Variety's Scores

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For 17,794 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: 9,142 out of 17794
  2. Mixed: 7,015 out of 17794
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17794
17794 movie reviews
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  1. Sisters
    Beneath the film’s entertainingly crude hijinks, there are actual human stakes here, as the two sisters recognize in each other the growing up they themselves need to do — though Pell’s script keeps the hugging and learning to a reasonable minimum.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Withnail and I
    Withnail & I is about the end of an era. Set in 1969 England, it portrays the last throes of a friendship mirroring the seedy demise of the hippie period, delivering some comic gems along the way.
  3. Deepsea Challenge 3D
    It’s the trench imagery itself that’s the primary attraction here, and it proves more than worth the wait.
  4. The Hornet's Nest
    Tureaud and Salzberg achieve their potent impact through the straightforward (but clearly admiring) observation of men who band together in battle and, in the film’s emotionally stirring final scenes, mourn their fallen comrades.
  5. Welcome to New York
    A bluntly powerful provocation that begins as a kind of tabloid melodrama and gradually evolves into a fraught study of addiction, narcissism and the lava flow of capitalist privilege. [Unrated Version]
  6. Wild
    While Wild will surely be praised in the coming months for having a strong, well-written, flesh-and-blood female at its center, it’s to the film’s credit that it wears this badge of honor with a lightness that in no way undermines its sincerity.
  7. Cold Bloom
    Maintaining an unhurried tempo and an air of hushed reverence, the pic furtively hints at Shiori’s loneliness and despondency even as she soldiers on, until a series of revelations by Takumi culminates in a liberating finale.
  8. Wild Tales
    Szifron does a terrific job of pacing thanks to expert editing (he shares credit with Pablo Barbieri) within each episode and a genuinely subversive sense of humor.
  9. Amour Fou
    The Austrian writer-director gradually locates the emotional pulse in a picture that plays less like a doomed romance than a seriocomic anatomy of one, subjecting its characters and their bubble of high privilege to sharply critical yet quietly affecting scrutiny.
  10. Jauja
    In Jauja, Alsonso saves his most dazzling trick for last: a sudden plunge down a Lynchian rabbit hole that should, by all means, rupture the film’s hypnotizing atmosphere, but instead pulls the viewer in even deeper.
  11. National Gallery
    The effect of National Gallery is to reinforce the notion that paintings are objects to know and understand.
  12. Jimmy's Hall
    A minor-key but eminently enjoyable work by a master craftsman.
  13. Coming Home
    Heartbreaking in its depiction of ordinary lives affected by political upheaval, this ode to the fundamental values that survive even under such dire circumstances has an epic gravity that recalls another great historical romance, “Doctor Zhivago.”
  14. Wrinkles
    Although nothing here quite matches the moving, life-in-five-minutes montage in Pixar’s “Up,” one swooping flashback sequence comes very close.
  15. Korengal
    Junger has emerged with a worthy companion piece in Korengal, a less harrowing, more reflective dispatch from the front lines, and an equally vital examination of the strange crucible of selflessness, courage, bloodlust, rage, confusion and fear endured by the brave men interviewed here.
  16. Before You Know It
    Throughout, Before You Know It resists foundering in pathos or kitsch; its subjects are too complex and resistant, having survived decades of change, to be reduced to victims or examples.
  17. Manuscripts Don't Burn
    A brave, challenging picture that makes the viewer complicit in the action, it is also perhaps the first film since the declaration of the Islamic Republic to confront so directly the brutality of the feared security apparatus.
  18. The Crow
    A seamless, pulsating, dazzlingly visual revenge fantasy that stands as one of the most effective live-actioners ever derived from a comic strip.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Honey, I Shrunk the Kids
    Pic [story by Stuart Gordon, Brian Yuzna and Ed Naha] is in the best tradition of Disney and even better than that because it is not so juvenile that adults won’t be thoroughly entertained.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Witches of Eastwick
    With a no-holds-barred performance by Jack Nicholson as the horny Satan, it’s a very funny and irresistible set-up for anyone who has ever been baffled by the opposite sex.
  21. The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water
    At times there’s a genuine sense of daring to the film’s freewheeling anarchy, its refusal to stick to a central theme or impart any sort of lesson.
  22. Bridge of Spies
    While the helmer’s myth-making approach makes for great Capra-esque entertainment, younger auds may find it terribly old-fashioned — and they’d be right to think so, although Spielberg would be the first to admit it was his intention to play things classical.
  23. Archipelago
    This is a beautifully distilled and literally still work that lingers in the mind long after its conclusion.
  24. Cannibal
    The film’s slow deliberation and aesthetic rigor act as a form of seduction, luring the viewer into unwilling identification with Carlos.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Fifi Howls from Happiness
    Though shy on background info, the docu offers a fascinating portrait.
  26. A Letter to Momo
    The story distinguishes itself from other anime offerings through its attention to both visual and emotional realism.
  27. War Story
    Anchored by Keener’s understated, psychologically acute performance, director Mark Jackson’s spare, quietly powerful sophomore feature demonstrates an impressive control of mood and tone and the ability to tell a story largely without words.
  28. The Strange Little Cat
    Despite all that it withholds, The Strange Little Cat ultimately proves a far more revealing form of family portrait.
  29. The Dog
    A spunky yet surprisingly sad portrait of a sexually liberated man held captive by his past, forever chasing and trying to rewrite his own legend.
  30. American Sniper
    Just as “The Hurt Locker” found revelatory depths in Jeremy Renner, so American Sniper hinges on Cooper’s restrained yet deeply expressive lead performance, allowing many of the drama’s unspoken implications to be read plainly in the actor’s increasingly war-ravaged face.
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