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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    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Alan Partridge
    A scissor-sharp comedy of ineptitude and failure.
  2. Gideon's Army
    Like the film itself, Porter’s handful of devoted, charismatic attorneys do a righteous job of reminding people that the accused are innocent until proven guilty, and that the criminal justice system seems otherwise disposed.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Thief
    Although there are points where he gets bogged down in the technical aspects of thievery, the film is a slick Chicago crime-drama with a well-developed sense of pathos running throughout.
  4. Breathe In
    While the plot — too low-key to be called a thriller — points toward obvious extramarital cliches, delicate changes in the overall mood reveal deeper truths.
  5. The Crash Reel
    By turns pulse-quickening and contemplative, The Crash Reel is a thoroughly winning docu portrait of former pro snowboarder Kevin Pearce.
  6. Terms and Conditions May Apply
    Deftly balancing twin goals of informing and entertaining, the pic matter-of-factly details the various ways that marketers, multinational corporations, police departments and government-run intelligence-gathering organizations obtain and exploit info.
  7. Iceberg Slim: Portrait of a Pimp
    “Portrait” abounds in the sort of ironies and contrasts that can make a biodoc fascinating even to auds totally unfamiliar with its subject.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Pusher
    The subject has been done before, but Refn avoids the cliches, both in the story itself and its telling.
  9. Drug War
    A nail-biter that’s actually quite light on action but so well-scripted and shot, it’s nonetheless edge-of-your-seat material.
  10. Godzilla
    Edwards seems to have miscalculated our investment in his cast...simultaneously underestimating how satisfying some good old-fashioned monster-on-MUTO action can be.
  11. Zipper: Coney Island's Last Wild Ride
    The director’s double vision establishes a level of equality on film that in some ways defies the disparity in power between the two opposing forces.
  12. The Good Son: The Life of Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini
    Director Jesse James Miller’s bio of ‘80s-era World Boxing Council lightweight champ Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini connects on emotional levels in the telling of an up-from-nothing brawler whose colorful career climaxed in tragedy.
  13. Paradise: Faith
    The constant juxtaposition of scenes showing the dark and light aspects of the characters endows the pic with a juicy moral complexity that will stimulate post-screening debates.
  14. C.O.G.
    The source material may be David Sedaris (this marks the first time the essayist has allowed one of his pieces to be adapted), but the tone couldn’t be more Kyle Patrick Alvarez, who once again steers auds to some gloriously uncomfortable places.
  15. Five Dances
    The sensual movement of bodies through space creates a visual language whose infinite variations seduce and fascinate over the course of the film’s numerous rehearsals.
  16. Tokyo Waka: A City Poem
    “Waka” refers to an ancient form of poetry still widely popular today, and helmers Haptas and Samuelson, through their serene lensing and fluid editing, propose a visual thread linking the past to the present “as the crow flies.”
  17. Night Moves
    Kelly Reichardt blends her lucid observational approach with a topical-thriller format to engrossing effect in Night Moves.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Idolmaker
    Though it's marred by an overly melodramatic and dubious finale, The Idolmaker is an unusally compelling film about the music business in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It shows how teen idols were created, promoted, and discarded by entrepreneurs cynically manipulating the adolescent audience. Ray Sharkey is superb in the title role.
  19. Il Futuro
    Even though mood trumps character psychology, the entire cast provides mesmerizing, evocative performances.
  20. Bad Words
    This exuberantly foul-mouthed and mean-spirited comedy goes somewhat soft in the final stretch but remains an often uproarious model of sharp scripting and spirited acting.
  21. Begin Again
    A film that lays emotions on the line and then drives them home with music.
  22. Fading Gigolo
    John Turturro brings sensitivity and intelligence to a subject that could have gone terribly awry in Fading Gigolo.
  23. Moebius
    A gloriously off-the-charts study in perversity.
  24. Abuse of Weakness
    Of all living actresses, only Huppert could capture nuances that alternately elicit sympathy and fierce sexual attraction to a recent stroke victim.
  25. Locke
    This ingeniously executed study in cinematic minimalism has depth, beauty and poise.
  26. The Unknown Known
    Ranging over familiar material, but made vivid by Morris’ fecund associations and invigorating stylistic flourishes.
  27. Shepard & Dark
    The ups and downs of a decades-long friendship are charted with warmth and sensitivity in Shepard and Dark.
  28. Winter Nomads
    Von Stuerler’s debut showcases nature, but its real theme is its subjects’ engagement with their work.
  29. Le Week-End
    Bittersweet, charming yet often very thorny.
  30. The Square
    The Square is journalism, but Noujaim’s agenda is greater than mere reportage.
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