Variety's Scores

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For 17,805 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: 9,148 out of 17805
  2. Mixed: 7,020 out of 17805
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17805
17805 movie reviews
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  1. Spider-Man: Far from Home
    The key to the new movie’s appeal, apart from the fact that Tom Holland acts with far greater confidence and verve in the title role, is that the entire film is a bit of a fake-out, and I mean that in a very positive way.
  2. The Sense of an Ending
    In places, The Sense of an Ending seems almost frustratingly uninterested in establishing, much less solving, the riddles at its core, when in fact, it’s merely uninterested in pandering to those who lack the patience to appreciate its nuances.
  3. Manifesto
    Audiences needn’t be intimidated: Manifesto may not adhere to any conventional narrative structure, but it’s compulsively watchable all the same
  4. The Party
    Slight and self-contained, it won’t go down in cinema history as anything but, perhaps, the most purely fun film ever made by peculiar British experimentalist Sally Potter.
  5. It's Not the Time of My Life
    In addition to the highly relatable situations shot in a style of heightened naturalism and the Robert Altman-like overlapping dialogue, the drama gains further conviction from setting the action in the actual apartment lived in by the director and his wife, who, along with their real-life son, play the host family.
  6. Isle of Dogs
    If mounds of garbage aren’t quite what viewers have come to associate with Planet Wes, the slight scuzziness of Isle of Dogs is its great surprise: From the occasional eye-watering blurriness of its fast tracking shots to the loopy, laissez-faire nature of its storytelling, the whole enterprise might just be as messy as the director lets himself get.
  7. The Lovers
    The Lovers is a comedy of Middle American doldrums that leaves you rooting for its characters instead of smirking at them.
  8. Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds
    Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds is a droll, spirited, and disarmingly intimate documentary that now feels karmically timed.
  9. Wonder
    It’s a very tasteful heart-tugger — a drama of disarmingly level-headed empathy that glides along with wit, assurance, and grace, and has something touching and resonant to say about the current climate of American bullying.
  10. Girls Trip
    The movie’s equal-opportunity irreverence makes for a welcome addition to the bachelor-party genre, so often aimed at the frat-boy crowds.
  11. Coco
    In any case, it works: Coco’s creators clearly had the perfect ending in mind before they’d nailed down all the other details, and though the movie drags in places, and features a few too many childish gags...the story’s sincere emotional resolution earns the sobs it’s sure to inspire.
  12. A Ghost Story
    While Lowery’s actual method of delivery may not be scary, it’s sure to haunt those who open themselves up to the experience.
  13. Tempestad
    Mexican-Salvadorean helmer Tatiana Huezo superimposes her subjects’ recollections over lyrical images that complement the emotions conveyed by their voices.
  14. Paris 05:59: Théo & Hugo
    There’s something stirringly essential about Paris 05:59, partly thanks to the late-night-inspired sensation that Theo and Hugo have the world to themselves, and can make it into whatever they want.
  15. Eagles of Death Metal: Nos Amis (Our Friends)
    It’s an engrossing, ultimately poignant chronicle.
  16. Golden Exits
    Many will accuse Perry of navel-gazing here, but that’s partly the point: Golden Exits means to frustrate, even to abrade, in its coolly articulate portrait of cosseted people who want for nothing and vaguely desire everything.
  17. The Little Hours
    A medieval convent comedy for the megaplex crowd.
  18. Donald Cried
    In virtually every closeup, Donald Cried practically seethes with barely suppressed emotion, though Avedisian cannily couches his characters’ very real, raw feelings amid a ridiculousness born of Donald’s wholesale weirdness.
  19. I don't feel at home in this world anymore.
    It’s the perfect role for Lynskey, who’s wise enough to underplay her character, which allows audiences to pour their own fears and frustrations into everything Ruth represents. And what emerges is a stalwart actress’s best work yet, delivered by an exciting new director to watch.
  20. The Incredible Jessica James
    Writer-director Jim Strouse (“Grace Is Gone,” “The Winning Season”) places Williams at the center of a thoroughly conventional indie narrative — trusting his star’s sensibility to freshen up otherwise stale scenarios. Fortunately, Williams delivers on every count.
  21. Icarus
    Given all the attention on Russia in recent news coverage, Fogel’s Putin-centric approach will likely prove more effective than a deeper investigation into just how widespread such behavior is around the globe. But the greater takeaway is that the game itself is rigged, and the Russians only lost because they got caught.
  22. Landline
    Landline is a dramatic comedy about a family full of secrets, and what’s mature — and, in its way, reassuring — about the film is that it views this state of affairs as an all-too-natural one.
  23. Berlin Syndrome
    Between more trickily opaque stretches of character development, Shortland nails a handful of straight-up, nerve-shredding tension sequences, teasing a version of the film that might have tilted into full-bore horror.
  24. Mudbound
    Though the sheer scope of the material overwhelms “Pariah” director Dee Rees at times, she finds shoots of optimism among the mire that couldn’t be more welcome at a moment when the country seems more divided than ever.
  25. Casting JonBenét
    Director Kitty Green’s high-concept documentary Casting JonBenét breaks fresh ground, probing the public, rather than family members or suspects (often the same thing).
  26. City of Ghosts
    What City of Ghosts does best is to humanize those who’ve suffered most from the conflict in Syria, educating us through both outrage and compassion.
  27. God's Own Country
    Skipping some of the more predictable narrative obstacles we’ve come to expect from the coming-out drama, this sexy, thoughtful, hopeful film instead advances a pro-immigration subtext that couldn’t be more timely amid the closing borders of Brexit-era Britain.
  28. Menashe
    Though the fate of his journey isn’t terribly well communicated, it’s a privilege to have observed Menashe’s world from the inside.
  29. Oklahoma City
    What makes Oklahoma City a haunting experience is that the movie, in laying out the road that led to his humanity withering and dying, demonstrates a disquieting continuity between the anti-government wrath of Timothy McVeigh and the fervor of anti-government wreckage that has just been given a new credibility in America.
  30. Patti Cake$
    In the end, it’s the ensemble’s collective attitude, plus the palpable chemistry between Patti and her friends, that defines the experience, not the stock desire to be discovered. Though if Patti Cake$ really did exist, this movie would certainly make her star.
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