Variety's Scores

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For 17,791 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: 9,139 out of 17791
  2. Mixed: 7,015 out of 17791
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17791
17791 movie reviews
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  1. Kate
    Winstead makes you believe, however improbably, that if a woman like Kate actually existed outside a screenwriter’s imagination, she wouldn’t be far off from this portrayal: isolated, mule-headed and ready for a change.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Two-Minute Warning
    An off-the-beaten-track story [based on the novel by George La Fountaine] of a football stadium crowd menaced by a sniper, combined with above-average plotting, acting and direction.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Meaning of Life
    Gross, silly, caustic, tasteless and obnoxious are all adjectives that alternately apply to Monty Python's The Meaning of Life though probably the most appropriate description would simply be funny.
  4. Ma Belle, My Beauty
    In this triangulated love story there is more roiling it than just desire. Although the central characters reflect the vast array of LGBTQ folk, the movie isn’t a coming-out tale. . . . These characters are in the midst of their lives, with many of the duties and emotions that come with that.
  5. The Boy Behind the Door
    It’s another effective use of a simple premise and modest means to create a nicely nerve-jangling thriller.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Help!
    The simple good spirits that pervaded A Hard Day's Night are now often smothered as if everybody is desperately trying to outsmart themselves and be ultra-clever-clever. Nevertheless, Help! is a good, nimble romp with both giggles and belly-laughs.
  7. Settlers
    n the ranks of cinematic journeys to Mars, Settlers ranks among the less fancifully and lavishly invented, yet it’s all the more effective for its earthly restraint: You can change the planet, Rockefeller suggests, but humanity stays pretty much the same.
  8. My Heart Can't Beat Unless You Tell It To
    If terror is not particularly sought after, there is still sufficient tension, and downplaying the story’s fantastical aspect in favor of psychological conflicts lends the whole a persuasive pathos.
  9. Scales
    With its glittering black-and-white cinematography, immersive sound design, eerie score and creepy reveal, the film taps into something primal and chilling, with the taut first third particularly strong. But the narrative’s momentum and clarity dissipate in the middle and final sections even as the visuals continue to impress. Still, the boldly inventive Scales marks Ameen as a talent to watch.
  10. Queenpins
    Gaudet and Pullapilly argue, cheekily and convincingly, that the real crooks are the unseen conglomerates who’ve created a society that devalues products and their consumers.
  11. The Valet
    Sweet-natured and good-humored.
  12. Val
    What makes Val a good and heartfelt movie, rather than just some glorified movie-star-as-trashed-parody-of-himself piece of reality-show exploitation, is that Kilmer brings the film an incredible sense of self-awareness.
  13. The Addams Family 2
    In the case of The Addams Family 2, Tiernan and Vernon have used the sequel as an opportunity for an upgrade. The script is by an entirely new team (Dan Hernandez, Benji Samit, Ben Queen, and Susanna Fogel), and in some ineffable bats-in-the-belfry way the jokes now land with a more inspired and spontaneous creepy kookiness.
  14. Ride the Eagle
    The movie’s seriocomic consideration of how messy familial, sexual and professional relationships can be should have a well-nigh universal resonance.
  15. Larry Flynt for President
    Larry Flynt for President tells a story so wild that the documentary plays as a succulent time machine of sordid 1980s mishegas.
  16. Evolution
    So heavy until now, the movie ends on a soaring note of optimism.
  17. A Chiara
    Carpignano’s focus here on 15-year-old Chiara (a radiant Swamy Rotolo . . . is a natural way of prepping the audience’s sympathies, but he aims beyond easy generational assumptions, and even more noticeably than in his sophomore work, he’s imbibed some lessons from Martin Scorsese (who also exec produced that earlier film) in refusing to presume a judgmental stance.
  18. Clerks III
    Is this all wildly self-indulgent? A bit. Does it feel like the product of a filmmaker with plenty of fresh ideas? Not really. Has Smith lost his fastball as a writer? You could certainly make that case, and the screenplay’s attempts to recapture some of the rapid-fire pop culture references and x-rated musings of the director’s heyday often land painfully wide of the mark. But there’s something strangely poignant about it all the same.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Hondo
    Hondo is an exciting offbeat western. The stereoscopic 3-D cameras and WarnerColor successfully capture the vast natural beauty of Camargo, Mexico, where the picture was filmed on location.
  20. Homeroom
    The Oakland students — and director Nicks — rise to the demands of overlapping crises. With its vibrant if abbreviated portraits and final scenes of burgeoning activism, Homeroom suggest that kids may not be alright, but they are very much on the case.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
    Producer Hal Wallis has taken the historic meeting of Wyatt Earp, a celebrated lawman of the West, his brothers and Doc Holliday, with the Clanton gang in the O.K. Corral of Tombstone, Arizona, and fashioned an absorbing yarn [suggested by an article by George Scullin] in action leading up to the gory gunfight.
  22. Official Competition
    Cruz is quite obviously having a ball sending up the ivory-tower vanities and mannerisms of the prodigious auteurs she’s worked with over the years. It’s a performance of fizzy, frenzied, physically elastic inventiveness, though she doesn’t render Lola a complete cartoon.
  23. Western
    Viewers who don’t share the director’s obvious affection for his often funny characters will find the pic too long and too diffuse, but its cumulative rewards are ample.
  24. The Electrical Life of Louis Wain
    Whether one considers said work to be worthy of a feature-length movie is almost entirely beside the point, since Stephenson and Sharpe have unearthed so much else that’s engaging about Wain’s story.
  25. Uppercase Print
    In Uppercase Print, the fangs of the past are sharp, but muzzled.
  26. The River
    The River, concludes a trilogy consisting of “The Mountain” and “The Valley,” and while it’s his most objectively beautiful feature yet, it also gives nothing away, demanding a heightened engagement with both his artful mise-en-scène and his nation’s psychological state.
  27. Stanleyville
    With a firm commitment to its alluringly offbeat premise and a grounding lead performance from Susanne Wuest, this indie oddity is an enjoyable descent into the absurd despite an apparent lack of interest in answering most of the questions it raises.
  28. Nightbooks
    Its whimsical touches, along with a reverence for creative young minds, gives the film a warmth that counterbalances its shocks.
  29. There's Someone Inside Your House
    While a bit of ironic detachment isn’t necessarily a hindrance, too many latter-day horror flicks’ attempts to show they’re in on the joke make it difficult to get invested in their stories. Despite initially appearing poised to repeat this too-cool-for-school mistake, “Someone” moves past it by emphasizing not vengeance but redemption.
  30. Best Sellers
    Its portrait of an easy-target industry goes soft just when it needs a little added spine, while the film’s abrupt tonal transitions from jaunty comedy to cross-generational weepie occasionally come at the expense of the characters’ own credibility. But it’s the overarching niceness of “Best Sellers” that sees it through.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Under Fire
    Thesping is on the plus side, particularly Nolte in a role cut to his proportions. Director Roger Spottiswode, after a couple of earlier actioners, has great potential.
  32. 7 Prisoners
    7 Prisoners’ unfolds satisfyingly, precisely by not offering us complete satisfaction or certainty. The question hovers of whether Mateus can ever escape his prison altogether, or merely into one with more comfortable furniture.
  33. A Boy Called Christmas
    “Christmas” is a cut above the usual holiday dross.
  34. A Castle for Christmas
    Despite its smattering of shortcomings, A Castle For Christmas is gently disarming, heartening, holiday-themed escapism that’s as satisfying as a cup of hot chocolate on a cold winter’s night.
  35. Prince
    We are unusually invested in a middle-aged professional woman’s interior life, which is a refreshing place to be. But we are never sure of his heart the way we are of hers and so Le Prince feels entirely truthful to her story, and maybe just a little unfair to his.
  36. Moonfall
    Sure, Moonfall is all kinds of stupid, but it’s a heckuva lot funnier than Adam McKay’s all-star satire. I had a blast, and would gladly saddle up for a second viewing.
  37. Fauci
    It’s a documentary that merits a place in classrooms as well as theaters, as a preventative against the virus of cynicism.
  38. Luzzu
    An honest, affecting slab of working-class portraiture, altogether bracing with its thorny labor politics and salty sea air.
  39. Dogs
    Although the director cut his teeth working in commercials and on more comedic material, he has no trouble orchestrating the breath-catching suspense of Dogs, depicting violent confrontations with a certain chilling detachment, then reveling in the gruesome result.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Love at First Bite
    Director Stan Dragoti keeps the chuckles coming, spaced by a few good guffaws.
  41. Old Henry
    We know in our bones where the movie is going, and it’s a steady enjoyable ride, a touch prosaic at times, one that turns into a kind of minimalist chamber-room version of “Unforgiven,” with a surprisingly touching upshot.
  42. Inu-oh
    Basically, Inu-oh is to Noh as spray-painted graffiti is to traditional Japanese calligraphy.
  43. Costa Brava, Lebanon
    The gentle wisdom it contains is less to do with activist and environmentalist issues and more attuned to country, family and lifestyle choices as abstract concepts, as all the things we mean by the word “home,” which is where Akl’s heart is.
  44. True Things
    Harry Wootliff’s jaggedly grown-up psychological drama True Things thrives on the hot, tense chemistry between its two excellent leads: It’s what pulls the audience through an obstacle course of potentially implausible scenarios that instead ring stingingly true.
  45. Only You
    It might do writer-director Harry Wootliff a disservice to call her mature, thoughtfully conceived debut feature Only You one of the latter, but the tinderbox connection between stars Laia Costa and Josh O’Connor is what elevates this grown-up relationship study from respectable to lovable.
  46. The Tender Bar
    It’s not easy being Ben Affleck, by which I mean, there aren’t many actors who seem so comfortably themselves on-screen, and now that Affleck has reached middle age, he’s capable of bringing fresh depth to his performances.
  47. American Underdog
    American Underdog is a thoroughly predictable yet hugely entertaining sports biopic that is bound to please almost anyone who’s not a sourball cynic or a snarky critic.
  48. Apache Junction
    Once again, Lee prefers to canter rather than gallop as he spins his storyline, allowing his well-cast leads enough time to reveal themselves in sometimes leisurely, sometimes suspenseful dialogue exchanges.
  49. 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.
  50. V/H/S/94
    Overall, this is a fun way to spend 100 minutes or so, warts and all.
  51. The Deep House
    The tension provided by dank claustrophobia and threat of suffocation, as air supplies dwindle, makes this house a very scary place to be.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Haunting of Julia
    Film has a fairly tight script which, in first half at least, builds up scary tensions nicely. There's a performance by Mia Farrow which is somewhat reminiscent of Rosemary's Baby, and enough supernatural trappings to please those who are fascinated by the occult.
  53. Freeland
    Where Freeland is an unadulterated success is in capturing the physical, psychological and spiritual space Devi inhabits.
  54. Detention
    The absorbing and entertaining Detention works well enough as a primer on a traumatic period of history, and as a story of semi-supernatural salvation for sins past, that it earns its surprisingly moving final moments, and even its heavily on-the-nose exhortation to modern-day Taiwan to remember and honor its ghosts.
  55. Diary of a Wimpy Kid
    It establishes its own identity, occasionally improving upon its cinematic predecessor enough to make it a worthwhile watch.
  56. The Phantom of the Open
    The jokes write themselves, though in The Phantom of the Open, screenwriter Simon Farnaby and director Craig Roberts make them sweeter and spryer than they could have been, while a wide-eyed, bucket-hatted Mark Rylance plays Flitcroft with abundant generosity of spirit.
  57. Warning
    This is sci-fi cinema of a relatively subtle, intriguing stripe, without the usual emphasis on fantastical or action imagery. Still, it’s slickly engaging enough to please more open-minded genre fans, and brainy enough to attract those who want something other than another laser shoot ’em up.
  58. Lightyear
    Given that it’s a spinoff of the “Toy Story” series, which is the greatest and most sustained achievement in contemporary animation, it should be noted that this is one of those Pixar movies that feels like it has 50 percent Disney DNA.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Reivers
    The Reivers is a nice bawdy film, sort of Walt Disney with an adult rating.
  60. Roh
    Emir Ezwan’s directorial debut is a spare, eerie tale rooted in folk superstitions that are rendered credibly vivid by its thick yet subtle atmospherics.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Quiet Man
    Despite the length of the footage, film holds together by virtue of a number of choice characters, the best of which is Barry Fitzgerald’s socko punching of an Irish type. Wayne works well under Ford’s direction, answering all demands of the vigorous, physical character.
  62. All Is Forgiven (2007)
    While its succession of emotionally loaded moments never crystallize into a vivid whole, the strong performances and highly effective use of music should put audiences in a forgiving mood.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Outsider
    The Outsider represents the first attempt to get behind the incessant headlines and into the minds and motives at work on one of the longest-fought terrorist campaigns of the times - through an intelligent fictional story with an Irish setting.
  64. Sneakerella
    Heartening sentiments about gaining confidence, the passionate pull of artistic expression and the ingenious meta context of the narrative’s underpinnings help buff away the scuff marks, making for a surprisingly satisfying reboot of a tired but timeless classic.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Body Snatcher
    Based on a short story by Robert Louis Stevenson, and given tightly scripted adaptation, Snatcher seldom lacks interest.
  66. Children of the Enemy
    An abundance of earnestness is hardly a fatal flaw in a story as innately complex and moving as this one, especially once it moves beyond its most obvious crescendo, and instead of bowing out in a note of relief and resolution, dares to re-complicate the situation.
  67. Dog
    Dog is a lowbrow but by no means lazy crowd-pleaser, one where the fun Tatum and company took in making it translates directly to the pleasure we take in watching.
  68. The Outfit
    If you’re picturing shades of Kubrick’s “The Killing,” but with better clothes, fewer bullets and a self-effacing English fellow quietly trying to defuse the situation, you wouldn’t be far off.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Jailhouse Rock
    The production carries a contrived plot but under Richard Thorpe's deft direction unfolds smoothly. Director has been wise enough to allow Elvis Presley (in his third starrer) his own style, and build around him.
  70. Lady Buds
    While the personalities spotlit here are easy to root for, what emerges is less an upbeat look at female enterprise than yet another case of corporate money and political mechanizations killing off community-based small businesses to further enrich their deep-pocketed, invasive new rivals. It’s an ultimately depressing trajectory, though the film itself remains engaging and well crafted.
  71. Torn
    Though Torn flirts with filmmaking-as-therapy, it doesn’t dig discomfitingly deep.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Ice Station Zebra
    Action develops slowly, alternating with some excellent submarine interior footage, and good shots – of diving, surfacing and maneuvering under an ice field.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Porgy and Bess
    As screen entertainment, Porgy and Bess retains most of the virtues and some of the libretto traits of the folk opera.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Where the Boys Are
    Mimieux, in a demanding role, gets by dramatically. Visually she is a knockout, and has a misty quality.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Bedazzled
    Bedazzled is smartly-styled and typical of certain types of high British comedy.
  76. The Royal Treatment
    Takes expected genre trappings and infuses them with unexpected delights, creating an enlightened, enchanting and entertaining feature.
  77. The Lost City
    Even at the movie’s masks-on SXSW Film Festival premiere, The Lost City was a breath of fresh air: the kind of breezy two-hour getaway that doesn’t take itself too seriously, delivering screwball banter between Bullock and Tatum — a guilty-pleasure treasure hunt that pretends to be more progressive than it really is by alternating between who’s saving whom.
  78. Blue Beetle
    Maridueña, playing Hollywood’s first Latino superhero, proves an appealing star. And the novelty of casting a comic-book blockbuster with a mostly unknown crew of vibrant Latino actors finds its emotional grounding in Jaime’s family.
  79. Poupelle of Chimney Town
    As rich as the visuals can be at times, the music has it beat: Chimney Town may be a small-minded, smoke-choked industrial prison state for most, but to an optimistic loner like Lubicchi, it sounds like a symphony and glitters with possibility.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Alfie
    Alfie pulls few punches. With Michael Caine giving a powerfully strong performance as the woman-mad anti-hero, and with dialog and situations that are humorous, tangy, raw and, ultimately, often moving, the film may well shock. But behind its alley-cat philosophy, there's some shrewd sense, some pointed barbs and a sharp moral.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Forbidden Planet
    Imaginative gadgets galore, plus plenty of suspense and thrills, make the production a top offering in the space travel category. Best of all the gadgets is Robby, the Robot, and he's well-used for some comedy touches.
  82. Tyler Perry's A Madea Homecoming
    It’s the fastest, funniest “Madea” movie in quite some time.
  83. Emergency
    Emergency, in its racially aware way, turns into something that feels not unlike an ’80s comedy. It has winning flashes of wit, of observation, of telling satire. But it’s fundamentally about the situation.
  84. Breaking
    Boyega is the most interesting thing about the movie — specifically, the way he portrays this tragic, psychologically damaged individual fighting for what matters to him — although it’s also noteworthy for featuring Michael Kenneth Williams’ final performance as the hostage negotiator.
  85. Cha Cha Real Smooth
    Cha Cha Real Smooth works overtime to be an honest movie, and it also works overtime to ingratiate itself. In a sense, it accomplishes both aims, but I’m not sure that they entirely go together.
  86. Living
    Living isn’t nearly as subtle as it purports to be, although it can feel that way, considering how much these characters hold back — and this, one supposes, is what audiences want from an Ishiguro script.
  87. Watcher
    Watcher, if it has an agenda beyond being a fun, shivery, fish-out-of-water chiller, is not so much a manifesto to Believe All Women as it is a reminder to all women watching to at least believe ourselves.
  88. Bros
    Bros is confident enough being about queer characters that it doesn’t have to make them all likable.
  89. Alice
    The power of the film — and of Palmer’s phenomenal performance — is watching Alice grow into her voice.
  90. The Exiles
    Columbus and Klein present a palimpsest of erratically overlapping perspectives. The results are untidy and unbalanced, but derive considerable energy from that eccentric approach.
  91. I Didn't See You There
    I Didn’t See You There is affecting even when it shuts us out, coming across as the sincere, frustrated expression of someone who’s tired of explaining himself and his position even to a sympathetic audience.
  92. Leonor Will Never Die
    Escobar is after something deeper than parody. She wants audiences to question how fictional strongmen have been idealized as real-world saviors.
  93. Mars One
    Tracking the personal anxieties and challenges of the family members as they pursue differently shaped dreams of escape, it is sincerely meant and deeply affectionate toward its decent, striving foursome, but it’s a little disorienting that it should cue up a gut-punch only to deliver a hug.
  94. Meet Me in the Bathroom
    If it’s sometimes a little rough around the edges and not always structurally coherent, well, the same was true of these bands.
  95. Nanny
    Jusu meticulously calibrates the interactions between her characters, revealing a nuanced understanding of race and class relations.
  96. The Adam Project
    The movie is a total trifle, but it’s often a diverting one — a wide-eyed sci-fi adventure with a screwball buoyancy.
  97. Windfall
    Blending the oddball sensibility of McDowell and regular co-writer Justin Lader with the nastier genre smarts of “Se7en” scribe Andrew Kevin Walker, this low-key Netflix holds to its intriguing promise for a crisp 90 minutes, though even its climax is muted by design.
  98. The Fabulous Filipino Brothers
    It would be unfair to expect an amusing but slight comedy like this one to serve as a substantial political statement. On the other hand, there’s a lot to be said for any movie that reminds us, in a heartfelt but unassuming way, that we are many, but we are one.
  99. Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers
    This frenetic and funny crossbreeding of live action and cartoon is both a reboot and an anti-reboot, a corporate-funded raspberry at corporate IP, and a giddily dumb smart aleck committed to mocking its joke — and making it, too.
  100. The Contractor
    Being a solid cut above average is good enough, given so much formulaic mediocrity among thrillers cluttering the streaming market.
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