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. The Grey Zone
    Staccato, Mamet-style dialogue exchanges, breathless pacing and remarkably healthy, well-fed-looking actors create a cumulative sense of artificiality that seriously undercuts the devastating effect clearly being sought.
  2. Virgil Bliss
    Two superb, nervy and delicately nuanced performances by newcomers Clint Jordan and Kirsten Russell enliven and momentarily elevate writer-director Joe Maggio's Virgil Bliss above the familiar post-prison-drama cliches to which it so strenuously adheres.
  3. Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism
    The film lacks the accompanying media spotlight that boosted the Moore release and therefore appears unlikely to reach beyond a liberal audience with an already vehement aversion to Fox News' partisan coverage.
  4. Small Voices
    Latest pic directed by Gil M. Portes, could be called "To Madam With Love"; vet Filipino helmer is out to open maximum tear ducts with sentimental tale.
  5. 13 Minutes
    What 13 Minutes fails to understand is that it’s a moral imperative to remember, but it’s an ethical minefield to remember in a simplified manner.
  6. Happily
    Aiming for a darkly humorous portrait of marital bliss — and the difficulties of maintaining it — the film comes off as a half-formed “Twilight Zone” joke minus the punchline.
  7. Dean
    Martin stays within his comfort zone as a New York-based illustrator still processing his mother’s death, but the tyro helmer struggles to square his distinct minimalist charm with the second-hand influence of standard-bearers like Woody Allen and Wes Anderson.
  8. Fuck
    The offensive word that provides the title for Steven Anderson's penetrating documentary/social critique has either enriched or infected Western culture to the point that we're either drowning in a "floodtide of filth" or blessed with the best verbal relief valve ever devised by man.
  9. The Prey
    Gallic helmer Eric Valette (“State Affairs”) invests this giddily implausible crime yarn with a propulsive sense of energy.
  10. Creative Control
    A contemplative tone, a zigzagging narrative, superb widescreen black-and-white cinematography and an infusion of dry humor make it feel genuinely fresh.
  11. Jojo Rabbit
    It’s like a Wes Anderson movie set during the Third Reich. ... And yet it’s not as if it’s a terrible movie; it’s actually a studiously conventional movie dressed up in the self-congratulatory “daring” of its look!-let’s-prank-the-Nazis cachet.
  12. Mother Mary
    “Mother Mary” turns into the most befuddlingly pretentious movie about a pop star since Brady Corbet’s “Vox Lux.” It heads down a blind alley of cosmic meaning that, in the end, means nothing.
  13. The Express
    Crowdpleasing and oh-so-predictable.
  14. Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero
    The film is sufficiently intelligent and entertaining to engage most grown-ups and, no kidding, fascinate history buffs.
  15. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
    Employing a bigger budget, better effects and an edgier director ("Hard Candy's" David Slade), Eclipse focuses on what works -- the stars.
  16. Die Hard: With a Vengeance
    An overinflated mishmash that compels the audience to sift through a lot of rubble for the few requisite thrills, this second "Die Hard" sequel leaves a lot of creative wreckage in its wake.
  17. Work It
    Few of the lessons and triumphs of Work It will surprise, and some of the missed opportunities disappoint.
  18. Lights Out
    Very obviously a first feature, Lights Out is full of camp (most of it clearly intentional, some perhaps not), and its underlying mythology is confused and often ridiculous. But there’s an invigorating leanness — and a giddy, almost innocent energy — to the filmmaking.
  19. Gabi on the Roof in July
    Initially registers as meandering and disjointed enough to qualify as mumblecore. But remarkably, the film gradually, effectively coheres, building to a climax at once unexpected yet integral to what has transpired before.
  20. The Cleanse
    You might wish that the ending, and the story overall, had packed a bit more dramatic oomph, but Miller’s decision to keep the emphasis entirely on character and theme shows impressive confidence. He gives the movie all the juice it needs.
  21. World's Best
    Despite Suresh’s oft-repeated mantra that “the world’s best never rest,” it’s hard not to wish that the movie itself would take more breaks and give father and son time to bond with one another.
  22. The Man Who Killed Don Quixote
    If anything, it’s what the director’s fans most feared: a lumbering, confused, and cacophonous mess
  23. Cry Macho
    It’s friendly and diverting and formulaic, in an inoffensive and good-natured way, and it’s a totally minor affair.
  24. Christy
    It’s a wrenching portrait of abuse, enabling, gaslighting, and just how far domestic violence can go. Yet part of the force of it is that Michôd has not contorted Christy Martin’s life into some false arc; what was going on beneath her triumph is portrayed with a desperate and idiosyncratic honesty.
  25. My Best Friend's Exorcism
    Though this ’80s-set horror-comedy takes an old-school approach to capturing the horrific happenings, the stunts are lackluster and the comedic hijinks are a tiresome bore. With very little interest conjured from the filmmakers to properly develop their characters, there’s little incentive to stay interested.
  26. Splinter
    A spare, effective and genuinely frightening retro-nightmare.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Getting Straight
    Getting Straight is an outstanding film. It is a comprehensive, cynical, sympathetic, flip, touching and hilarious story of the middle generation [of the late 1960s] – those millions a bit too old for protest, a bit too young for repression.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Blue Hawaii
    Hal Kanter's breezy screenplay, from a story by Allan Weiss, is the slim, but convenient, foundation for a handsome, picture-postcard production crammed with typical South Seas musical hulaballoo.
  29. Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie
    Uses humor and high spirits to entertain while spreading the Good Word. Much of this slick and sprightly CGI feature is sufficiently funny to amuse even the most resolutely unreligious parents who escort their little ones to megaplex screenings.
  30. The Trench
    Soberly and intelligently examines the fear, frustration, anxiety, animosity and boredom of waiting to advance into the terrifying other world that lies over the lip of the trenches.
  31. The Safety of Objects
    A genuine and tangible fondness and respect for the characters and their eccentricities.
  32. Session 9
    Little more than an overworked exercise in jostling red herrings, and not particularly fresh herrings at that.
  33. Shanghai Knights
    A hugely entertaining and more lavishly mounted follow-up to 2000's "Shanghai Noon," the high-concept East-meets-Western that first teamed top-billed duo, pic rides even taller in the saddle as a fleet and funny crowd-pleaser.
  34. Gozu
    Unclassifiable cult figure Takashi Miike's films invariably have their share of weirdness and perversity, but Gozu arguably outweirds all previous efforts in the prolific Japanese director's eclectic canon.
  35. Man on the Moon
    Never comes close to making the case that its subject is worthy of the viewer's interest.
  36. Leaves of Grass
    A mixed bag of often mismatched ideas.
  37. Populaire
    A colorful and impeccably styled romantic comedy that manages to turn the speed-typing competitions of the 1950s into entertaining cinematic fodder.
  38. Men in Black III
    It's clear the filmmakers aren't simply expecting to coast on audience goodwill...Men in Black 3 is at its best when it simply owns its own absurdity.
  39. Big Fish
    The imaginatively illustrated but precariously precious film offers up a string of minor pleasures but never becomes more than moderately amusing or involving.
  40. Wrong
    A curious tale about a man searching for his missing dog in a suburban bubble where everything is a little askew, has some laughs, but it doesn’t take long for the absurdist humor to pall among a pileup of nonsensical ideas that would be funnier if grounded in a less hazy concept.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Bat*21
    Glover turns in a solid job but, as with Hackman, he remains one-dimensional.
  42. Snowden
    It’s the most important and galvanizing political drama by an American filmmaker in years.
  43. Kid-Thing
    Spearheaded by phenomenal pint-sized lead Sydney Aguirre, this challenging third feature from the Zellner Brothers retains much of their provocative trademark idiocy but navigates darker waters.
  44. Jobriath A.D.
    While the subject remains something of an enigma offstage, this absorbing and deftly crafted documentary compels interest throughout.
  45. Look & See: A Portrait of Wendell Berry
    The documentary is too tepid to generate anything like excitement or outrage, and elicits admiration more for its intentions than for its execution.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Escape Artist
    Treatment frequently pushes past the careful to the precious, and the quiet, odd tale never becomes more than mildly intriguing.
  47. 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.
  48. 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.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Love and Other Catastrophes
    Boosted by a terrific ensemble of five engaging young thesps, pic is forthright, frank and freewheeling in its approach to sex, love and cinema.
  50. Brothers
    Though it renders a convincing portrait of fractured family life and boasts its share of powerfully acted moments, this schematic tale of two siblings, ripped apart by jealousy, misunderstanding and unshakable trauma, plays like a more polished but less effective twin to the 2005 Danish original.
  51. 20 Centimeters
    Showing a stylistic bravura and confidence rare among upcoming Spanish helmers, Ramon Salazar's campy 20 Centimeters is a self-regarding but vastly entertaining sophomore effort that fuses a wide range of influences -- Hollywood musicals, neo-realism and early-Almodovarian kitsch -- into a distinctive, giddy whole.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Julia
    Fred Zinnemann’s superbly sensitive film explores the anti-Nazi awakening in the 1930s of writer Lillian Hellman via persecution of a childhood friend, portrayed in excellent characterization by Vanessa Redgrave in title role. Richard Roth’s production is handsome and tasteful.
  53. Believer
    Believer may be more impressive around the edges than at its core, but that doesn’t prevent it from delivering a pretty solid two hours of action and suspense that’s muscularly directed by Lee and stylishly shot by Kim Tae-kyung.
  54. A Hologram for the King
    A Hologram for the King arrives at its feel-good conclusion honestly enough, but its cultural engagement feels tentative, even secondhand: The movie conjures no shortage of potent images, but push a bit deeper and your fist closes on empty air.
  55. Happy Death Day
    Happy Death Day is “Groundhog Day” dipped in blood, and if the movie isn’t all that clever, it’s just clever enough to get by.
  56. The High Note
    The script of The High Note, by Flora Greeson, is long on wish-fulfillment and short on inside authority, and the director, Nisha Ganatra (“Late Night”), stages it with a hit-or-miss geniality that keeps cutting corners on the story’s emotional honesty. The feel-good factor hovers over this movie like a fuzzy bland cloud.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Miss Firecracker
    Putting the show over with a bang is Hunter, the epitome of energy in a tailormade feisty role. She very accurately judges the line between high and low camp in her climactic tapdance for the talent contest, entertaining but just klutzy enough to be authentic.
  58. Stepmom
    Everything about the film suggests that its makers consider it a deep, emotionally probing drama, but it's merely a soap opera with elevated production values and a sterling cast.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Thunderheart
    Reasonably engrossing as a mystery-thriller despite its overburdened plot, Thunderheart succeeds most in its captivating portrayal of mystical Native American ways.
  60. Police Beat
    Distinctive, physically ravishing indie is a natural for fests, but it's questionable whether this sometimes involving, sometimes obscure pic will have appeal beyond the specialty market.
  61. Henry Johnson
    Watching it, you feel the depth of Mamet’s talent. It’s never left him. But you also feel the contempt he now has for the verities of entertainment. He wants to take us out of our comfort zone. The trouble is that he’s created his own rarefied discomfort zone of self-indulgence posing as importance.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    One Million Years B.C.
    Biggest novelty gimmick of this likely click for unsophisticated situations is that, despite four writers on screenplay [including director Michael Carreras], dialog is minimal, consisting almost entirely of grunts. More saleable gimmick is that, at last, the nubile Raquel Welch is on view.
  63. Geronimo: An American Legend
    Neatly turning longstanding genre conventions upside down while working squarely within them, director Walter Hill has fashioned a physically impressive, well-acted picture whose slightly stodgy literary quality holds it back from an even greater level of impact.
  64. Eden
    While there’s no denying that Howard has made the ultimate movie that’s not in his wheelhouse, what’s most different about it isn’t the eccentric subject matter. It’s that Howard got so immersed in the subject, so possessed by it, so lost in it that he forgot to do what he can usually do in his sleep: tell a relatable story.
  65. Crazy Legs Conti: Zen and the Art of Competitive Eating
    This amusingly light (but oh-so-gut-busting) reverie on one man's titanic efforts to rise to the top ranks in the very unofficial sport of competitive scarfing goes down quickly as a good example of documaking on freakish behavior and freakier subcultures.
  66. Brahman Naman
    Overall, the mix of medium-grade raunchy humor and middleweight drama works fairly well, albeit with few real highlights.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Cat from Outer Space
    The fun, as usual with Disney pix, comes in the believable sight gags provided along the way. Also as usual, it’s a good cast of veterans and nothing to tax them beyond their abilities, all ably kept in pace by director Norman Tokar.
  68. Prime
    Despite a comic Yiddishe mama turn by Meryl Streep and a sensitively nuanced performance by Uma Thurman in a convincing changeup from her recent kickass action roles, Prime remains an oddly juiceless older woman-younger man romance, with a Freudian twist.
  69. The Rock
    This is a pure popcorn picture that benefits heavily from its trio of highly skilled, charismatic leading thesps, an unusual setting that provides plenty of visual stimulation, and a confrontational standoff that actually stems from a legitimately provocative premise.
  70. Jimmy P.
    Jimmy P. is never better than when its two leads share the screen, a relationship all the more resonant and moving for Desplechin’s refusal to make it cutesy or contrived.
  71. Knives and Skin
    The positive qualities lie in the surrealistic film’s bold cinematography, distinctive use of music, and diversity of cast, though that’s not enough to redeem this tedious viewing experience.
  72. Jumanji: The Next Level
    More often than not, effects-driven blockbusters get dumber as the series goes along, but Jumanji: The Next Level invents some fun ideas to keep things fresh.
  73. Moana 2
    Moana 2 is an okay movie, an above-average kiddie roller-coaster, and a piece of pure product in a way that the first “Moana,” at its best, transcended.
  74. Mean Girls
    You can rest assured that Mean Girls, the movie musical, sticks close to the spirit and to the letter of the movie that updated and mythologized the culture of gossip and backstabbing for a new generation. The new movie nudges the material into our own era in a handful of ways.
  75. Roving Mars
    Helmer George Butler correctly gauges his film's strengths, with the search for life in the universe becoming a heartfelt tribute to a couple of robots.
  76. Tortilla Soup
    A warm-blooded winner with equal emphasis placed on taste buds and heartstrings.
  77. ZigZag
    Evidencing savvy visual flair and compelling storytelling skill, Goyer infuses heart and vigor into material that could have come off as overly familiar at best, sappily improbable at worst.
  78. Francis Ford Coppola Presents: The Legend of Suriyothai
    The frequently confusing story does eventually pull together; but there's still a lack of any strong emotional center, and the character gallery remains over-populated.
  79. The Legend of 1900
    The material is at heart an intimate allegorical fairy tale about rarefied philosophical concerns.
  80. Risk/Reward
    Lacking the overall drama of "Startup.com" or "e-Dreams," pic more than compensates with skillful presentation and the fascinating power of its subjects, femme movers and shakers who perform high-wire juggling acts between their personal and professional lives every day.
  81. I Am Chris Farley
    Worth watching for its trove of emotional testimonies from family and friends — including an atypically forthcoming Lorne Michaels and Adam Sandler — the pic is somewhat defanged by its surface-level approach and standard-issue filmmaking style.
  82. Ask the Dust
    Highlighted by a strong and sensual performance from Salma Hayek as the doomed heroine, elegant pic's muted quality and the central character's vexingly contrary behavior will keep auds from connecting with characters who themselves have trouble establishing bonds.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Licence to Kill
    The James Bond production team has found its second wind with Licence to Kill, a cocktail of high-octane action, spectacle and drama...The thrills-and-spills chases are superbly orchestrated as pic spins at breakneck speed through its South Florida and Central American locations.
  84. Lost in Beijing
    Money (and maybe a little bit of love) makes the world go around in Lost in Beijing, an involving, highly accessible portrait of an emotional menage a quatre in the modern-day Chinese capital.
  85. First Snow
    Engages but underwhelms.
  86. Somebody Up There Likes Me
    If nonchalance were an Olympic sport, Max would be a gold medalist, and watching Somebody Up There Likes Me is about as much fun as being a spectator at that event might sound.
  87. Ramen Heads
    Ramen Heads may be a tad lacking in visual excitement, but it succeeds in imparting the ineffable appeal of Japan’s national dish.
  88. The Cat Rescuers
    While the production package is merely workman-like, the commitment, honesty and heart of the main interviewees makes the material compelling.
  89. The Equalizer 3
    Beyond the righteous action and visceral violence, it’s Washington’s swagger and charisma that compels.
  90. Hope Gap
    Slow and stuffy, like a filmed play, but also considerably more nuanced and mature than your typical relationship drama.
  91. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
    Jackson and his team seem compelled to flesh out the world of their earlier trilogy in scenes that would be better left to extended-edition DVDs (or omitted entirely), all but failing to set up a compelling reason for fans to return for the second installment.
  92. Memories of My Father
    Trueba keeps things moving within and between eras in a graceful, affectionate, assured way that’s always enjoyable, even if the film overall seems a bit frivolous given its larger themes.
  93. Southbound
    This entertaining-enough quartet of loosely interwoven terror tales falls right into the middle ground of horror omnibuses, with no outright duds but no truly memorable (or scary) segments either.
  94. Shrek the Third
    After a buoyantly funny first half-hour, stylish animated comedy takes a breather before ramping it up again for a rambunctious, girrrl-power finale that provides a convenient springboard for further adventures to come.
  95. The Finest Hours
    Perhaps the worst one could say about Craig Gillespie’s film is that, rather than their finest hours, the whole cast and crew all put in a solid shift at the office making the movie, producing a perfectly entertaining, sometimes quite well-crafted disaster drama that nonetheless retreats from the memory almost as soon as the credits roll.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Rough Cut
    Rough Cut emerges as an undistinctive, frothy romantic comedy that will charm a few and probably miss the eye of many.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Three Faces of Eve
    It is frequently an intriguing, provocative motion picture, but director Nunnally Johnson's treatment of the subject matter makes the film neither fish nor foul. Johnson shifts back and forth - striving for comedy at one point and presenting a documentary case history at another.
  98. Aurora Borealis
    Alternately breezy and profound, pic hits enough emotional chords to connect with audiences, which will be charmed by a newly mature Joshua Jackson, a deeply aged Donald Sutherland and a friskily romantic Juliette Lewis.
  99. The Trust
    Cage supplies a stream of tension-defusing laughs while the script steadily applies the screws, but this disposable exercise in comic nihilism offers only a modest payoff at best.
  100. Distance
    There’s almost none of the generous, involving humanity (and warm humor) of the previous film, nor any clear take on the personalities in the slackly structured script, largely improvised by the actors.
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