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. Kajillionaire
    In the end, Kajillionaire is less about the con than it is the connection, and we’re all the richer as a result.
  2. Jumbo
    Eventually, Jumbo clatters to a stop with a tinny cheer for acceptance, a sugar rush of Belgian new wave music, and the sense that the audience has been taken for a bit of a ride.
  3. Dick Johnson Is Dead
    At once a celebration and a lament, simultaneously jubilant and ineffably sad, it’s a film worth sticking around to see.
  4. Herself
    Many filmmakers mistakenly think that exploiting tragedy is the way to jerk tears from their audience, when in fact, gestures of spontaneous kindness shown by near-strangers can be most moving — something Lloyd understands, boosting the positive energy with anthems like “Chandelier” and “Bulletproof.”
  5. The Courier
    Ironbark’s hook is that it’s based on true events, and the underlying history deserves to be shared.
  6. The Fight
    America is so punch-drunk that The Fight often feels like it’s whacking old bruises. But that is the national psyche’s problem more than the filmmakers’. For their part, they have made a worthwhile record of the civil rights advocates combating the country’s backslide into stripping away rights for voters, immigrants, pregnant women and the LGBTQ community.
  7. The Dissident
    The Dissident is riveting, but it’s also a moving testament to a man whose courage burned too brightly to die with him.
  8. Cuties
    Cuties' job is to coil the contrasting messages and spin them until her lead falls down dizzy, which can make the film feel as subtle as a headache.
  9. Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution
    The movie succeeds in enlightening without ever coming across as an “eat your spinach” civics lesson.
  10. Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets
    It’s “The Bachelorette” wed to “The Iceman Cometh”: the setup is staged, but the tears are real.
  11. The Painter and the Thief
    To get the desired emotional reaction, The Painter and the Thief proves able to deceive in ways that are best discovered for yourself. It works: In a genius final stroke, Ree pulls back to reveal the entire canvas, putting key aspects of this unconventional portrait into startling new perspective.
  12. Never Rarely Sometimes Always
    At once dreamlike and ruthlessly naturalistic, steadily composed yet shot through with roiling currents of anxiety, Never Rarely Sometimes Always is a quietly devastating gem.
  13. Zola
    Sure, it’s fun to see a movie skewer the vapid soullessness of social media and the unregulated economy of male desire, but Zola ultimately rings hollow. The actors are fearless, and yet, how much do we know about these characters in the end? The answer: something of their values, but almost nothing of their lives.
  14. Bad Hair
    Costume designer Ceci’s ensembles and Scott Kuzio’s production design are spot-on. Just as impressive is Simien’s steady handle on his serio-comic tone, at once sly, resonant, and horrific.
  15. To the Ends of the Earth
    To the Ends of the Earth is not flawless — for one thing, it’s questionable whether a journey to as mild a shore as this one needs two hours to complete. But its rhythm is deceptive — the gentle currents of Kurosawa’s attention sluicing across the surface of the film like developer fluid, under which all the colors, dark and light, of the fulfilling but also contradictory experience of world travel come up true and sharp.
  16. Lucky Grandma
    Although the entire film runs just 87 minutes, as Lucky Grandma unspools, Wong’s predicament starts to feel increasingly outlandish, making it difficult for Sealy to sustain the offbeat humor and strong momentum of the opening stretch.
  17. The Australian Dream
    Gordon uses blockbuster tools — pairing bold visuals with the kind of thundering sound design that makes your joints rattle — to turn his well-organized sociology lesson into a more visceral cinematic experience. More than just a compelling TED Talk, it’s an urgent and engaging call to action.
  18. House of Cardin
    Lively as an overview of Cardin’s creative and commercial achievements, House of Cardin is considerably vaguer when it comes to his personal life and legacy.
  19. Disturbing the Peace
    It’s basic action entertainment of a somewhat old-fashioned ilk, giving viewers exactly what they expect in a borderline-hokey yet satisfying way.
  20. Zombi Child
    The film can feel worked-over and schematic, as if Bonello was too preoccupied with serving the thesis to trust his peerless intuition.
  21. Miss Americana
    Watching the movie, you know you’re getting a controlled and sanded-off confection of pop-diva image management, one that’s going to leave anything too dark or messy or random on the cutting-room floor. Yet what matters is that the things we do see ring true. In “Miss Americana,” the vision Taylor Swift presents of herself is just chancy and sincere enough to draw us in.
  22. The Turning
    Lacking spine-tingling dread, taut tension, and the deservingly provocative ending needed to make its modern sentiments land, this re-imagining is less than a classic.
  23. John Henry
    Flashes of craft can’t make up for the director’s easy default to gore over story. Forbes and his co-writer knew how they wanted to depict Hell’s sadism but never nailed how to embrace the hero with the hammer.
  24. The Last Full Measure
    No amount of marquee talent, however, can fully compensate for the inert melodrama peddled by this inspired-by-true-events film
  25. Reality Queen!
    It’s very hard to satirize things that are already inherently ridiculous, and mockumentary Reality Queen! has the misfortune of being even more vacuous — not to mention less funny — than the empty-calorie celebrities it parodies.
  26. A Fall from Grace
    A Fall From Grace isn’t consequential moviemaking. This won’t come as a surprise to plenty of Perry’s detractors and maybe Perry doesn’t have to aim for that.
  27. Troop Zero
    Neither reinvents the wheel nor even attempts to redesign it all that much, but at least it gets where it wants to go, thanks in no small part to the work of Allison Janney, Viola Davis, and young actor Mckenna Grace.
  28. VHYes
    The best thing the film has going for it is editor Avner Shiloah’s scrambled channel-surfing assembly, which seldom sticks with any bit long enough for it to get too stale. Still, VHYes feels overextended even at the 66 slim minutes it takes to reach the final credits.
  29. The Wave
    This fever dream feels more derivative than distinctive, entertaining and eventful as it is. Still, it’s a well-cast, well-crafted stab at something offbeat.
  30. Jezebel
    That Jezebel is making its way around the country and will begin streaming is a sign of DuVernay’s pull and her commitment to black creatives. Tiffany’s journey has its ascents and plunges. Perrier and her star keep us caring where it will end: peak or valley?
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