Variety's Scores

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For 17,807 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 17807
  2. Mixed: 7,022 out of 17807
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17807
17807 movie reviews
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  1. Women Who Kill
    A shaggy, banter-driven quasi-thriller in the mode of “Manhattan Murder Mystery” (or the “Thin Man” movies, for that matter), Women Who Kill offers a drolly amusing, lightly macabre variation on the standard lesbian romantic comedy.
  2. Turn It Around: The Story of East Bay Punk
    Corbett Redford’s film channels and sustains the energy of restless youth while communicating the distinctive qualities of a community that carried collectivist 1960s ideals into a new generation, even as it rejected any vestige of their hippie parents’ music.
  3. I Dream in Another Language
    Contreras’ film uniquely honors the memories and experience embodied in our elders — which it is our responsibility to preserve, and their prerogative to take to their graves, if they so desire.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Breaking Away
    Though its plot wins no points for originality, Breaking Away is a thoroughly delightful light comedy, lifted by fine performances from Dennis Christopher and Paul Dooley. The story is nothing more than a triumph for the underdog through sports, this time cycle racing.
  5. Loving Vincent
    Loving Vincent may exist as a showcase for its technique, but it’s the sensitivity the film shows toward its subject that ultimately distinguishes this particular oeuvre from the countless bad copies that already litter the world’s flea markets.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    9 to 5
    Anyone who has ever worked in an office will be able to identify with the antics in Nine to Five. Although it can probably be argued that Patricia Resnick and director Colin Higgins' script [from a story by Resnick] at times borders on the inane, the bottom line is that this picture is a lot of fun.
    • Variety
    • 89 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Love and Death
    Love and Death is another mile-a-minute visual-verbal whirl by the two comedy talents, this time through Czarist Russia in the days of the Napoleonic Wars.
    • Variety
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Top Secret!
    The attempted target this time is a combination of the traditional spy film and Elvis Presley musical romps, which in and of itself is funny to start with. And Val Kilmer proves a perfect blend of staunch hero and hothouse heartthrob.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    A Dry White Season
    A wrenching picture about South Africa that makes no expedient compromises with feel-good entertainment values, A Dry White Season displays riveting performances and visceral style.
    • Variety
    • 61 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Karate Kid
    John G. Avildsen is back in the Rocky ring with The Karate Kid. More precisely, it is a Rocky for kids. Morita is simply terrific, bringing the appropriate authority and wisdom to the part.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Blue Lagoon
    Producer-director Randal Kleiser takes the pair through puberty and into parenthood with a charming candor that stresses natural, instinctive sexual development without leering at it. Their romance is enhanced by Nestor Almendros’ exquisite photography (and Basil Poledouris’ score), as is the stunning beauty of the Fiji island where it was filmed.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Fame
    Alan Parker has come up with an exposure for some of the most talented youngsters seen on screen in years. There isn't a bad performance in the lot. The great strength of the film is in the school scenes -- when it wanders away from the scholastic side as it does with increasing frequency as the overlong feature moves along, it loses dramatic intensity and slows the pace.
    • Variety
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    My Bodyguard
    In his directorial debut, Tony Bill assembles a truly remarkable cast of youngsters with little or no previous acting experience. Chris Makepeace is superb as the slightly built kid coming anew to a Chicago high school dominated by extortionist gang leader Matt Dillon, also terrific in his part.
    • Variety
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Dressed to Kill
    Brian De Palma goes right for the audience jugular in Dressed to Kill, a stylish exercise in ersatz-Hitchcock suspense-terror. Despite some major structural weaknesses, the cannily manipulated combination of mystery, gore and kinky sex adds up to a slick commercial package.
  15. After Love
    In a remarkable performance that at times suggests a desperate animal with nothing to lose, Kahn conveys the fact that Boris’ attachment to Marie hasn’t yet run its course.
  16. Sidemen: Long Road to Glory
    "Sidemen” is an exceptionally entertaining and captivating tribute to the men and their music — and that there’s more than enough of said music here to please blues aficionados and recruit converts.
  17. Free in Deed
    Superb, skin-prickling performances by the three principals contribute invaluably to the pic’s stern believability, with Findley utterly wrenching as a dedicated mother pushed to frank irrationality by others’ neglicence.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sea of Love
    Sea of Love is a suspenseful film noir boasting a superlative performance by Al Pacino as a burned-out Gotham cop. Handsome production benefits from a witty screenplay limning the bittersweet tale of a 20-year veteran NYC cop assigned to a case tracking down the serial killer of men who've made dates through the personal columns.
    • Variety
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Cocoon
    A fountain of youth fable [from a novel by David Saperstein] which imaginatively melds galaxy fantasy with the lives of aging mortals in a Florida retirement home, Cocoon weaves a mesmerizing tale.
  20. Strong Island
    It’s a moving film, but it leaves a hole in one’s outrage.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Omen
    Suspenser starring Gregory Peck and Lee Remick as the unwitting parents of the Antichrist. Richard Donner's direction is taut. Players all are strong.
    • Variety
    • 51 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Jaws 2
    Despite a notable but effective change in story emphasis, Jaws 2 is a worthy successor in horror, suspense and terror to its 1975 smash progenitor.
  23. Served Like a Girl
    Brassily shot, and assembled with no shortage of energy and humor, Served Like a Girl provides a close, emotionally vivid look at the often ignored female experience of the military.
  24. Gaga: Five Foot Two
    I found the film intensely revealing of Gaga’s life and personality, especially when she’s getting treatments to deal with the pain that’s dogged her for three years, ever since she suffered a broken hip (misdiagnosed at the time) on tour.
  25. Walking Out
    Its unabashedly folky, less-is-more approach proves quietly moving.
  26. 78/52: Hitchcock’s Shower Scene
    For a long time now, Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” has been two movies, and the hypnotic film-geek documentary 78/52 is an ingenious and irreverent master class in both of them.
  27. Dealt
    The final scenes of Dealt are all the more affecting for illustrating Turner’s newfound willingness to accept things he once deemed unacceptable without significantly compromising his personal code of honor.
  28. Brawl in Cell Block 99
    It’s the rare movie that truly evokes the grindhouse ’70s, because it means everything it’s doing. It’s exploitation made with vicious sincerity.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Cry Freedom
    Cry Freedom personifies the struggle of South Africa's black population against apartheid in the evolving friendship of martyred black activist Stephen Biko and liberal white newspaper editor Donald Woods. It derives its impact less from epic scope than from the wrenching immediacy of its subject matter and the moral heroism of its appealingly played, idealistic protagonists.
    • Variety
  30. Night and the City
    Lively performances, pungent New York City atmosphere and an abundance of dramatic incident keep this story of an irrepressible lowlife hustler ripping along.
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