Variety's Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
    A film with Jane Fonda as a hard-as-nails babe. It becomes, in a recreated old ballroom, a sordid spectacle of hard times, a kind of existentialist allegory of life.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Italian Job
    The cast does its stuff to good effect. Coward, as the highly patriotic, business-like master crook, brings all his imperturbable sense of irony and comedy to his role.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Black Sunday
    John Frankenheimer’s film of Black Sunday is an intelligent and meticulous depiction of an act of outlandish terrorism – the planned slaughter of the Super Bowl stadium audience.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Eye of the Needle
    It’s a good yarn, remindful of some of Alfred Hitchcock and Fritz Lang’s wartime mellers as well as Michael Powell’s 1939 tale of a World War I German agent in Scotland, The Spy in Black.
  5. Giant Little Ones
    The story is somewhat predictable in its beats, and arrives at a free-at-last conclusion that’s not entirely convincing. But the Sault Ste. Marie-shot film is ultimately ingratiating and slickly crafted enough to rise above those limitations.
  6. Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse
    Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse is a lively formulaic action-hero origin story, dunked in combat grunge, that demonstrates how a resourceful lead actor can bend and heighten the meaning of a commercial thriller.
  7. The Kid
    A consistently involving and often exciting drama in which the two Wild West icons are presented from the p.o.v. of an impressionable adolescent who weighs the pros and cons of each man as a role model.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Road Games
    Road Games is an above-average suspenser concerning an offbeat truck driver who winds up stalking a murderer. Stacy Keach's characterization of the amusing, poetry-spouting man is particularly endearing but the film builds all too effectively to a rather disappointing climax.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Great Race
    The Great Race is a big, expensive, whopping, comedy extravaganza [from a screen story by Blake Edwards and Arthur Ross], long on slapstick and near-inspired tomfoolery whose tongue-in-cheek treatment liberally sprinkled with corn frequently garners belly laughs.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Viva Las Vegas
    The sizzling combination of Elvis Presley and Ann-Margaret is enough to carry Viva Las Vegas over the top.
  11. Stray
    Placing among the upper ranks of films for dog lovers, Stray successfully takes this mission to heart, revealing in the process not only the wholesomeness of humans’ four-legged best friends, but also the soulful voice of an exciting new filmmaker with immense moral queries on her mind.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Zorro: The Gay Blade
    Despite an inspired, offbeat performance by George Hamilton, Zorro, the Gay Blade doesn't have nearly enough gags to sustain its 93 minutes. For the most part this is a Zorro with a very dull edge.
  13. Highwaymen
    Lean, mean and stripped for speed, Highwaymen fires on all cylinders as an edgy and unnerving road-kill thriller.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Grand Prix
    The roar and whine of engines sending men and machines hurtling over the 10 top road and track courses of Europe, the US and Mexico – the Grand Prix circuits – are the prime motivating forces of this actioncrammed adventure that director John Frankenheimer and producer Edward Lewis have interlarded with personal drama that is sometimes introspectively revealing, occasionally mundane, but generally a most serviceable framework.
  15. Pavarotti
    The genius of Pavarotti’s voice is that it had the power to heal. The movie pays ample testament to how that voice, for 40 years, poured out of him, rapturous and tragic, soaring on wings of pure emotion, at times wracked with a spiritual pain that was surely his own, but always lifting his audience to the mountaintop of beauty, saying, “This is where I live. And you can too.”
    • 57 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Greased Lightning
    Greased Lightning is a pleasant, loose and relaxed comedy starring Richard Pryor in an excellent characterization based on real-life racing driver Wendell Scott.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Last American Hero
    After a fumbling start which looks like bad editing for TV, The Last American Hero [based on two articles by Tom Wolfe] settles into some good, gritty, family Americana, with Jeff Bridges excellent as a flamboyant auto racer determined to succeed on his own terms and right a wrong to his father, played expertly by Art Lund.
  18. Nomadland
    For those on Zhao’s wavelength, the movie is a marvel of empathy and introspection.
  19. Driveways
    That uncommon and all-too-welcome gift — like some kind of fragile wildflower, emerging tentatively through cracks in the concrete: a film about kindness.
  20. Gully Boy
    A Bollywood movie about a rapper from the slums may sound derivative, but what does that matter when “Gully Boy” revels in high-wattage screen chemistry and an inclusive social message, all served up in a slickly enjoyable production showcasing Ranveer Singh’s many charms?
  21. Mr. Jones
    As drama, Mr. Jones sometimes struggles to get out of its own way, but its message still lands with concrete force.
  22. Out Stealing Horses
    This is a film with a mature, heartbroken understanding of how we hold onto things.
  23. Varda by Agnès
    Slight as a Varda film, but shot through with its maker’s characteristic pluck and whimsy, Varda by Agnès gives her newly recruited fans everything they’ve come to see.
  24. TT3D: Closer to the Edge
    Even the most racing-averse auds will have to agree this entertaining whiz around the 2010 Isle of Man TT racing event puts across the thrill of the sport.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Ice Castles
    Ice Castles combines a touching love story with the excitement and intense pressure of Olympic competition skating.
  26. Dune: Part One
    Dune is out to wow us, and sometimes succeeds, but it also wants to get under your skin like a hypnotically toxic mosquito. It does…until it doesn’t.
  27. Mega Time Squad
    Fast-paced, determinedly silly, with sharp slangy dialogue and funny situations (particularly once we arrive at the ace sight gag of a half-dozen Johns stirring chaos), the film hits just the right absurdist notes to sustain its joke.
  28. The Wandering Earth
    Director Frant Gwo’s adaptation of the 2000 novella by Liu Cixin is no genre classic, but its furious pace, spectacular visuals, and fanciful plot deliver decent escapist entertainment.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Jake Speed
    Jake Speed is fun - a deliberately mindless adventure that keeps tongue firmly in cheek.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Fritz the Cat
    Excellent animation and montage shore up a plot which has a few howls, several chuckles and many smiles.
  31. Queen & Slim
    When a movie taps a nerve with the public, it doesn’t need to be a masterpiece to become a phenomenon, which might explain why Matsoukas puts greater attention on the look, feel and musical signature of the project than she does the plot, which feels thin and familiar.
  32. The Sower
    The resulting film is so delicately wrought and exquisitely visualized that the harsher, eerier details of Ailhaud’s account stand out all the more strikingly, like a shot of vinegar in a pristine crème caramel.
  33. Shaft
    Directed by Gordon Parks with a subtle feel for both the grit and the humanity of the script. Excellent cast, headed by newcomer Richard Roundtree, may shock some audiences with heavy dose of candid dialog and situation.
  34. Body at Brighton Rock
    Deftly employing the power of suggestion and an emotionally potent sound design, Body at Brighton Rock is a well-crafted thriller with some crafty tricks up its sleeve.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Mary, Queen of Scots
    A large cast of excellent players appears to good advantage under the direction of Charles Jarrott. Superior production details and the cast help overcome an episodic, rambling story.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    S.O.B.
    S.O.B. is one of the most vitriolic – though only occasionally hilarious – attacks on the Tinseltown mentality ever.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Willard
    Some good jump moments and at least two stomach-churning murders committed by the rats with tight direction of Daniel Mann develop pic into sound nail-chewer.
  38. Alice
    It’s one of the most daring films ever made, not so much because of anything it overtly depicts as what this controversial classic reveals about the infinitely complicated psychology of human sexuality.
  39. Come As You Are
    There’s a relaxed yet energetic comic rapport between players that suggests a good time was had by all.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Lawman
    Lancaster, as usual, is a highly convincing marshal, tough and taciturn. Ryan is also excellent as the faded, weak marshal with only memories. But it’s Cobb who quietly steals the film as the local boss who, however, unlike in many such films, is no ruthless villain.
  41. The Day Shall Come
    The title suggests that the revolution Moses is praying for will someday arrive, but that shouldn’t be nearly as scary to Americans as the fact that his own government is trying to push people like him over the edge. That day is already here.
  42. Extra Ordinary
    Extra Ordinary is a kind of tea-cosy “Ghostbusters” that’s consistently funny in a pleasingly off-kilter way.
  43. Mickey and the Bear
    Straightforward but skillfully nuanced ... There’s nothing wildly original in form or content to this modest tale. But it’s never obvious or melodramatic, delivering a satisfying degree of emotional resonance while providing James Badge Dale an arresting role as the problematic dad.
  44. Diana Kennedy: Nothing Fancy
    Taken as a celebration, however, both of the woman herself and the food to which she has dedicated her life, “Nothing Fancy” is cinematic comfort food of the first order.
  45. Olympic Dreams
    An engagingly wistful dramedy.
  46. The Peanut Butter Falcon
    An odyssey audiences won’t soon forget.
  47. Tread
    Tread abounds in memorable images and interviews that range from darkly comical to deeply disquieting.
  48. 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.
  49. Yes, God, Yes
    Yes, God, Yes is bound to rankle some conservative Christians of every denomination ... But Dyer’s Alice generates too much rooting interest, and the movie as a whole is too nondenominationally likable, for most other viewers to cast any stones.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Star Chamber
    Getting to this point in the film, there’s a pleasure in rediscovering intelligent dialog, ably provided by Hyams and Roderick Taylor. But the talk is haunted by concern that this intellectual morass cannot be solved within the confines of cinema.
  51. Everybody's Everything
    The only perspective that’s missing here is that of Peep himself, and that hole at the center of the narrative gives the film a haunting impact.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Circus
    In clinging to a tale of logical sequence, without the expected interpolations or detached incidents, Chaplin's Circus for speed, gags and laughs has not been equalled on the sheet. But it's very broad, for Chaplin makes no attempt at subtlety in this one.
  53. Tigerland
    Kauffman has crafted an enjoyable armchair adventure that juggles the archival imagery, engaging present-day personalities and glimpses of the magnificent creatures themselves at a leisurely yet absorbing pace.
  54. Storm Boy
    This version of Storm Boy, directed by excellent Aussie small-screen helmer Shawn Seet, has the emotional heft and visual splendor to win the hearts of domestic and international family audiences.
  55. Manta Ray
    This superficially simple tale of identity, displacement and friendship is wrapped in layers of symbolism that will likely be pleasurably hypnotic for many viewers.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Being Frank: The Chris Sievey Story
    A documentary, at once acerbic and affectionate, that tracks Sievey’s one-of-a-kind, semi-off-the-rails career.
  57. Suburban Birds
    Viewers, too, may feel at once cast adrift in the film’s amorphous quests, and languidly seduced by its disorder.
  58. Master Z: Ip Man Legacy
    Top-class fighting and fabulous production design overcome the stale plot.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Doctor Dolittle
    Leslie Bricusse’s adaptation retains the delightful aspects while taking considerable liberty with the plot. His music and lyrics, while containing no smash hits, are admirably suited to the scenario.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    To Sir, with Love
    A well-made, sometimes poignant, drama.
  61. See You Yesterday
    Eden-Smith makes the film her own, right up to the surprising, challenging and altogether sharp final note.
  62. Blow the Man Down
    “Blow the Man Down” has a few contrivances ... Yet Morgan Saylor and Sophie Lowe invest the embattled but loyal Connolly sisters with a desperate resonance, and the movie is clever enough to hold you, even when you wish it had taken the extra step and gone full Patricia Highsmith.
  63. Burning Cane
    It’s a movie of minor fascinations and seductions; it exerts the pull of a natural-born filmmaker’s eye.
  64. The Kill Team
    Those familiar with this story won’t find any novel twists here, but Krauss astutely conveys the literal and moral quagmires produced by such military situations.
  65. Low Tide
    In addition to establishing a tangible sense of place, McMullin impresses by putting together such a strong ensemble and eliciting from them the performances he does. He’s a very visual director, jump-starting scenes with an unexpected extreme-closeup of some kind before allowing audiences to get their bearings — a strategy that subconsciously reinforces the notion that we can never get too comfortable in this otherwise familiar genre.
  66. The Place of No Words
    While occasionally wearisome in its fragmented structure ... Webber’s film navigates the vast notion of grief gently and with seriousness.
  67. Skin
    Less dynamic than “American History X,” and less lurid than some treatments of similarly themed stories, “Skin” is a compelling character study whose narrative momentum flags somewhat around the three-quarter point. Still, it never loses interest.
  68. Swallow
    A bold and unconventional thriller made real by the evolution of lead actress Haley Bennett ... Is it exploitative? Yes, to an extent that’s true. ... But, as in such Alfred Hitchcock classics as “Spellbound” and “Marnie,” with their facile psychoanalytic interpretations of compulsive and/or hysterical behavior, the approach can be quite effective in revealing the gender dynamics of the times.
  69. Marilyn
    A little more attention to side characters would have brought increased depth, but the movie still packs a major punch at the end.
  70. Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project
    Matt Wolf directs “Recorder” with a lot of lively skill. He presents the eccentricity of Marion Stokes’ personality with supreme sympathetic understanding, or maybe you could say a bit more romanticism than it deserves.
  71. Savage
    An above-average action thriller.
  72. 5B
    It’s conventional, occasionally maudlin docmaking that nonetheless grips the heart exactly when it needs to.
  73. Good Posture
    [A] roughly drafted feature debut that manages to be just affable enough.
  74. House of Hummingbird
    A touch overlong, “House of Hummingbird” doesn’t leave the most powerful emotional mark. Still, it lands on a poignant aftertaste through Kim’s serene attentiveness to the rhythms and details of everyday life ... with a peaceful style reminiscent of Hirokazu Kore-eda.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!
    Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! is a somewhat sordid, quite sexy and very violent murder-kidnap-theft meller which includes elements of rape, lesbianism and sadism, clothed in faddish leather and boots and equipped with sports cars. Some good performances emerge from a one-note script via very good Russ Meyer direction and his outstanding editing.
  76. Run
    The film, effective on its own unassuming terms, seems to cut out with some distance left to run.
  77. Gay Chorus Deep South
    Rather than simply preaching to you-know-whom, director David Charles Rodrigues ... succeeds in humanizing the individuals on both sides.
  78. A Regular Woman
    Much more accomplished and watchable than Hormann’s previous film about a real-life crime, “3096 Days,” “A Regular Woman” owes much to its fine cast and impeccable technical package.
  79. Daughter of the Wolf
    These filmmakers are eager to explore the delicate facets of a forceful, fully-formed woman, and they do so with imagery that’s both stunning and subtle.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Zulu
    Joseph E. Levine makes an impressive debut in British film production with Zulu, a picture that allows ample scope for his flamboyant approach to showmanship.
  81. In the Aisles
    In the Aisles is unusual in its compassion and respect for its blue-collared characters.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Onion Field
    James Woods as the near-psychotic Powell is chillingly effective, creating a flakiness in the character that exudes the danger of a live wire near a puddle.
  83. Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am
    Mixing archival photos and TV footage with straightforward to-the-camera remembrances, Greenfield-Sanders’ deft structural approach isn’t as daring as those found in Morrison’s own work.
  84. Q Ball
    Within its bounds, Q Ball offers proof that rehabilitative programs like this one offer more than just a chance for prisoners to show athletic excellence; they also provide an opportunity for individual growth.
  85. Shéhérazade
    Shooting in a color-streaked vérité style and coaxing terrific performances from his non-pro cast, Marlin clearly has a promising future ahead. What keeps Shéhérazade from ranking higher in the pantheon of streetwise French crime dramas is the story’s overall familiarity.
  86. 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.
  87. Matthias & Maxime
    It feels at once younger and older, sweeter and more seasoned, than Dolan’s last few films.... [It's] not out to scout new stylistic territory, but confident in the turf it covers, often gorgeously so.
  88. Sibyl
    Triet’s chic, blackly comic psychodrama piles up bad decisions like so many profiteroles in a croquembouche, admiring the teetering spectacle of its chaos as it goes.
  89. The Whistlers
    As a low-key romp with a twisty, globetrotting plot The Whistlers is an enjoyable affair with just enough of a slant to feel a little offbeat. But Porumboiu aficionados chasing the same weird high he has delivered time and again before — wherein a single moment can transform a ridiculous scheme into a fairy tale, or a silly notion into a grand philosophical quest — are just going to have to whistle for it.
  90. Young Ahmed
    Instantly recognizable as a Dardenne film, Young Ahmed has that same deceptively “rough” quality as the directors’ earlier work, a carryover from their documentary background. And yet, they are astonishingly efficient storytellers, weaving the necessary clues audiences need to evaluate — and at times entirely reconsider — their characters with the expertise of veteran detective novelists.
  91. A Brother's Love
    Beneath the film’s soapier turns, and despite its more strident moments, there is a small dose of bittersweet wisdom here about the dangers inherent in entrusting one person — whomever it might be — with sole custody of your self-worth.
  92. Fire Will Come
    You know exactly what climax is coming in Oliver Laxe’s rustically beautiful rural parable, but its dreamy, mesmeric power lies in the waiting.
  93. Beats
    Beats proceeds to give a dying scene its euphoric due, in a dazzling digression from stage-based form.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
    Once the inept, draggy start is passed, the film’s pace builds with ever-growing force.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Days of Wine and Roses
    Miller’s gruelling drama illustrates how the unquenchable lure of alcohol can supersede even love, and how marital communication cannot exist in a house divided by one-sided boozing.
  96. Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love
    It’s an entertaining flashback to an always-diverting countercultural epoch, with a touching footnote of a semi-famous love story at its center.
  97. The Black Godfather
    The Black Godfather does yeoman’s work introducing a figure that few outsiders have likely heard of, but who needs no introduction in the power corridors of the entertainment industry.
  98. Running with Beto
    If it’s an optimistic beginning you’re after, Running With Beto makes for a fine start. Speaking as a former Texan, I’m so f—ing proud of how far the state has come.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Hell Is for Heroes
    Producer Henry Blanke has framed and mounted a gripping, fast-paced, hard-hitting dramatic portrait of an interesting World War II battlefield incident. But there are occasional duds in the film's dramatic arsenal.
  100. DC League of Super-Pets
    The movie, in its conventional and likable way, knocks the stuffing out of superhero fantasy. Its joke is that a mangy crew of animals doing outlandish CGI magic tricks is essentially what a comic-book movie is.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »