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. Daaaaaalí!
    Dupieux injects his own particular brand of daffy humor too, writing, directing, shooting and editing his movie, cutting it along a bias that is familiar to those of us who’ve been paying attention to his recent run of form.
  2. On the Count of Three
    Carmichael, working from a script by Ari Katcher and Ryan Welch, directs the movie with an aimless sly verve. He roots the combustible melancholia in the everyday.
  3. The Ground Truth
    The substance of the movie is potent, and so powerfully presented by those who have fought and are still fighting a controversial war, that the message of Ground Truth cannot be dismissed.
  4. The Sea Beast
    In the end, The Sea Beast is a movie about challenging conventional wisdom and figuring things out for yourself, and that’s a philosophy that worked on both sides of the camera.
  5. Bombay Beach
    In an inspired twist, Har'el brings surreal levity to the potentially downer subject by interrupting her elegiac regional portraiture with a series of amateur dance numbers. Still, without dramatic momentum, this fringe-appeal snapshot feels less like a film than a coffee-table photo project come to life.
  6. The Decay of Fiction
    The attention given to constructing each shot makes for a hypnotic visual experience, while lack of a progressive narrative telescopes film's running time into infinity.
  7. Raya and the Last Dragon
    A lot of the storytelling is clumsy, rushed or inelegant, but the movie’s timely message of unity and trust still resonates because the filmmakers figured out such a satisfying ending — albeit one that ties things up a little too neatly: so much world-building in service of a one-off. Is this overloaded origin story really the last we’ll see of “The Last Dragon”?
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Salt of the Earth
    Salt of the Earth is a good, highly dramatic and emotion-charged piece of work that tells its story straight. It is, however, a propaganda picture which belongs in union halls rather than theatres.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    My Favorite Blonde
    A progressively funny film.
  10. Humpday
    A visually mangy but frequently hilarious low-budgeter.
  11. Shakespeare Behind Bars
    There's no denying the pic's overall impact as a compelling study of art as a source of transcendence. And it will come as no surprise if this well-crafted doc eventually serves as source material for a dramatic feature.
  12. A Crooked Somebody
    Working from a smartly constructed script by Andrew Zilch, director Trevor White (“Jamesy Boy”) does an impressive job of propelling the narrative along parallel tracks of arrestingly suspenseful thriller and knowing media satire.
  13. Burning Cane
    It’s a movie of minor fascinations and seductions; it exerts the pull of a natural-born filmmaker’s eye.
  14. The Vanquishing of the Witch Baba Yaga
    Oreck spins a mesmerizing web that appropriates a wealth of disparate Eastern European images — of mushrooms, farmers, falling trees and war-destroyed buildings — to illustrate its lyrical discourse.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Heartbreak Kid
    Elaine May’s deft direction catches all the possibilities of young romance and its tribulations in light strokes and cleverly accents characterization of the various principals.
  16. Scarlet
    Smaller, sweeter and more sensitive than Marcello’s earlier work.
  17. The Burial
    Director Maggie Betts has a rousing old-school crowd-pleaser on her hands with this truth-based (albeit strategically embellished) drama featuring the most entertaining performance yet from Jamie Foxx, who makes a day in court feel like going to church.
  18. My Mother's Smile
    In the central role, Castellitto's powerfully focused performance manages to keep the complex drama grounded.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Oliver!
    It’s a bright, shiny, heartwarming musical, packed with songs and lively production highspots and, though the leading performances are not all up to the Lean mark, if memory serves it’s a fine enough thesping ensemble to keep exhibitors and audience enthusiastic.
  20. Backspot
    It is Jacobs’ performance that makes “Backspot” such an exciting watch, even as it hits well-known beats and otherwise expected character arcs.
  21. Porfirio
    Porfirio's view of physical disability often mesmerizes despite its glacial progress and stingy way with narrative information.
  22. When the Light Breaks
    Rúnarsson’s film eschews easy melodrama for a more tacit, sensory exploration of the sudden connections that death forges among the living. The future waits in limbo; simply getting through the day is drama enough.
  23. Jawline
    “I’m going to fake it till I make it!” vows Austyn. At first, “Jawline” also feels committed to his rise. Mandelup changes her intention so gradually that the third act of the film feels a little aimless. Still, she’s smart to momentarily give the mic to the female fans to explain their devotion, though the uniformity of their answers is depressing.
  24. Polisse
    Though rough edges are very much part of picture's fabric and charm, the current two-hour-plus edit is too choppy, with many sequences feeling rushed or underdeveloped.
  25. Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight
    Precisely the sort of intelligent, human-scale adult drama audiences insist no one makes anymore.
  26. The Sea Inside
    A dramatic triumph.
  27. Smoking Causes Coughing
    It’s a film of fragmentary but funny rewards — funnier still, most likely, if accompanied by smoking of a different kind.
  28. The Others
    A luxuriously old-fashioned star vehicle custom-fit to its topliner's strengths, which come across to sensational effect.
  29. Fake It So Real
    The title is an apt one, suggesting that for all its staging and overt theatrics, independent (read: non-WWF) pro wrestling makes huge demands on the body and spirit.
  30. Flushed Away
    Result is a kidpic long on invention but short on likability.
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