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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    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mikey and Nicky
    The interplay between the stars is excellent, Cassavetes slowly but steadily digging his own grave as he reveals his shallowness in dealings with Falk, girl friend Carol Grace (a beautiful performance) and estranged wife Joyce Van Patten (a brief but excellent characterization).
  2. The Audition
    Weisse’s gripping, cool-blooded drama upends all manner of inspirational-educator clichés.
  3. Finch
    Despite the bleak backdrop, Finch manages to stay true to the fuzzy ring of its basic idea, delivering a family-friendly movie that is big-hearted, comfortingly traditional and bolstered by a genuine love of dogs.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    An Angel at My Table
    A potentially painful and harrowing film is imbued with gentle humor and great compassion, which makes every character come vividly alive. Campion constructs the film in a series of short, sometimes elliptical scenes.
  5. The Broken Hearts Gallery
    The Broken Hearts Gallery pushes all the rom-com buttons but does it knowingly, with a spirit that embraces killer cynicism and then comes out the other side.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Brief Encounter
    Based on his playlet, Still Life from Tonight at 8.30, Brief Encounter does more for Noel Coward's reputation as a skilled film producer than In Which We Serve. His use of express trains thundering through a village station coupled with frantic, last-minute dashes for local trains is only one of the clever touches masking the inherent static quality of the drama.
  7. Disclosure
    Essential, thoroughly engaging documentary.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Honeymoon Killers
    Made on a very low budget by a writer-director Leonard Kastle, The Honeymoon Killers, based on the Lonely Hearts murder case of the late 1940s, is made with care, authenticity and attention to detail.
  9. Ella Fitzgerald: Just One of Those Things
    Woodhead’s movie is at its best in how neatly it delineates the different musical phases of Fitzgerald’s career.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Of Mice and Men
    Under skillful directorial guidance of Lewis Milestone, the picture retains all of the forceful and poignant drama of John Steinbeck's original play and novel, in presenting the strange palship and eventual tragedy of the two California ranch itinerants.
    • 93 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Rio Bravo
    Producer-director Howard Hawks makes handsome use of force in logically unravelling his hard-hitting narrative, creating suspense at times and occasionally inserting lighter moments to give variety.
  12. Bungalow (2002)
    Not much happens in Bungalow, a deceptively low-key drama from Germany. But a series of mysterious offscreen explosions and general air of ennui express anxiety of the country’s post-unification youth.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Black Is King
    Black Is King excels as a celebration of Blackness in its many forms: Black women, Black men, Black children, Black motherhood, Black fatherhood, Black pasts, Black presents, and Black futures.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Bishop's Wife
    Henry Koster's sympathetic direction deftly gets over the warm humor supplied by the script, taken from Robert Nathan's novel of the same title.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mildred Pierce
    At first reading James M. Cain's novel of the same title might not suggest screenable material, but the cleanup job has resulted in a class feature, showmanly produced by Jerry Wald and tellingly directed by Michael Curtiz.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Adam's Rib
    Adam's Rib is a bright comedy success, belting over a succession of sophisticated laughs. Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin have fashioned their amusing screenplay around the age-old battle of the sexes.
  17. Spider-Man: No Way Home
    Returning director Jon Watts — whose bright, slightly dorky touch lends a kind of continuity to this latest trilogy — wrangles this unwieldy premise into a consistently entertaining superhero entry, tying up two decades’ of loose ends in the process.
  18. Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins
    Snake Eyes, as directed by Robert Schwentke (“The Divergent Series: Insurgent”), has style and verve, with a diabolical family plot that creates a reasonable quota of actual drama. The movie is also a synthetic but infectiously skillful big-studio hodgepodge of ninja films, wuxia films, yakuza films, and international revenge films.
  19. The Go-Go's
    In the fresh bopping beauty of their punk romantic sound, they kicked open a door of perception. They said to a generation: We got the beat, and you can too.
    • 93 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Top Hat
    This one can't miss and the reasons are three - Fred Astaire, Irving Berlin's 11 songs and sufficient comedy between numbers to hold the film together.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    They Live by Night
    Nicholas Ray adapted the novel and directed, demonstrating a complete understanding of the characters. It’s a firstrate job of moody storytelling.
  22. Shine Your Eyes
    If the setup intrigues slightly more than the payoff, this is still a work of original, crystalline beauty, bursting with restless, refracted ideas.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    South Central
    As a cautionary tale about the nihilistic life of street gangs, South Central speaks eloquently to black kids desperately in need of straight talk. A profoundly moving story of a father's attempt to save his son from his own mistakes, Steve Anderson's film has performances by Glenn Plummer and young Christian Coleman that will touch any viewer.
  24. Howard
    At 94 minutes, Howard is not and does not try to be a plumbing search through the generation of talent lost to HIV and AIDS; what it is trying to do, appealingly narrowly, is illuminate one life and the work done therein.
  25. Alone
    Accomplished in all its tech and design departments, Alone is easily the best of several recent hunted-woman-in-the-wilderness films, including fellow indies “Ravage” and “Range Runners” as well as the flashier French “Revenge.” It doesn’t necessarily need the structural gimmickry of onscreen “chapter” titles (“The Road,” “The Rain,” etc.), but that’s a minor quibble.
  26. I Care a Lot
    A sleekly unnerving thriller.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Imitation of Life
    Lana Turner is outstanding in the pivotal role played in Universal’s 1934 version by Claudette Colbert.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Thrill of It All
    Ultimately it is in the design and engineering of cumulative sight gag situations that Thrill of It All excels.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Desire
    The direction is subtle and inspired, with many smart little Lubitschian touches adding to the general appeal of the yarn [by Hans Szekely and R.A. Stemmle] and its plot.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Destry Rides Again
    Destry Rides Again is anything but a super-western. It's just plain, good entertainment [from an original story by Felix Jackson suggested by Max Brand's novel], primed with action and laughs and human sentiment.
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