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. The Tale of King Crab
    It’s an old-fashioned literary fable, spiked with shots of grimacing men with sunburned faces blasting one another with shotguns that wouldn’t be out of place in a Sergio Leone movie.
  2. After Blue (Dirty Paradise)
    Though its weak bounty-hunter plot makes almost no sense, After Blue satisfies that thirsty spot in our psyche too few films succeed in tickling, where dreams are born, hormones churn and logic simply doesn’t apply.
  3. The Tsugua Diaries
    Whether wholly performed or partially authentic, The Tsugua Diaries wittily evokes the volatile mood swings of lockdown — how concentrated time with the same people can yield either irritation or intensified closeness from day to day, particularly in a sticky-hot summer haze.
  4. I Was a Simple Man
    All Yogi’s actors work in subtle, effective deference to his natural command of atmosphere and place: This is a film where Hawaiian rainfall has as prominent and evocative a voice as any human presence, and where the growth of a tree marks time as clearly as the deepening crevices in a character’s face.
  5. Held for Ransom
    Partly, the balance between gritty, true-life fidelity and pacy, exciting storytelling is achieved because in Rye, to whom Eric Kress’ warm, compassionate camera clings so doggedly, we have such a sympathetic, human protagonist.
  6. Mayor Pete
    Mayor Pete shows us the trial by fire of it all, and also the jubilant grind.
  7. Only the Animals
    Ultimately, Moll’s film is a cautionary tale for the lonely among us, a reminder that one step away from idealizing romance lies the risk of becoming a fool for love, which just might get you killed.
  8. The Last Forest
    Rather than taking a detached anthropological tour of the community, Bolognesi lets the Yanomami present themselves in their own words and on their own terms, thus enlivening everything from their mealtimes to their mythology.
  9. Simple as Water
    A graceful, touching sampler of dilemmas few viewers are likely to have experienced, even as they become ever-more-common reality for the less fortunate in many nations.
  10. That's Entertainment! III
    Resourceful filmmakers Bud Friedgen and Michael J. Sheridan have come up with a bang-up third anthology of Golden Era musical highlights that capably holds its own with its predecessors.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Nightmare Alley
    Nightmare Alley is a harsh, brutal story [based on the novel by William Lindsay Gresham] told with the sharp clarity of an etching.
  12. National Champions
    As timely as last night’s episode of “ESPN Sports Center,” and as riveting as a well-crafted tick-tock suspenser, National Champions adroitly avoids most of the pitfalls common to conventional “message movies” by raising and debating issues in the context of a solid and involving drama that can be enjoyed even by people who couldn’t tell an offside kick from a cheerleader’s cartwheel.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Lilies of the Field
    Made on a modest budget and filmed entirely on location in Arizona, Lilies reveals Sidney Poitier as an actor with a sharp sense of humor.
  14. Betrayed
    Handsomely mounted and deftly dramatized, it’s an agonized study of suffering and treachery, and no less valuable — or powerful — for being regrettably familiar.
  15. Kimi
    It’s a welcome reminder that less, in the movies, can sometimes be more.
  16. See for Me
    Skyler Davenport’s lead turn in director Randall Okita’s no-nonsense thriller (which debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival last summer) will be worth remembering well after the January doldrums have passed.
  17. X
    X is a wily and entertaining slow-motion ride of terror that earns its shocks, along with its singular quease factor, which relates to the fact that the demons here are ancient specimens of humanity who actually have a touch of…humanity.
    • 96 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sansho the Bailiff
    Legend, adventure and poetry fuse to make this engrossing, if overlong, film material.
  19. Speak No Evil
    The director shoots and cuts almost every scene so that the most innocuous action seems charged with the expectation that something awful is about to erupt, cranking viewer tension to an unpleasant degree.
  20. Courage
    Given ongoing developments, it’s no surprise the film concludes abruptly, and knowing that there’s been no power change in the country so far adds an inherent level of bleakness, yet Paluyan captures the hopes of a population that spans across gender and generations, and there will always be something uplifting about watching people fight peacefully for freedom.
  21. A Love Song
    A Love Song should resonate with those who seek truth more than incident from their movies.
  22. Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom
    Donji’s screenplay finds an ideal balance of gentle humor and life-affirming drama.
  23. Memory Box
    Through an ingenious blend of image and music, Memory Box opens channels that allow our own experience to empathetically blend with those of the characters in a mix of imagination and reality.
  24. Fire of Love
    Fire of Love, which has been directed by Sara Dosa with a discursive, let’s-try-it-on lyricism, is like one of Werner Herzog’s documentaries about fearless outliers, only this one is touched with romance.
  25. Fresh
    Fresh comes across as a carefree bit of bloody fun. But there’s considerably more going on beneath the surface, and the allegory is open-ended enough to hit a range of viewers on different levels.
  26. Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio
    Unfolding over a faintly indulgent but never dull two hours, this is a rare children’s entertainment that isn’t afraid to perplex kids as much as it enchants them, down to a coda that prompts a certain level of junior existential contemplation (not to mention a mournful tear or two).
  27. Dual
    Dual is in fact a fairly astute comedy. The laughs come not from jokes so much as sharp jabs of truth — wince-inducing insights into the subjects most movies won’t touch, like our fear of death, intimacy and being forgotten.
  28. Downfall: The Case Against Boeing
    Riveting ... Kennedy not only builds a case against Boeing but offers an object lesson in the tragic consequences of corporate greed and hubris.
  29. Good Luck to You, Leo Grande
    McCormack is fantastic in a role so subtle it could appear flatlined and phony if people aren’t playing attention.
  30. Master
    Not all of Diallo’s thematic queries land, and at times, she weakens her ideas by over-explaining them. Nevertheless, her fearless interrogation resonates like a penetrating scream you can’t unhear.
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