  43. Taken 3
    A mind-numbing, crash-bang misfire that abandons chic European capitals for the character’s own backyard.
  44. Li'l Quinquin
    The odd mix of elements makes for an alternately (and sometimes simultaneously) hilarious and unsettling whole.
  45. Kurmanjan Datka Queen of the Mountains
    The screenplay by Sher-Niyaz, Bakytbek Turdubaev and Kyrgyz culture minister Sultan Raev takes an “important moments” approach to Kurmanjan’s life, requiring the casting of four different actresses. Unfortunately, the result plays like an illustration of her Wikipedia entry rather than providing any psychological insight into her feelings.
  46. Inside the Mind of Leonardo
    The documentary envisions the groundbreaking visionary as a voracious polymath (true) while giving shockingly short shrift to the man as artist.
  47. 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.
  48. Predestination
    Predestination succeeds in teasing the brain and touching the heart even when its twists and turns keep multiplying well past the point of narrative sustainability.
  49. Kill Me Three Times
    Director Kriv Stenders’ tiresome tale of scheming adulterers, cruel spouses and one bemused hitman (Simon Pegg) feels like poser noir all the way, never achieving the darkly comic flair or freshness of style needed to sell its fatalistic twists.
  50. Poker Night
    Flashbacks within flashbacks exhaust viewer patience in this snarky mix of crime, action and sadism.
  51. Get Santa
    Midway through, the plot gets rather bogged down, unfolding on what seems like one of the longest December days for daylight hours ever witnessed in the Northern Hemisphere. However, Broadbent keeps the smiles coming in a wonderfully committed turn as the incarcerated toymaker.
  52. Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks
    For all these missteps — including the convenient and predictable use of elderly death as a plot device — the leads’ odd-couple chemistry does become steadier and affectionate as their dance lessons continue, and the film manages to close on a quietly touching final note.
  53. Concerning Violence
    Though Fanon’s words serve to justify the seemingly unconscionable — violence — the film ends with a very different call to action, one that stresses the need for “new concepts,” as if trying to calm the blood the film has brought to a boil over the dense and daunting 80-odd minutes that have come before.
  54. Seventh Son
    Given the fine past work of its many parents, there was clearly potential here, but as delivered, Seventh Son amounts to nothing short of a creative miscarriage.
  55. Into the Woods
    Marshall hasn’t made one of the great movie musicals here, but he hasn’t bungled it either — far from it.
  56. If You Don't, I Will
    Distinguished by exquisite performances from Emmanuelle Devos and Mathieu Amalric as a bourgeois couple unsure when to call time on their marriage, the pic initially follows the dry, droll template set by so many tasteful French relationship dramedies, before venturing into less comforting emotional territory for its final act.
  57. Goodbye to All That
    Another gently relatable, regionally inclined dramedy, this one concerning a semi-oblivious husband (Paul Schneider) caught completely off-guard when his wife (Melanie Lynskey) files for divorce.
  58. Appropriate Behavior
    This tart, sexually frank portrait of a disintegrating relationship — and its long, bitter aftermath — packs plenty of punch in its best scenes, but it also frequently tests audience patience with its relentless deadpan affectlessness and insistence on leaving no Brooklyn cliche unmined.
  59. Annie
    The film replaces choreography with metronomic editing, while one-note overstatement drowns out character development.
  60. The Interview
    An alleged satire that’s about as funny as a communist food shortage, and just as protracted.
  61. Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb
    A most enjoyable capper to director Shawn Levy and producer Chris Columbus’ cheerfully silly and sneakily smart family-entertainment juggernaut.
  62. The Color of Time
    Tonally surprisingly coherent, Franco’s apostles seem to have directed, as Pauline Kael would’ve said, on their knees.
  63. Difret
    The unwillingness to let nuance communicate lends a flat quality to the drama here; after the initial crimes, suspense situations are simply lopped off prematurely, the action jumping clumsily to their aftermath.
  64. The Salt of the Earth
    Wim Wenders’ mastery of the documentary form is again on display in The Salt of the Earth.
  65. R100
    If a dominatrix is one who takes total control of her passive partner, then R100 is the cinematic equivalent of a kinky femme fatale in black leather and stiletto heels, cracking a whip and a smile.
  66. Don't Go Breaking My Heart 2
    Taken on its own loopy terms, Don’t Go Breaking My Heart 2 can be a marvel, as To keeps his manic movers and shakers colliding and ricocheting in ever more elaborate permutations.
  67. The Water Diviner
    An often capriciously mixed cocktail of war film and cross-cultural family melodrama, The Water Diviner marks an ambitious if emotionally manipulative directing debut for Russell Crowe.
  68. Tip Top
    An utterly brazen mix of screwball comedy, film noir and sharp social commentary that hits its own strange bullseye more often than not, Bozon’s third full-length feature (and first since 2007’s WWI musical, “La France”) benefits immeasurably from actors willing to go as far out on a limb as their intrepid director.
  69. Maidan
    Beyond the film’s immediacy, “Maidan” is an impressive, bold treatment of a complex subject via rigidly formalist means
  70. The Search for General Tso
    Eventually, the quixotic “search” of the movie’s title seems secondary to that more arduous quest of so many Chinese-Americans to find their place in a country that did not always welcome them with open arms, and how food forged the path of least resistance.
  71. Tales of the Grim Sleeper
    What emerges, finally, is an urgent distress call from one of America’s many, predominately black inner cities cast adrift by decades of municipal neglect and institutional racism.
  72. Human Capital
    A slick, stylish drama, Human Capital starts as a class critique wrapped around a whodunit, and though the mystery elements have overtaken the social assessment by the final third, the pic remains an engrossing, stinging look at aspirational parvenus and the super-rich they emulate.
  73. Time Out of Mind
    Richard Gere goes slumming in the streets of Manhattan and emerges with one of his more remarkable performances in Time Out of Mind, a haunting piece of urban poetry that further confirms Oren Moverman as a socially conscious filmmaker of rare conviction and authority.
  74. Little Accidents
    Features a standout central performance by newcomer Boyd Holbrook (“The Host”), but suffers from predictable plotting and shallow characterizations that keep the movie from ever transcending the obvious.
  75. Black Sea
    As ruggedly crafted as you’d expect from director Kevin Macdonald, with a sturdy ensemble led by Jude Law as a submarine captain of formidable sangfroid, the film nonetheless never quite sparks to life.
  76. Red Knot
    As Red Knot (very) slowly unwinds, Thirlby conveys an impressive range of emotions through the eloquence of her facial expressions and body language. Like Kartheiser, however, she labors under the burden of playing a role that is more a vague concept than a fully developed character.
  77. She's Beautiful When She's Angry
    It’s to the credit of “She’s Beautiful” that it seems neither hectic nor glib despite the enormous amounts of material that doubtless had to be excluded to fit a single feature’s frame.
  78. The Physician
    For all the effort put into recreating the era in question — supported here by awe-inspiring visual effects work by Pixomondo — Jan Berger’s script still relies on simplistic emotional ploys and reductive characterizations... But then, such tactics proved perfectly acceptable in such hefty period offerings as “Braveheart” and “Gladiator,” and The Physician truly is a comparable achievement.
  79. Dying of the Light
    The only real tension you feel in Dying of the Light is that between the thoughtful, tough-minded character piece Schrader presumably thought he was making and the bruised, indifferent hackwork that has ultimately made it to the screen.
  80. The Foxy Merkins
    Olnek and collaborators share a genuinely offbeat sensibility, and The Foxy Merkins would have made a hilarious short. Yet it simply doesn’t come up with enough inventive scenes, let alone overall narrative spine, to sustain itself at feature length.
  81. The Barefoot Artist
    We get very little sense of her personal life... Nor do we get much insight into the evolution of her art, which looks fascinating in the glimpses afforded, but is viewed primarily in terms of community art therapy, rather than appreciated as an aesthetic end value in itself. Though these omissions frustrate a bit in retrospect, The Barefoot Artist is nonetheless an engrossing watch.
  82. The Pyramid
    Correctly ascertaining that auds will be less interested in the outcome than in the obstacles along the way, Levasseur plants and executes the pic’s exclamation-point scares with grinning, squelching gusto.
  83. Miss Julie
    The three thesps are impressive, with Chastain and Farrell delivering fevered performances that might have been knockouts on the boards, but in this respectfully flat approach feel a bit overscaled — you can see their virtuoso technique at work.
  84. 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.
  85. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
    If none of the Hobbit films resonate with "Rings'" mythic grandeur, it’s hard not to marvel at Jackson’s facility with these characters and this world, which he seems to know as well as John Ford knew his Monument Valley, and to which he here bids an elegiac adieu.
  86. Unbroken
    A bit embalmed in its own nobility, it’s an extraordinary story told in dutiful, unexceptional terms, the passionate commitment of all involved rarely achieving gut-level impact.
  87. Exodus: Gods and Kings
    What’s remarkable about Scott’s genuinely imposing Old Testament psychodrama is the degree to which he succeeds in conjuring a mighty and momentous spectacle — one that, for sheer astonishment, rivals any of the lavish visions of ancient times the director has given us — while turning his own skepticism into a potent source of moral and dramatic conflict.
  88. Horse Money
    Working about as far as possible from the commercial mainstream of the movie business, Costa has again made a singular docu-fiction hybrid that defies classification as readily as it reimagines the possibilities of cinema for the post-spectacle, post-theatrical era.
  89. Little Hope Was Arson
    While the crimes were appalling, one leaves Little Hope Was Arson less concerned with them — especially as all the churches have since been rebuilt — than with larger questions of forgiveness.
  90. All Relative
    Even a brisk running time, barely topping 80 minutes, is too long to ask audiences to stay in the company of these characters and their terrible self-inflicted predicaments.
  91. The Mule
    In the end, The Mule is essentially a straightforward, somewhat overextended crime story enlivened by its uniquely grotesque circumstances (based on a true story, as noted at the beginning), and directed by Mahony in a lean, no-frills style that’s entirely convincing where it counts.
  92. Song of the Sea
    Song of the Sea is differentiated not only by its rich visual design — grayer and more subdued than “The Secret of Kells,” yet still a marvel to behold — but also by its ethereal musical dimension, another collaboration between composer Bruno Coulais and Irish folk band Kila.
  93. Little Feet
    Here, as in his 1992 breakthrough feature, “In the Soup,” Rockwell conveys his characters’ peculiar suppositions and perceptions using a variety of cinematic approaches, many recalling the untrammeled exuberance of early cinema.
  94. Son of a Gun
    At least three entertaining films are jostling for position in Australian writer-director Julius Avery’s messily propulsive debut feature, Son of a Gun — and if none ultimately emerges dominant, the red-blooded tussle between them is never dull to watch.
  95. About Elly (2009)
    While not equaling the depth of characterization of Farhadi’s previous films, About Elly takes the complexity of his storytelling to a fascinating level. However, the variable quality of the thesping also prevents the pic from being his best work.
  96. Reach Me
    A misbegotten venture that constantly ups its own ante on histrionic overacting, ludicrous plot twists and insipid empowerment mantras.
  97. Extraterrestrial
    Good-looking and entertaining, if unmemorable.
  98. 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.
  99. Night Will Fall
    Night not only conveys the almost unbelievable atrocities captured by the Russian, American and British camera teams and photographers, but also highlights the dedication of the team determined to document and disseminate this evidence and the changing policies of those in charge of postwar reconstruction.
  100. Monk With a Camera
    Clearly regarded with great affection by his mentors (as well as supporters like Richard Gere), Vreeland makes very pleasant company... The directors adopt a similarly unpretentious, bemused tone in following him around.
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