Variety's Scores

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For 17,771 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 2.5 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: 9,130 out of 17771
  2. Mixed: 7,005 out of 17771
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17771
17771 movie reviews
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  1. A Prophet
    Though less pleasurably offbeat than the helmer’s well-received “Read My Lips” and “The Beat That My Heart Skipped,” this is solid, sinewy pulp fiction.
  2. Almost Famous
    More gentle and modestly insightful than it is exhilarating or revelatory.
  3. Oppenheimer
    Even when "Oppenheimer” settles down into a more realistic, less phantasmagorical groove (which it does fairly quickly), it remains every inch a Nolan film. You feel that in the heady, dense, dizzying way it slices and dices chronology, psychodrama, scientific inquiry, political backstabbing, and history written with lightning.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Paths of Glory
    While the subject is well handled and enacted in a series of outstanding characterizations, it seems dated and makes for grim screen fare.
  5. Cold War
    Cold War may return to “Ida’s” meticulous monochrome aesthetic of “Ida,” but it’s a companion piece with its own tonal and structural energy: less emotionally immediate, perhaps, but immersively informed by the broken jazz rhythms beloved of its protagonist.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Scarface
    Scarface contains more cruelty than any of its gangster picture predecessors, but there's a squarer for every killing. The blows are always softened by judicial preachments and sad endings for the sinners.
  7. The Truman Show
    A gemlike picture crafted with rare and immaculate precision.
  8. Once
    Winningly unpretentious tale uses a wispy romantic narrative as a vehicle for attractive original tunes.
  9. Sorry, Baby
    If Sorry, Baby works, it’s because Victor strikes such a tricky tone: Her debut is warm and compassionate, advancing a conversation for which we’re still trying to find the words.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Hannah and Her Sisters
    He (Allen) makes nary a misstep from beginning to end in charting the amorous affiliations of three sisters and their men over a two-year period.
  11. Big Men
    Rachel Boynton’s extraordinary Big Men should come tagged with a warning: The side effects of global capitalism may include dizziness, nausea and seething outrage.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Circus
    In clinging to a tale of logical sequence, without the expected interpolations or detached incidents, Chaplin's Circus for speed, gags and laughs has not been equalled on the sheet. But it's very broad, for Chaplin makes no attempt at subtlety in this one.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Going My Way
    Bing Crosby gets a tailor-made role in Going My Way, and with major assistance from Barry Fitzgerald and Rise Stevens, clicks solidly to provide topnotch entertainment for wide audience appeal.
  14. The Tale
    Both a natural extension of Fox’s career to date and a complete about-face, The Tale marks her first narrative feature, but only because traditional documentary wouldn’t do justice to this messy, meandering investigation into her traumatic first sexual experience, for the incidents it depicts are true, “at least as far I know.”
  15. Paterson
    Paterson, Jarmusch’s wee dramatic curio starring Adam Driver as a New Jersey bus driver – his name is Paterson, and he lives in Paterson — is a movie that’s all too aware of how much it diverges from contemporary tempo. That’s because the entire film is a self-conscious anachronism.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Blue Angel
    A standout picture.
  17. The Fits
    Even at its conclusion, Holmer’s film refuses to provide easy answers regarding its meaning, instead using poised formal techniques to impart that which is not spoken — and, in the process, portends impressive things to come from its confident, capable director.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Raging Bull
    But the boxing sequences are possibly the best ever filmed, and the film captures the intensity of a boxer's life with considerable force.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Eyes Without a Face [re-release]
    Director Georges Franju has given this some suspense and not spared any shock details. But the stilted acting, asides to explain characters and motivations, and a repetition of effects lose the initial impact.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Gold Rush (1925)
    It is the greatest and most elaborate comedy ever filmed, and will stand for years as the biggest hit in its field.
  21. United 93
    The result is a tense, documentary-style drama that methodically builds a sense of dread despite the preordained outcome.
  22. Capturing the Friedmans
    There's a kind of rawness on the screen that most movies never approach.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Lavender Hill Mob
    With The Lavender Hill Mob, Ealing clicks with another comedy winner.
  24. American Hustle
    It’s a rich, glorious mess, and its underlying craftsmanship is apparent in the characters’ beautifully delineated relationships, each with its own jangly rhythm and distinct feel.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Passenger (re-release)
    Nicholson plays the character with personal flair, as penetrating as Antonioni's handling of the film. (Review of Original Release)
    • 90 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope
    A magnificent film. George Lucas set out to make the biggest possible adventure fantasy out of his memories of serials and older action epics, and he succeeded brilliantly.
  27. Persepolis
    This autobiographical tour de force is completely accessible and art of a very high order.
  28. The Age of Innocence
    Scorsese has met most of the challenges inherent in tackling such a formidable period piece, but the material remains cloaked by the very propriety, stiff manners and emotional starchiness the picture delineates in such copious detail.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Deer Hunter
    Among the considerable achievements of Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter is the fact that the film remains intense, powerful and fascinating for more than three hours.
  30. Paris Calligrammes
    Ottinger takes us through this formative time of her life in a way that deftly balances past and present to paint a picture of a threshold era of both positives and negatives.
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