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. The Assassination of Richard Nixon
    Penn's magnetism and hesitant line delivery create what interest there is, although the whole picture suffers from a central figure who can never get it together on any level.
  2. King of California
    Douglas is a manic joy, and Wood manages to hang on for the ride.
  3. Damsel
    Damsel is a comedy of attitude made with the indulgent touch of an art Western. That’s a refreshingly original thing, though it’s not as blow-you-away cool as the filmmakers seem to think it is.
  4. Thomas in Love
    A funny and original film set in a future when communications are even more refined than they are now.
  5. Booye kafoor, atre yas
    Resonant with inner harmonies and dark, dark humor.
  6. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
    Darker and more dramatic, this account of Harry's troubled second year at Hogwarts may be a bit overlong and unmodulated in pacing, but it possesses a confidence and intermittent flair that begin to give it a life of its own apart of the literary franchise, something the initial picture never achieved.
  7. Master Gardener
    Master Gardener is all fingers and thumbs for much of its running time, kept sporadically in order only by the stern, trusty presence of Edgerton himself.
  8. 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.
  9. The Limehouse Golem
    It’s hard not to wonder how much better the cluttered results might have played as a miniseries.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Hardcore
    The easily shocked may want an expose, or more a condemnation. The more sophisticated may grow tired of Scott’s morality. But shocked, cynical or dissatisfied, nobody’s going to be bored.
  11. The Ones Below
    Farr delves into the sticky issue of parental ambivalence, but he only goes deep enough to carve a small pit in the viewer’s stomach.
  12. The Friend
    After a tedious start building up the boys' lives and friendship, feature bow by Elmar Fischer becomes deeply engrossing in its second half, as the viewer learns of the hero's anguish and doubts.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Inside Moves
    Inoffensive and essentially compassionate, Inside Moves is also a highly conventional and predictable look at handicapped citizens trying to make it in everyday life.
  14. Borg vs. McEnroe
    When the big tennis finale arrives, Metz finds all sorts of ways to make the match interesting, blending urgent music, creative camera vantages and ridiculously hyperbolic announcer commentary to generate the desired tension. But the real reason we’re invested is far simpler than that: Metz and his cast have made us care about both Borg and McEnroe by this point.
  15. The 11th Hour
    Presents the viewer with reams of depressing data, loads of hand-wringing about the woeful state of humanity and, finally, some altogether fascinating ideas about how to go about solving the climate crisis.
  16. H Is for Hawk
    It’s a rare privilege to spend so much time with Helen and her charge, and the footage of Mabel (filmed by Mark Payne-Gill in the wild and DP Charlotte Bruus Christensen in dramatic scenes) hunting pheasants and so forth mesmerizes. But there’s arguably too much of it, dominating the film’s slightly excessive run time.
  17. William S. Burroughs: A Man Within
    There is a wealth of anecdotal material. Like his subject, Leyser strives to disengage from the conventional, while still being lucid. He succeeds admirably.
  18. The River Wild
    A tense, sharply made thriller about a family held hostage during a river rafting vacation.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Octopussy
    Film’s high points are the spectaccular aerial stuntwork marking both the pre-credits teaser and extremely dangerous-looking climax.
  20. Falling
    Falling is unpretentious and perfectly accessible to mainstream audiences. Mortensen’s patience, his way with actors and his trust in our intelligence are not unlike late-career Eastwood, which isn’t a bad place to be so early in one’s directing career.
  21. Unsane
    We’re in schlock corridor here and Soderbergh runs with it, cellphone in hand; under the buzzing suspense mechanics, however, a cautionary note on the perils of disbelieving women is just audible.
  22. The Weekend
    Notwithstanding any comparisons, there’s more assured personality here than there was in her last feature, the bright, proficient but somewhat synthetic big-studio teen romance “Everything, Everything.” Much of that film took place, by narrative necessity, in hermetically sealed rooms; here, the fresh autumn air agrees with everyone involved.
  23. Bullet Train Explosion
    Bullet Train Explosion feels like a blockbuster made for adults — or let’s say, not for a lowest-common-denominator audience — where the priority is throwing challenges and complications at smart characters instead of sparking conflict with cheap narrative shortcuts and bad, even dumb choices.
  24. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
    McDormand's performance slowly builds a solid integrity, and contrasts well with Adams' more flamboyant turn.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Freestyle: The Art of Rhyme
    One of the film's strengths is its abundant performance footage.
  26. Undertow
    A deep-fried piece of Southern Gothic that wears its unpleasantness like a merit badge.
  27. Midnighters
    Midnighters is brisk and eventful. Yet as a thriller driven by constantly worsening straits, it’s not as cleverly twisty as it would like to be, nor are the well-played characters granted enough dimensionality for their dynamics to be all that surprising or convincing.
  28. The Jungle Book
    A full-throttled, technically superb adventure — with more bite than most Disney live-action fare — that offers some winning moments but, ultimately, isn’t as involving as it needs to be.
  29. Single White Female
    Despite excellent lead performances and numerous memorable scenes, this still feels like two different movies in one.
  30. Blizzard of Souls
    With its muscular direction by former documentarian Dzintars Dreibergs, atmospheric cinematography and careful attention to period detail, this account of a troop of Latvian Riflemen fighting first for the Russian Imperial Army against invading German forces and then for an independent Latvia should appeal to WWI buffs and fans of Sam Mendes’ “1917.”
  31. Spring Breakers
    Just about every charge of social negligence leveled at Spring Breakers can be countered with an arch claim of intent, which makes it at once playful and wearying; enjoyment is contingent on how little you're willing to fight it.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Brood
    A horror entry which casts children in the role of malevolent little monsters, The Brood is an extremely well made, if essentially unpleasant, shocker.
  33. Fingernails
    A love story hinging on human chemistry as a disruptive force would fall to pieces if its stars didn’t have that very unquantifiable quiver of static between them. But Buckley and Ahmed play off each other exquisitely, gradually reflecting each other in motion and mien, each looking at the other with the kind of facially centered full-body want that no amount of dialogue can convey on its own.
  34. Villains
    This black comedy thriller has a good cast to spark a scenario that’s intriguing enough to hold attention, if not quite clever enough to be a knockout.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Three Days of the Condor
    The film is a perfect contemporary example of an old studio formula approach to filmmaking. Basically a B, it has been elevated in form – but not in substance – via four bigger names, location shooting and more production values. Sometimes the trick works, but not here.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Man with the Golden Arm
    Clinical in its probing of the agonies, this is a gripping, fascinating film, expertly produced and directed and performed with marked conviction by Frank Sinatra as the drug slave.
  37. Someone Great
    This fun, feminist-friendly feature, about a woman devastated by the disintegration of her long-term romance and the two best friends who rally around her for one final night of frivolity, taps into that collective yearning for more. It gifts us with the next big “Girls Night In” event, for which Netflix has cornered the market.
  38. Stowaway
    Joe Penna knows how to make a movie that holds you without being pushy about it. His voice as a filmmaker comes through, even in a genre as studded with commercial tropes as this one.
  39. The Cat's Meow
    Playful and sporty, with just a small twist of the knife, The Cat's Meow is good, uncomplicated fun.
  40. Everything Put Together
    Riveting, often haunting.
  41. Happy Times
    Small but delightful tale about a dyed-in-the-wool spieler who develops a soft spot for a blind girl dumped in his care.
  42. Open Water
    A tour-de-force thriller that deftly transforms its low-budget limitations into spectacular assets.
  43. Persons of Interest
    Seldom boring but also rarely electrifying.
  44. Elemental
    While written epilogues provide upbeat updates on the subjects’ endeavors, the overall impression is one of a draining uphill struggle for relatively little personal reward given the enormous stakes involved in the planet’s continued ecological destruction.
  45. Luz
    Comparisons do not come easy with Luz, an arresting first feature for German writer-director Tilman Singer that is equal measures demonic-possession thriller, experiment in formalist rigor, and flummoxing narrative puzzle-box.
  46. The Cat and the Moon
    Wolff has made a debut feature as impressive in its deliberate modesty and unpretentiousness as it is in matters of psychological nuance and technical skill.
  47. Rio
    Like its flight-challenged parrot protagonist, Rio takes a while to get off the ground but manages to soar by the end.
  48. The Great Buck Howard
    Behind-the-curtains comedy reps an amusing showcase for John Malkovich's diva-like theatrics in the title role.
  49. Triangle of Sadness
    The thing about Östlund is that he makes you laugh, but he also makes you think. There’s a meticulous precision to the way he constructs, blocks and executes scenes — a kind of agonizing unease, amplified by awkward silences or an unwelcome fly buzzing between characters struggling to communicate.
  50. Revenge of the Electric Car
    Revenge is a disappointment. Admittedly, the picture deploys the same kind of cinematic bells and whistles that made "Killed" so enjoyable. But without true tension, the documentary feels as slickly manufactured as its va-va-voom subject.
  51. Let Him Go
    Let Him Go isn’t subtle, but as a genre film it’s original and shrewdly made, with a floridly gripping suspense. And Lane and Costner give it their all in a casual way that only pros this seasoned and gifted can. They turn the movie into an unlikely thing: a touchingly bone-weary romance steeped in vengeance.
  52. Eden
    Picture loses its delicate edge when it builds to a prescribed dramatic flashpoint within an overly compressed timeframe
    • 63 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Who's That Knocking at My Door?
    Zina Bethune, as the girl, is believable but Harvey Keitel, as the anti-hero, is alternatively boorish or bewildered. Scorsese occasionally brings the film to life.... Generally, however, his script and direction lack any dramatic value and give far too much exposure to sexual fantasies on the part of the boy.
  54. All Saints
    Director Steve Gomer’s well-crafted faith-based film is affecting without undue heartstring-yanking, almost entirely saccharine-free and, perhaps most impressively, not entirely predictable.
  55. Things We Lost in the Fire
    A live-wire performance by Benicio Del Toro sparks an otherwise morose study of loss, addiction and catharsis.
  56. City of Men
    Despite its sudsy storyline, this second tour through the punk-infested Rio slums could attract more mature arthouse auds, drawn by character rather than the minutiae of guns 'n' drugs, though it's unlikely to match "God's" muscular $7.5 million U.S. take.
  57. Freaks
    The only problem is that it’s easier to be impressed by the ingenuity of the staging and the architecture of the screenplay than it is to stay invested in the characters.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Cry-Baby
    John Waters' mischievous satire of the teen exploitation genre is entertaining as a rude joyride through another era, full of great clothes and hairdos.
  59. World War Z
    Emerges as a surprisingly smart, gripping and imaginative addition to the zombie-movie canon, owing as much to scientific disaster movies like “The China Syndrome” and “Contagion” as it does to undead ur-texts like the collected works of George Romero.
  60. Maria
    Maria bears many of the hallmarks of Larraín’s lavish empathy and filmmaking skill. Yet the movie, in contrast, is driven by a dramatic fatalism that does it little favor.
  61. Hello, My Name Is Doris
    Despite some bumpy tonal shifts and inconsistencies of characterization, Hello, My Name Is Doris impresses as a humanely amusing and occasionally poignant dramedy.
  62. Hannah Takes the Stairs
    Has the unmistakable look and feel of a micro-budget indie produced for a small circle of friends, many of whom are listed in the credits.
  63. Bring Them Down
    It’s grimly funny, and hilariously sad.
  64. The Foot Fist Way
    The character of Fred Simmons is a Cliff Clavin-esque sensei deluxe in The Foot Fist Way, a low-budget, low-flying farce a la "Napoleon Dynamite" or "Jackass: The Movie."
  65. The Last Suit
    [A] touching, albeit occasionally heavy-handed, drama.
  66. À Tout de Suite (Right Now)
    Strikingly crafted but rather empty drama.
  67. Split
    Shyamalan’s goal is to keep us guessing, and in that respect, Split is a resounding success — even if in others, it could have you rolling your eyes.
  68. Normal
    Because it’s Wheatley directing, the already funny script gets an extra dose of dark humor from its over-the-top kills.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Until the End of the World
    In the logistically taxing effort to get all this on screen, Wenders has sacrificed some of his customary poetry. And the grand emotion and obsession needed to carry the two lovers around the world isn’t apparent in Hurt and Dommartin.
  70. Mayor Pete
    Mayor Pete shows us the trial by fire of it all, and also the jubilant grind.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Kiss Me, Stupid (re-release)
    Wilder, usually a director of considerable flair and inventiveness (if not always impeccable taste), has not been able this time out to rise above a basically vulgar, as well as creatively delinquent, screenplay, and he has got at best only plodding help from two of his principals, Dean Martin and Kim Novak.
  72. Suddenly
    A delightfully unpredictable sleeper that proves new Argentine cinema really exists, Suddenly, by 26-year-old Diego Lerman, starts scary, moves through deadpan comic and comes out with a whimsical tenderness for its characters.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    I Capture the Castle
    Fywell has transformed this autobiographical novel into a perceptive, wholly engaging drama, infusing the proceedings with a light tone that almost qualifies the film as a comedy, yet never loses sight of the unpredictability of human emotions.
  74. Bombay Eunuch
    Flavorsome package vividly captures Bombay slum life, neither neglecting nor overemphasizing the bawdy, drag-queenish flamboyance hijiras bring to its mix.
  75. Echotone
    There's a potentially fascinating and appreciably more concise 60-minute documentary to be found somewhere amid the uneven and unfocused 88-minute hodgepodge that is Echotone.
  76. Blue My Mind
    Having created a striking and potent allegory in “Blue My Mind,” and explored it with grace, seriousness, and exceptional craft, Brühlmann doesn’t seem to know quite what to do with it by the end, except to suggest that the cost of self-acceptance is vast, eternal, oceanic loneliness.
  77. Alpha
    Alpha, a spectacular prehistoric eye-candy survival yarn, is enthralling in a square and slightly stolid way.
  78. Life
    Careens from decade to decade, and from relative dramatic realism to frequent hilarity, in often-winning fashion.
  79. The Hole in the Ground
    [Cronin's] trim, jumpy debut feature rewrites no genre rules, but abounds in bristly calling-card atmospherics. ... Only in the film’s muddy-in-all-senses finale — which leaves a few too many dots unjoined, even by forgiving genre standards — does its grip on proceedings slip a notch.
  80. L'amour fou
    Shy on the celebrity-gawking (and celebrity input) that marks many fashion documentaries, and neither gossipy nor an objective appreciation of his impact and legacy, picture is a successful portrait on its own terms, save one: It's unlikely to excite much theatrical interest.
  81. The Great Yokai War
    Odd blend of the truly cheesy with a few genuine f/x makes for a cutesy if not exactly thrilling spectacle.
  82. Chef Flynn
    it’s as an ambiguous study of parenting a prodigy that the film lingers on the palate, as McGarry’s mother Meg documents and manages his evolution to an obsessive, gradually oppressive degree.
  83. The Upside of Anger
    Increasingly exhibits a desire to amuse and distract rather than go deep, which ultimately generates disappointment in light of its announced intentions.
  84. Scoop
    The frustration of Scoop is also its point: It vividly conjures the adrenaline and awe of one hour of dynamite television, but can bring us no closer to complete truth, or complete justice.
  85. We Have Always Lived in the Castle
    Stacie Passon, director of We Have Always Lived in the Castle, sharply channels the author’s atmosphere of dread, paranoia, and isolation, making the past feel prescient.
  86. The Dreamers
    The whole spirit of rebellion, passion and protest that should be a driving force for the characters plays more like a cultivated affectation.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Caine Mutiny
    The Caine Mutiny is highly recommendable motion picture drama, told on the screen as forcefully as it was in the Herman Wouk best-selling novel. The intelligently adapted screenplay retains all the essence of the novel.
  88. This Changes Everything
    Chances are, if you work in Hollywood, This Changes Everything won’t teach you anything you don’t already know. But that doesn’t mean it’s not helpful to hear it articulately communicated by some of the most respected women in the business.
  89. Faces of Death
    Faces of Death is “ambitious” trash, with the courage of its own gaudy thematic grandiloquence.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
    Anchored by a fine performance from Abigail Breslin, this wholesome, engaging entertainment offers something for viewers ages 7 to 107.
  91. Sleeping Dogs Lie
    A game and winning performance by Melinda Page Hamilton is the only saving grace.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    This Christmas
    A rare holiday treat, a package that's both thoughtfully selected and sure to please its intended recipients.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    How to Get Ahead in Advertising
    The picture would be genuinely hilarious were the subject matter not so overworked.
  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.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Eureka
    Even by his own standards, Nicolas Roeg's Eureka is an indulgent melodrama [based on a book by Marshall Houts] about the anticlimactic life of a greedy gold prospector after he has struck it rich.
  96. The Devil Wears Prada 2
    The film's chief pleasures are those of practiced professionals doing their job, and doing it well. None of the stars here is slacking, and their combined, easily resumed chemistry ensures that this sequel, for good long stretches, feels like old times — even if it's hard to imagine fans of its predecessor cherishing repeat viewings to quite the same extent.
  97. True Lies
    Yet even with its ribald laughs and spectacular action sequences (clearly seeking to up the ante on the latter front), the movie gets mired in a comedic midsection that wears the audience down, sapping their energy before the film shifts to a chaotic third act that just doesn't know when to quit.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    SubUrbia
    Writer-director teamings seldom mesh as smoothly or suggest so many creative affinities as does the one at the heart of subUrbia, a brooding, incisive comedy that blends the talents of helmer Richard Linklater and playwright Eric Bogosian.
  99. Free Fire
    The fact that they could all lay down their weapons and finish the deal heightens Wheatley’s generally irreverent approach, all of which serves to remind that guns don’t kill people; insecure, overcompensating idiots do.
  100. Keanu
    An initially amusing but fatally overstretched action-comedy that marks a lamer-than-expected big-screen outing for Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele.
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