Variety's Scores

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For 17,825 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 2.3 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: 9,159 out of 17825
  2. Mixed: 7,029 out of 17825
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17825
17825 movie reviews
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  1. Citizen K
    Authoritative and dense — though never dull — at over two hours, Citizen K is the prolific docmaker’s most rewarding feature in several years, attaching his typically methodical research to a cheerfully slippery, charismatic human subject who, even on the side of right, is cagey in the face of investigation.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Black Hole
    What ensues is sometimes talky but never dull. Director Gary Nelson’s pacing and visual sense are right on target.
  3. On the President's Orders
    Populist politics can turn all too easily to popcorn ones; On the President’s Orders vividly captures the tipping point.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Return from Witch Mountain
    Pic is loaded with the kind of visual hijinks juve audiences love, and appeal should hold for adults, as well. Playoff looks bright in most situations.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Absent Minded Professor
    On the surface, Walt Disney's The Absent Minded Professor is a comedy-fantasy of infectious absurdity, a natural follow-up to the studio's Shaggy Dog. But deeply rooted within the screenplay [from a story by Samuel W. Taylor] is a subtle protest against the detached, impersonal machinery of modern progress.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Incredible Journey
    Sheila Burnford’s book of the same title has been given a vivid translation in The Incred ible Journey, a live actioner exquisitely photographed in the Canadian outdoors.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Innocent Blood
    Teens and genre fans should eat up John Landis' latest mix of horror and camp comedy. They will 'ooh' at the various gross-out scenes and nifty special effects, 'aah' at the film's sensuality and Anne Parillaud's easy nudity, and savor the numerous in-jokes and horror references, from cameos by other goremeister directors to clips from various late-show staples.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men
    For his second British live-action production, Walt Disney took the legend of Robin Hood and translated it to the screen as a superb piece of entertainment, with all the action of a western and the romance and intrigue of a historical drama.
  9. The Apollo
    You should never take for granted a documentary that fills in the basics with flair and feeling. Especially when the basics consist of great big gobs of some of the most revolutionary and exhilarating popular art ever created in this country.
  10. 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.
  11. The Daytrippers
    Greg Mottola's feature directorial debut, is an amusing farce about the delicate intricacies and imbalances of a modern marriage. A spirited cast, including old pros such as Anne Meara and younger talent such as Parker Posey, elevates the basically sitcom material into something fluffier and funnier than its nature suggests.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mutiny on the Bounty
    This is a superb blending of direction, photography and special effects artistry.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Lady in White
    This probably is as good a nightmare as any impressionable boy could have and still be suspenseful enough to get most adults’ hearts going.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Candyman
    Candyman is an upper-register horror item that delivers the requisite shocks and gore but doesn't cheat or cop out.
  15. The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open
    Stands out in a field of generic, cookie-cutter dramas, not simply in terms of representation — though the female-made, indigenous-focused thriller offers a field day for intersectionality theorists — but also in the unconventional way the story unfolds.
  16. Emma.
    There’s something quite comforting in seeing her (Austen) work returned to a more natural habitat: adapted into handsome, clever, faithfully unambitious films like Autumn de Wilde’s Emma.
  17. Human Nature
    The real achievement of Human Nature is that it takes a complex subject and distills it into such an engaging 95-minute package. That’s the successful experiment underlying this particular project, in which viewers happen to serve as the guinea pigs in how such technical information can be presented in a more effective way.
  18. The Willoughbys
    While The Willoughbys might not be very original, its novelty comes through in the delivery and execution, owing to a witty screenplay (by Pearn and Mark Stanleigh) that combines nimble wordplay with highly compressed, well-paced plotting.
  19. Somewhere Winter
    "Somewhere” is beautifully filmed by top Mark Lee Ping Bing (“In the Mood for Love”) and features fine performances by Ma Sichun (“Soulmate”) and Wallace Huo (“Our Time Will Come”) as lovers torn apart by fate, family responsibilities and political forces.
  20. Away
    For those with the opportunity to see Away in a theater, the experience will either mesmerize or annoy, as the project feels like a promising first pass — a rough-rendered showcase of Zilbalodis’ myriad gifts, which are better suited to world-building and scenic design than character animation.
  21. Feast of the Epiphany
    In “Feast of the Epiphany,” a narrative-documentary hybrid, the line between fiction and reality is demarcated quite clearly, even as those two modes remain in constant dialogue — and the conceit is entrancing precisely because of its elusiveness.
  22. After Class
    Time and again during After Class, Schechter makes pinpoint-accurate choices that are even more impressive when, after it’s done, you replay the movie in your mind, and you realize what an exceptional piece of work it is.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Little Women
    Intelligent, grown up rendition of the Louisa Alcott classic.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Brewster McCloud
    Brewster McCloud spares practically nothing in contemporary society. Literate original screenplay is a sardonic fairy tale for the times, extremely well cast and directed.
  25. You Go to My Head
    If you can surrender yourself to the measured rhythms of the film and accept its mix of feeling and artifice, you may find much to admire here.
  26. Let Him Go
    Let Him Go isn’t subtle, but as a genre film it’s original and shrewdly made, with a floridly gripping suspense. And Lane and Costner give it their all in a casual way that only pros this seasoned and gifted can. They turn the movie into an unlikely thing: a touchingly bone-weary romance steeped in vengeance.
  27. The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run
    The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run is a capricious and touching surrealist kiddie ride that, in its sugar-high way, is as much a celebration of friendship as the “Toy Story” films.
  28. Once Were Warriors
    Pic deserves nurturing, because it’s one of the best to emerge from New Zealand in quite a while. Tamahori, working from Riwia Brown’s intelligent script, has done a marvelous job in depicting the day-to-day horror of the Heke family, which is held together only by its women, the sorely tried Beth and her eldest daughter, 16-year-old Grace.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Magic
    In adapting his own best-seller, William Goldman has opted for an atmospheric thriller, a mood director Richard Attenborough fleshes out to its fullest.
  30. Tenet
    Tenet is no holy grail, but for all its stern, solemn posing, it’s dizzy, expensive, bang-up entertainment of both the old and new school.
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