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 Five-Year Engagement
    It puts Emily Blunt in a wedding dress, which will appease the hopeless romantics in the house, even while making the institution of marriage seem ridiculously obsolete.
  2. Free Guy
    Free Guy is a lot of fun, despite the fact that Levy and the screenwriters seem to be changing the rules as they go.
  3. The Salt of Tears
    It’s an exercise only for the most forgiving of Garrel acolytes — who should revel in its warm, tactile black-and-white lensing and throwback air of mournful romanticism, but would still be hard pressed to describe the whole as essential.
  4. About Last Night
    The actors give the proceedings a mostly quick-witted repartee that prevails over the occasionally stale script.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Empire of the Sun
    It is up to young English thesp Bale to engage the viewer's interest, which he does superbly.
  6. Let the Corpses Tan
    Even if the rewards are limited, the technique is impeccable.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Actor
    The pat nature of its surprisingly sentimental conclusion only highlights the degree to which Johnson’s directorial interventions feel like attempts to gild the lily, registering as surface-level oddities deployed in a half-successful attempt to replace the psychological insight needed to truly explore identity in such an extreme scenario.
  8. I Want You Back
    Despite some pacing issues and predictable plotlines, the film keeps us wholeheartedly engaged with well-drawn, well-performed characters, grounded shenanigans and sweet, sentimental commentary on heartache.
  9. I Sell the Dead
    Antic horror comedy I Sell the Dead nods to the '60s Hammer heyday of fog-swirling Victorian chillers, as well as that period's penchant for teaming genre favorites (Boris Karloff, Basil Rathbone, Peter Lorre, etc.) in genial sendups.
  10. Micmacs
    Turning the volume of his slapstick surreality down from 11 to 10, Gallic auteur Jean-Pierre Jeunet ("Amelie") hits the sweet spot with Micmacs.
  11. Yomeddine
    Anchored by lead Rady Gamal’s warm-hearted charisma, the film is a sweet, solid first feature marbled with genuinely touching moments that make up for times when the siren call of sentimentality becomes a little too loud.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Thunderbolt and Lightfoot
    Thunderbolt and Lightfoot is an overlong, sometimes hilariously vulgar comedy-drama, about the restaging of a difficult safecracking heist. Debuting director Michael Cimino obtains superior performances from Clint Eastwood, George Kennedy, Geoffrey Lewis and especially Jeff Bridges.
  13. Sly
    Throughout the film, he’s so calmly but blazingly articulate, so candid about the processes of moviemaking and his strengths (and weaknesses) as an actor, so wise about the meaning of his own stardom, that I realized, with a touch of embarrassment, a prejudice I’ve been carrying around for 47 years. Deep in my reptile brain, I still think Sylvester Stallone is Rocky.
  14. Una
    Needless to say, Una is not an easy film to watch, in part because it deals with not just the act of pedophilia (never depicted outright) but also its consequences, exposing the raw wounds still seething long after the inappropriate relationship has ended.
  15. Jonathan
    Taken on its own confidently crafted terms, Jonathan is an intelligent, absorbing tale that provides an impressive showcase for “Baby Driver” star Ansel Elgort.
  16. Fear of a Black Hat
    Good musical numbers serve as welcome punctuation to a film that grows increasingly tedious.
  17. Flora & Ulysses
    Pudi plays officer Miller like one of the cocky cops from “Reno 911!” laughably tough-acting behind his tinted aviator specs. He’s effectively a human cartoon character in a movie that’s most appealing when it shifts over to hand-drawn comic frames, and silly as much of the mayhem is, Khan deserves credit for translating such slapstick to live action.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Fright Night
    Director Tom Holland keeps the picture wonderfully simple and entirely believable (once the existence of vampires is accepted, of course).
  19. 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.
  20. Xenia
    Brashly uneven and wildly overlong, this comedy of brotherly love and outsider acceptance nonetheless boasts a spirited, audience-pleasing core.
  21. Plane
    Plane is fodder, but the picture brazens through its own implausibilities, carried along — and occasionally aloft — by Gerard Butler’s squinty dynamo resolve.
  22. Lynch/Oz
    Lynch/Oz is bursting with ideas about it, and about how it colonized the consciousness of David Lynch, but the movie is too pie-in-the-sky to quite make it over the rainbow.
  23. Incident at Loch Ness
    Constructed Chinese-box style as a series of films within films, with a faked one about the Loch Ness monster at the center, "Incident" will have maximum impact for the first auds to catch it before its sly central joke gets out.
  24. The Mafia Only Kills in Summer
    There are moments when audiences will wonder if laughing about gangland whackings isn’t in bad taste, yet it becomes increasingly clear that the helmer-scripter is using humor to cut Mafia bosses down to size, thereby turning an accusatory glare at an Italy that granted these people power.
  25. Love to Love You, Donna Summer
    The interviews are illuminating; Summer’s family members speak of her with complicated reverence, and with an appreciation for the currents of despair that she nurtured in private.
  26. Labyrinth of Lies
    An intelligent and arresting fact-based drama.
  27. A Man of No Importance
    Despite fine work from his actors and smooth technical polish, the more provocative elements of the tale arise awkwardly and grate against the early section's almost whimsical nature.
  28. Centurion
    "Doomsday," horror-trained British helmer Neil Marshall flexes strong action muscles and carves copious flesh here, creating the sort of broadsword-based bedlam that will thrill fans of ancient martial movies.
  29. H is for Happiness
    Provides feel-good entertainment for the entire family without pandering — and definitely without sacrificing style or substance.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    McLintock!
    Wayne is in his element, or home, home on the Waynge. O’Hara gives her customary high-spirited performance, although it’s never quite clear what she’s so darned sore about.
  31. Madame X
    Madame X, on the joy scale, feels drained. The show is a concert that plays, at times, like a lecture — or maybe the world’s most extended Oscar/Grammy star-makes-a-statement speech. But I don’t say that because I begrudge Madonna’s message. It’s just that she didn’t use to be so deadly serious and, at times, almost punitive about it.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Gambit
    Shirley MacLaine and Michael Caine star in a firstrate suspense comedy, cleverly scripted, expertly directed and handsomely mounted.
  33. The Help
    A stirring black-empowerment tale aimed squarely at white audiences, The Help personalizes the civil rights movement through the testimony of domestic servants working in Jackson, Miss., circa 1963.
  34. William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe
    In attempting to address its subject's ideological discrepancies, "Kunstler" lacks the objectivity needed to put the lawyer's shift from '60s fist-pumper to '80s and '90s headline-grabber in proper context.
  35. Girls Rock!
    Aggressively upbeat docu, helmed by two males ill-equipped to bring any distance to the camp's pervasive feel-good feminism, tends to relentlessly reiterate points better served by example.
  36. Lu Over the Wall
    In terms of craftsmanship, the film has a scrappy, sometimes cheap look to it (characters look flat, like thin-lined Etch-a-Sketch drawings, superimposed over more colorful hand-painted backgrounds), for which it more than compensates via other strengths — namely, a trio of relatable, well-written human protagonists and Lu, who can change form and bend water at will.
  37. Charm City Kings
    The film’s truly ridiculous plot choices — the phony twists that make you leave the theater feeling like you’ve inhaled a tank of carbon monoxide — are its own invention, bolted onto a likable, if formulaic, charmer.
  38. Loggerheads
    A respectably crafted, earnest ensemble drama.
  39. Annabelle: Creation
    Here, Sandberg once again plays with both lighting, composition and suspense, framing shots in such a way that we’re constantly searching the shadows for hints of movement, while drawing out scenes for maximum tension.
  40. Ira & Abby
    Starts off deliriously, is derailed into reality, and finally settles into something in between.
  41. Stuck on You
    A one-joke affair about conjoined twins that feels like it bypassed the scripting stage and was filmed directly from the pitch, the comedy remains resoundingly unfunny.
  42. Daddio
    Every aspect of Daddio is designed to spark conversation. But it’s sweeter and more satisfying than you might expect, especially as Hall pays off ideas introduced early in her script.
  43. Rolling Family
    The film has humanity to burn, but its loose structure makes it hard to connect with the multiple characters.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Dragnet
    Dragnet tries very hard to parody its 1950s TV series progenitor but winds up more innocuous than inventive.
  45. Ideal Home
    Ideal Home is a trifle, but more than that it’s caught between eras, poised between wanting to crack you up at what cranky prima donnas its characters are and to make you tear up at the revelation of their normal hearts. The result? A comedy of flamboyant banality.
  46. The Quietude
    Boasting a trio of actresses at the top of their game and cinematography that constantly impresses with its confident yet unshowy fluidity, the movie deftly enters into the bosom of a family harboring multiple secrets, encompassing the personal and political.
  47. Köln 75
    You don’t need to be a Keith Jarrett fan to enjoy Köln 75, but for anyone who is the movie is a savory anecdote that colors in his fluky rapture.
  48. Fierce Creatures
    A hilarious farce.
  49. Lipstick & Dynamite, Piss & Vinegar: The First Ladies of Wrestling
    Smart assembly of terrific archive footage is matched by spirited interviews with the tough old broads today.
  50. Bug
    A ranting, claustrophobic drama that trades in shopworn paranoid notions, William Friedkin's overwrought screen version of Tracy Letts' play assaults the viewer with aggressive thesping and over-the-top notions of shocking incident, all to intensely alienating effect.
  51. Oswald's Ghost
    Oswald's Ghost impresses as a concise, intelligent and rigorously well-researched piece of work.
  52. Dream Lover
    An overly abstract mystery about the difficulty of really knowing another person, "Dream Lover" is too rarefied for a popular thriller and too hokey for an art film. Directorial debut of notable screenwriter Nicholas Kazan displays more of an awareness of film's visual possibilities than a flair for them, and while there are any number of interesting ideas bouncing around here, pic falls between stools both artistically and commercially.
  53. The Cursed
    Horror is most effective when the graphic scares are matched with an emotional dimension, something at which Ellis aims but doesn’t quite arrive — a shortcoming that also undersells the marvels of his first-rate ensemble cast.
  54. The First Beautiful Thing
    Occasionally affecting but unremarkable, the picture's emotional moments are designed to pluck local heartstrings.
  55. Joshy
    Joshy offers a strange mix of elements that never quite add up.
  56. There's Something in the Water
    If There’s Something in the Water isn’t the most sophisticated treatment of the issues it scrutinizes, it nonetheless makes a very convincing case for protections against environmental harm being applied equally to all members of society.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Love at First Bite
    Director Stan Dragoti keeps the chuckles coming, spaced by a few good guffaws.
  58. Lan Yu
    Might spark controversy in mainland China, not only because it deals with a homosexual relationship between a member of the Chinese establishment and a peasant, but also because it touches on events such as the 1989 massacre in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. However, pic is unlikely to raise eyebrows anywhere else.
  59. Ramen Shop
    Bringing two of Singapore and Japan’s most popular dishes (bak kut teh and ramen) together in a film about cultural and culinary fusion, Singaporean auteur Eric Khoo’s “Ramen Teh” is cinematically more comfort food than haute cuisine.
  60. The King
    Too many movies set in this period end up as action films in medieval drag. The excitement of “The King” is that Michôd lays out the consequences of combat with gruesome precision, demythologizing the battle.
  61. Sick
    It’s best to let audiences discover the reaper’s motives in context; suffice to say that “Sick” not only factors in our still-evolving COVID-era rules but also serves as an amusing time capsule for the collective fear that has seized us these past three years.
  62. Abigail
    Abigail was directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, who made those last two “Scream” films, and though I was impressed, to a degree, by what they brought off there, this movie feels like a step backward into overwrought generic schlock.
  63. Destroyer
    Kidman has always been a chameleon, but in this case, she doesn’t merely change her color (or don a fake nose, à la “The Hours”); she disappears into an entirely new skin, rearranging her insides to fit the character’s tough hide.
  64. My Big Fat Greek Wedding
    Suffers in ways typical to such adaptations -- what was fresh and flavorful in anecdotal description becomes more familiar and sitcom broad in literal depiction.
  65. Mumford
    Kasdan's direction here is even less energized than his writing.
  66. Kwik Stop
    A screwball road movie set in a middle-of-nowhere town, Kwik Stop suggests "It Happened One Night" as reimagined by David Lynch or Hal Hartley.
  67. A Few Good Men
    Expert story construction and compelling thesping and direction make all the narrative elements pay off as if calculated by a precision instrument in which all the parts are working perfectly.
  68. The Mudge Boy
    Sensitive direction and a touching performance from Emile Hirsch in the title role help counter some dramatic naivete and awkward, at times unintentional, humor in The Mudge Boy.
  69. Unbreakable
    Possesses sufficient intrigue to hook audiences and keep them on board much of the way.
  70. A Silent Love
    Largely plays down the ethnic stereotyping to deliver a carefully observed, fundamentally human roundelay about the wonders and horrors of looking for someone to love.
  71. Ararat
    Egoyan's pedantic, lecturing approach makes the film a bit of a slog, although the basic material has an intrinsic interest that makes one at least want to know more about the historical events.
  72. Sleight
    Perhaps Dillard is too young or green to escape the recycled clichés that constitute the bulk of his script (co-written with Alex Theurer), and yet, charitably speaking, Sleight shows potential.
  73. Kingdom
    A dose of 21st century attitude mixes nicely with other winning ingredients in Kingdom, a thoroughly entertaining adaptation of Yasuhisa Hara’s hugely popular manga set in China, 245 B.C.
  74. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
    The effect is often soporific.
  75. I Am a Sex Addict
    Hits its stride from the opening scenes and continues hilariously for a while, before declining into more of same. Its undeniable appeal lies in shocking frankness shackled to irony, a combo that should attract indie lovers with psychoanalytic leanings and droll senses of humor.
  76. Scream 2
    Visceral, witty and appropriately redundant, the sequel has a winning commercial recipe that's certain to cook up excellent returns in all areas.
  77. The Ice Harvest
    Fine thesping in the service of characters as meaty as they are immoral makes this material a treat for grown up audiences with an ear for sardonic dialogue.
  78. On Chesil Beach
    It’s a lyrical and rapturous film — a repressed passion play, funny, delicate and heartbreaking.
  79. A Year Without Love
    An Argentine writer dying of AIDS searches for a medical cure and some human warmth in the hospitals and S&M clubs of Buenos Aires in dignified, thoughtful drama A Year Without Love.
  80. Longing
    Big emotional themes come hidden in a deceptively small package in Longing, a mightily impressive feature debut by German writer-director Valeska Grisebach.
  81. All the Light in the Sky
    [Swanberg's] latest work, All the Light in the Sky, displays a striking new willingness to meet his audience halfway, buttressing his signature style with clever pacing, solid technique and a deeply soulful lead performance from co-scripter Jane Adams.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Hang 'Em High
    Hang 'em High comes across as a poor-made imitation of a poor Italian-made imitation of an American western.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Front Page
    The Front Page, with a featured spot by Carol Burnett, sure looks good on paper. But that's about the only place it looks good. The production has the slick, machine-tooled look of certain assembly line automobiles that never quite seem to work smoothly.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Snows of Kilimanjaro
    The script broadens the 1927 short story considerably without losing the Hemingway penchant for the mysticism behind his virile characters and lusty situations.
  85. The Rental
    There’s some crafty artistry at work in The Rental, and also some fairly standard pandering, which feels like a violation of the movie’s better instincts. That said, most of it is skillful and engrossing enough to establish Franco as a director to watch.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    My Favorite Year
    An enjoyable romp through the early days of television, My Favorite Year [from a story by Dennis Palumbo] provides a field day for a wonderful bunch of actors headed by Peter O'Toole in another rambunctious, stylish starring turn.
  87. Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale
    This wildly ambitious rumble-in-the-jungle battle epic arrives bearing so heavy a burden of industry expectations, one wishes the results were less kitschy and more coherent; still, the filmmaking has a raw physicality and crazy conviction it's hard not to admire.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Random Harvest
    The film transcription of James Hilton’s novel Random Harvest, under Sidney Franklin’s production and Mervyn LeRoy’s direction, achieves much more than average importance.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Big Man Japan
    Decidedly odd, even by Japanese standards, this mockumentary about an electrically charged, skyscraper-high superhero saddled with misfortune, bad press and even worse TV ratings is tears-down-the-face funny and a genuine, jaw-dropping oddity.
  90. The Interpreter
    Coolly absorbing without being pulse-quickening.
  91. Wish You Were Here
    Despite its dubious inhabitants, the film consistently entertains by throwing the kinds of curves one should see coming but doesn’t.
  92. Cuckoo
    Part of the massive entertainment value of [Singer's] wild and unwieldy second feature is that it is refreshingly free of any kind of manifesto.
  93. The Monkey
    It’s a ham-handed, lurchingly obvious mess, without the glimmer of human interest that even a sensationalist horror film needs.
  94. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
    The powerhouse cast is so capable, the actors just about manage to play the picture as if it were a "Midsummer Night's Dream"-style frothy farce, with marigold garlands and picturesque poverty.
  95. The Bad Batch
    Though there’s much to savor in the pic’s lavishly distressed visuals and soundscape, its narrative feels increasingly stretched and desultory.
  96. Rams
    Of course, the film’s main selling point is the particular chemistry of its two leads. It’s a delight to see the usually dapper Neill convince as a disheveled farmer, with his unshaven face, wild hair and utilitarian clothing. Meanwhile, Caton, with his baleful glare and drunken muttering, is utterly believable as the older, angrier brother.
    • 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.
  98. Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles
    But the film also has its turgid, dialogue-heavy stretches, and the leading performances, if acceptable, are not everything they needed to be to fully flesh out these elegant immortals.
  99. The Great Water
    Extraordinary perfs by a mostly young cast likely will be cancelled out by the grim subject.
  100. Zebraman
    The special effects are quality fun, the humor only a little Japanese, and the story boasts the offbeat genre twists Miike lovers clamber for.
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