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 State Against Mandela and the Others
    The State Against Mandela and the Others outlines a complex network of motives and tensions underpinning this single sensational trial: Nothing here is exactly revelatory to those with a working knowledge of apartheid history, but few documentaries have gathered the stakes involved in the trial quite so deftly.
  2. Changing the Game
    Unadventurous in its design — Barnett goes for a conventional mélange of clips and talking heads to structure the story — Changing the Game admittedly benefits from a traditional approach that slowly familiarizes the audience both with the subjects and the layers of an ongoing discriminatory debate around fairness.
  3. José
    Cheng delivers a mood that is unquestionably human and, at times, unexpectedly hallowed (as when Jose stares down the worn face in a Mayan ruin). José brings to light the promise of a director as compassionate as he is observant.
  4. The Call of the Wild
    For all the wholesome cheesiness of much of the film, you’d have to have a pretty hard heart not to be touched by it.
  5. After Midnight
    It’s not enough just to be offbeat. Defy whatever rules it might, a movie has to find its own beat, and After Midnight still seems to be weighing its options when the final credits roll.
  6. Blumhouse's Fantasy Island
    The finished film plays at times like an out-of-control pitch meeting, lurching from one ostensibly clever idea to the next without having taken the trouble to connect the dots, or even to remain consistent with the two simple rules it sets out for itself.
  7. You Go to My Head
    If you can surrender yourself to the measured rhythms of the film and accept its mix of feeling and artifice, you may find much to admire here.
  8. Come As You Are
    There’s a relaxed yet energetic comic rapport between players that suggests a good time was had by all.
  9. The Photograph
    It’s a looser, warmer, and more meditative romance, one that takes its time by giving its actors room to breathe.
  10. Sonic the Hedgehog
    We all know that your average Hollywood comedy tends to include some on-set improvisation, but in this case the contrast between the leaden pseudo-brashness of the rest of the movie and the ping! of Carrey’s dialogue is so marked that it almost feels like he made up his entire character on the spot. (I’m not declaring that he actually did. I’m just sayin’.)
  11. Untouchable
    With Weinstein on the ropes, Macfarlane pulls no punches, doing a fair but unflinching job of letting those he once dominated share their narrative. That they do so on camera makes what they have to say that much more impactful, and Macfarlane does their testimony justice, delivering a hard-hitting documentary that speaks truth to power.
  12. Omniboat: A Fast Boat Fantasia
    It’s an inspired goof — for a while, before it turns into waaaaaay too much of a good thing.
  13. Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words
    Created Equal is structured as a monologue of self-justification, a two-hour infomercial for the decency, the competence, and the conservative role-model aspirationalism of Clarence Thomas.
  14. To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You
    The trouble with “P.S. I Still Love You” is that nearly all the reasons that Lara Jean makes such a refreshingly different romantic lead are contained in the earlier film, and here, she’s reduced to a version of the passive Disney princess, trying to decide between two dudes who both think she’s swell.
  15. Relic
    Not everyone will appreciate the ambiguity of a climax that can be read as either an uplifting act of pure and selfless love or a depressing capitulation to the malign forces of inevitable decline, but either way, “art-house horror” has its 2020 tidemark set high.
  16. And Then We Danced
    Gifted as both a thrilling dancer and a nuanced actor, Gelbakhiani’s magnetic presence goes a long way toward papering over some of the more timeworn plot elements . . . and the film should make audiences clamor for more vehicles that feature his seemingly effortless ability to radiate joy.
  17. Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made
    The quiet humanity of McCarthy’s filmmaking meshes oddly with the material’s zanier demands, finally reaching an anodyne middle ground.
  18. Happy Happy Joy Joy: The Ren & Stimpy Story
    A very entertaining recap that grows more disturbing as it wades into the dysfunctional behavior that doomed the show.
  19. His House
    A potent if unbalanced mashup of social-issues polemic and haunted-house horror.
  20. Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)
    Directing her first studio feature, Cathy Yan keeps it all hurtling along with impeccable ferocity. Her action scenes have a deftly detonating visual spaciousness, capped by crowd-pleasing moments.
  21. Boys State
    Ultimately, Boys State works because the “characters” are so compelling.
  22. Scare Me
    Scare Me would work even better onstage. On screen, it feels like an experiment in minimalism. The film is heavy-handed only in Fred’s fear of emasculation and Fanny’s digs at “desperate white dudes,” troweled on for socially relevant heft.
  23. Emma.
    There’s something quite comforting in seeing her (Austen) work returned to a more natural habitat: adapted into handsome, clever, faithfully unambitious films like Autumn de Wilde’s Emma.
  24. Welcome to Chechnya
    The ironically inviting title only hints at part of the story in this wholly devastating documentary: The crisis, it turns out, is all around us.
  25. Tesla
    Almereyda lays tracks to take Tesla in a dozen wild directions. . . . Yet, having ordered the audience onboard, Almereyda doesn’t go anywhere with the gambit.
  26. The Glorias
    The film is acted with great flair and emotional precision, and it’s been staged by Taymor with vividly detailed historical flavor, yet it tells Steinem’s story in a way that’s more wide than deep.
  27. Nine Days
    Nine Days is that rare work of art that invites you to re-consider your entire worldview.
  28. The Nowhere Inn
    As a ballad about a rock star’s soul, The Nowhere Inn is a fun riff performed on flimsy strings.
  29. Horse Girl
    The transgressiveness of Baena and Brie’s strange and sorrowful Horse Girl, is in how it turns the simplistic, inauthentic tweeness of the generic, quirky indie comedy in on itself to produce a rare and piercingly compassionate exploration of the sorts of madness that come from intense loneliness, and the intense loneliness that comes from being regarded as mad.
  30. The Father
    The Father is a chamber piece, but it has the artistic verve to keep twisting the reality it shows us without becoming a stunt.
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