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. Kate Plays Christine
    Greene encourages our curiosity (and even a hint of caution) about documentary perspectives and techniques that other films prefer viewers to take as given.
  2. A Prairie Home Companion
    Rib-ticklingly funny at times and genial as all get-out.
  3. Mid-August Lunch
    A surefire pleaser for crowds of a certain age.
  4. Vision Portraits
    Bolstered by the writer-director’s own journey, recounted via a collage-like aesthetic that eloquently conveys his circumscribed condition, it’s a nonfiction study of artistic creation and, also, of individual courage and perseverance.
  5. Afterimage
    While this grim story is one worth telling, it’s a pity that in relating the bum’s-rush Strzeminski got in later life, Wadja couldn’t have communicated more of what sustains his legacy as a great artist and innovator.
  6. Funny or Die Presents: Donald Trump's the Art of the Deal: The Movie
    Other than skewering Trump, both personally and politically, this is obviously a rather slim construct. And while Depp throws his all into perhaps his hammiest role since Jack Sparrow, it probably would have benefited from a bit less length and a tighter focus.
  7. La Cocina
    A chaotic symphony of nearly two dozen characters, this black-and-white indie confection (garnished with sparing touches of color) mixes biting social critique with stylistic bravura.
  8. Monica
    Conceived with uncommon sensitivity toward the interior lives of its characters, as well as to the shifting codes of trans representation, “Monica” is a film about making amends.
  9. Microbe and Gasoline
    With Microbe and Gasoline, the French writer-director has wisely restrained his usual flourishes, allowing the two teenage leads in his relatively calm summer-vacation coming-of-age comedy to assume centerstage, imbuing them with creative agency rather than forcing them to compete with the film’s own style.
  10. Trainwreck
    A somewhat shaggy, frequently hilarious romantic comedy that, like much of Apatow’s best work, delicately balances irreverent raunch with candid insights into the give-and-take of grown-up relationships.
  11. Harold and Lillian: A Hollywood Love Story
    Harold and Lillian: A Hollywood Love Story, directed by Daniel Raim, is a passionate and beguiling movie-love documentary that shines a light on two of the unsung artisan heroes of Hollywood.
  12. Sister Midnight
    The story soon gets away from Kandhari, leading to a film that enraptures and delights in its first hour but gets so locked in to a singular approach by its second that it’s practically consumed by its own style, rendering it unable to keep pace with the bold ideas at play.
  13. Secret Ballot
    An enjoyable absurdist comedy.
  14. The Believer
    Those who see it at fests, and in carefully tailored specialized release, will be struck by the adroitness with which it addresses touchy issues, as well as by the outstanding performance of Ryan Gosling in the difficult leading role.
  15. About a Boy
    Pleasant and engaging, rather than laugh-out-loud funny or emotionally involving.
  16. In This World
    Makes engrossing viewing for much of the way...but stumbles dramatically in its final leg.
  17. Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst
    Superbly researched and constructed, pic is an improvement over last year's "The Weather Underground," which backed away from judging political terror on the left.
  18. Down by Love
    A terrific performance by young actress Patricia Kovacs makes the high-stakes gamble of Down by Love -- a light psychodrama almost entirely centered on one character in an apartment -- into an engrossing 90-odd minutes.
  19. Emily
    O’Connor’s well-modulated debut doesn’t pretend to be a faithful recreation of the facts of the Brontës’ lives. Instead it succeeds on a much trickier level, giving us a psychologically vivid Emily who did not write “Wuthering Heights” because a real-life romance unlocked her passionate nature, but whom we’d love to imagine having had such a grand affair, because she was always the woman with “Wuthering Heights” inside her.
  20. This Film Is Not Yet Rated
    Never really addresses why aspects of the ratings don't work, proposes concrete improvements or compares the system to those in other countries. Still, picture's bracing, hilarious and out-there elements make it a landmark.
  21. 10,000 km
    From first frame to last, the filmmaking exudes intelligence and control, with none of the chilly emotional distance those qualities can imply. Form and content are in near-perfect balance.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Orlando
    Orlando provides exciting, wonderfully witty entertainment with glorious settings and costumes and Tilda Swinton’s sock performance in the title role.
  23. When Lambs Become Lions
    When Lambs Become Lions thoughtfully and provocatively articulates a collision of social and environmental crises in which man is both victor and victim: a circle of life that stalls us all.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    A Foreign Affair
    While subject is handled for comedy, Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder have managed to underlay the fun with an expose of human frailties and, to some extent, indicate a passive bitterness among the conquered in the occupied areas.
  25. Origin
    The film will get people thinking and talking. The way DuVernay directs it, Origin is a swirling tornado of ideas.
  26. Rebuilding
    I was touched, at moments, by O’Connor’s woeful countenance, but as written and directed by Max Walker-Silverman, Rebuilding has no motor.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Bastard Out of Carolina
    The pic is a quality item earmarked for serious auds by its nonexploitative handling of potent material, the strong work of debuting helmer Anjelica Huston and striking perfs from young newcomer Jena Malone, Jennifer Jason Leigh and others.
  28. Point Blank
    Unlike John Boorman's trippy 1967 L.A. noir of the same title, frenetic Gallic suspenser Point Blank provides few existential thrills but plenty of heart-racing action as it follows one man's marathon dash to save his kidnapped wife from execution.
  29. Ingrid Bergman in Her Own Words
    The lack of any significant investigation into performance styles is acutely felt, particularly given the very different methods of her major directors.
  30. Billy the Kid
    One of the more irresponsible eruptions in the current rash of populist nonfiction cinema.
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