Variety's Scores

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:
17794 movie reviews
  1. Lee Hirsch's "The Bully Project" serves as a call to action against abuse of students by their peers as it follows, over the course of a year, five sobering case histories of unrelenting schoolyard persecution.
  2. It’s also made fresh by the myriad literary and cinematic references Wu weaves into Aster’s correspondence with “Paul.” With its slightly nerdy, play-on-wordy title, The Half of It alludes to the ancient Greek belief that two-faced humans were separated by the gods, devoting their lives to finding their lost soulmates (if you like the idea, read Plato’s “Symposium,” or check out “Hedwig and the Angry Inch”).
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Until the women and children arrive on the scene about two-thirds of the way through, The Magnificent Seven is a rip-roaring rootin' tootin' western with lots of bite and tang and old-fashioned abandon.
  3. This Central Asia-set historical epic from Russian helmer Sergei Bodrov ("Nomad") boasts breathtaking landscapes, dazzling cinematography, bloody battles and unique traditions.
  4. Ultimately Kundun emerges as a movie that's hypnotic without being truly compelling, sensuously stunning but not illuminating.
  5. The desire to stay true to what was lovable and enduring about the originals is palpable throughout, down to the amusing storybook conceit of having the characters interact not only with the narrator (voiced by John Cleese), but also with the letters and punctuation marks on the page.
  6. The movie ends with a rebel gesture that feels too much like…a gesture. It’s the perfect sign-off for a drama that cares, but maybe not enough to see that this kind of caring actually became part of the problem
  7. Beautifully made pic will spur newsy media coverage and possible consternation on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide, but members of the general public will be glancing at their watches rather than having epiphanies about world peace.
  8. Lovesong makes a virtue of restraint as it traces a complex emotional history in two parts, and innumerable (and sometimes quite literal) shades of gray.
  9. At times a tad too subtle, Thelma is nonetheless an unnervingly effective slow-burn, and those with the patience for Trier’s patient accumulation of detail will find it pays off in unexpected ways.
  10. Plan B is a girls-behaving-badly all-night-long road-trip comedy that’s built on a formula chassis, but it’s fast and funny, with a scandalous spirit, and it’s got a couple of lead performances that, if there’s any justice, should have the town talking.
  11. Handles the subject of domestic violence with intelligence and compassion.
  12. Less stuffy literary biopic than ever-relevant female-empowerment saga, Colette ranks as one of the great roles for which Keira Knightley will be remembered.
  13. Clark’s fifth feature is marked by his characteristic brand of distorted realism, though a classically redemptive arc — with even a hint of spiked sentimentality — sounds a new note in his oeuvre.
  14. A sly, supple and repeatedly surprising collision of literary, moral and political lines of debate that marks an enthralling return to form for writer-director Laurent Cantet.
  15. The movie’s mostly just meant to be fun, and that it is, skewing young while giving lifelong fans (including those who grew up on the Turtles) plenty to geek out about.
  16. Maintains a bankable charm and innocence even when overdrawn on the special effects side.
  17. None of these three characters are tidy, but neither is desire, nor faith, nor love, and Lelio resists every opportunity to make them so.
  18. Numerous lovely, quirky moments.
  19. A sprightly acted, warm and often extremely funny ensemble comedy.
  20. Well positioned to slake the thirst of action fans for world-class, slam-bang rough stuff.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The real problem is Malkovich's Valmont. This sly actor conveys the character's snaky, premeditated Don Juanism. But he lacks the devilish charm and seductiveness one senses Valmont would need to carry off all his conquests.
  21. Cinematically, Pin Cushion goes all in on a heightened, macramé-and-macaroons aesthetic that occasionally smothers the rawer nerves of its storytelling.
  22. Often mocked and rarely understood, the movement in communal living that blossomed with Flower Power in the '60s gets its most honest appraisal yet on film with Jonathan Berman's Commune.
  23. Becoming Cousteau, Liz Garbus’s ardent and transporting documentary, is one of those movies that puts a life together so beautifully that you feel it heightening your awareness of everyday things.
  24. Thorsten Schutte’s entirely archival assemblage is most likely to be appreciated by the previously converted, as its stimulating if somewhat patchy overview of a multi-various career skims over or omits too many aspects to comprise a definitive introduction.
  25. What neophyte scripterscripter Jeff Maguire's plot comes down to, however, is the cat-and-mouse game between Horrigan and Leary, and the craftiness and strategies involved on both sides, while not exactly ingenious, are tantalizing enough to compel interest.
  26. Love, Gilda is plain but beautifully crafted. It draws you close to Radner, presenting her rise through the world of ’70s comedy as a journey of discovery.
  27. Hidden Figures is empowerment cinema at its most populist, and one only wishes that the film had existed at the time it depicts — though ongoing racial tensions and gender double-standards suggest that perhaps we haven’t come such a long way, baby.
  28. More even than Declan Quinn’s sumptuously old-school cinematography and the throwback styling and stock footage exteriors that deliberately mimic the Technicolor romances of old, it’s the fresh-faced naiveté of the storytelling that feels so anachronistic.

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