Variety's Scores

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For 17,765 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: 9,125 out of 17765
  2. Mixed: 7,004 out of 17765
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17765
17765 movie reviews
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  1. Arctic
    Penna works in what you might call a gratifyingly prosaic style. He doesn’t wow you (though the film, in its level way, is elegantly shot). But he doesn’t cheat you, either, so you come to trust the gravity of his nuts-and-bolts storytelling.
  2. Climax
    Climax works, at least when it’s willing to be a human drama. But then it sinks in that you’re watching “Fame” directed by the Marquis de Sade with a Steadicam.
  3. Pope Francis - A Man of His Word
    Few popes in living memory have seemed as recognizably human as Francis — for all its access, and for all the inherent empathy of its director, Wenders’ film is never able to completely connect the dots between the man and the figure.
  4. Get the Gringo
    Gibson knows how to play to the camera, and Grunberg is savvy enough to maximize what the star gives, spinning a slick package around the crazy scenario.
  5. Measure of a Man
    The conflicts come to no interesting fruition, and occasional comic flourishes (Bobby dancing to a “Soul Train” broadcast, vomiting after drinking alcohol) fall flat.
  6. Lu Over the Wall
    In terms of craftsmanship, the film has a scrappy, sometimes cheap look to it (characters look flat, like thin-lined Etch-a-Sketch drawings, superimposed over more colorful hand-painted backgrounds), for which it more than compensates via other strengths — namely, a trio of relatable, well-written human protagonists and Lu, who can change form and bend water at will.
  7. Never Goin' Back
    Inspired at least in part by stunts Frizzell pulled when she was her characters’ age, this raucous parade of humiliation and embarrassment packs all the appeal of an outrageous anecdote hilariously retold by someone who can scarcely believe they ever did something so stupid.
  8. The Escape
    Savage’s film thoughtfully and credibly outlines the conflict between a superficially abundant lifestyle and overwhelming internal lack. It’s on less sure footing with the morally fraught wish-fulfilment of its second half, though Arterton’s quiet, consistent emotional conviction pulls matters through.
  9. Anything
    Though the film’s heart is in the right place, writer Timothy McNeil’s directorial debut (an adaptation of his play) hits so many familiar notes that it undercuts its compassionate lead performances, in the process rendering it merely a superficial tale of unlikely amour.
  10. Boom for Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat
    Sara Driver, the director of “Boom for Real” (who was there at the time, as Jim Jarmusch’s early producer and romantic partner), creates an alluring and detailed portrait of how the downtown scene came together, springing up like weeds between the cracks of a broken New York, its poverty-row aesthetic infused with the energy of punk and the vivacity of hip-hop (before it was called that).
  11. Life of the Party
    This is a heartier celebration of McCarthy’s talents, a mash note to a comic who can also play flirtatious, empathetic, and human. She’s believable, even if the scenes setting-off her performance aren’t.
  12. Breaking In
    Coasting for as long as it can on the considerable charms of its star, Breaking In is otherwise a work of profound half-assedness, running through the paces of its bare-bones framework with all the verve, energy and invention of a night-watchman winding down the last hour of his shift.
  13. Everybody Knows
    Though the film is slow to reach a place where its revelations can have an impact, once that starts to happen, it becomes compulsively absorbing.
  14. Exit Music
    Exit Music covers the spectrum with grace, good humor and no emotional filter: It’s an unabashed tear-jerker that earns its saltwater through candor rather than undue manipulation.
  15. Tre Maison Dasan
    This engrossing documentary focuses primarily on the kids as each grows through some rough developmental patches. But en route a few stereotypes get demolished, most notably the notion that every convict is a “deadbeat dad” or otherwise inherently bad person.
  16. Wrestle
    Suspenseful as the actual matches are, there’s more tension in worrying just how intact these near-adults will make it to the even bigger stakes of post-high-school life, or whether they’ll be hobbled before they even leave the gate.
  17. McQueen
    Itself crafted with great artistry and ingenuity, McQueen works both as a spectacular visual album of his work and an achingly moving account of the incomplete life behind it.
  18. The Rescue List
    Focusing on a rescue-and-rehabilitation organization and several youths it plucks from servitude, this is an involving indictment with enough individual human-interest elements to avoid being too much of a grim screed.
  19. The Guardians
    Inspired by prize-winning French author Ernest Pérochon’s 1924 novel, director Xavier Beauvois’ emotionally devastating adaptation — which some may find as arduous as the wartime chapter it depicts — dispenses with a fair amount of the suffering to be found in the book, forgoing the contemporary tendency toward gritty, handheld realism in favor of a more timeless, almost painterly aesthetic.
  20. Manhunt
    However much fun the film’s high points may afford, there is also something faintly depressing about seeing a once-inventive filmmaker plunder his own legacy for easy props.
  21. Everything Else (Todo Lo Demás)
    Though the concept of the gendered gaze can be over-pushed in film theory circles, in this case there’s no mistaking Almada’s privileging of a woman’s perspective, with its sympathetic non-judgmental stance and sense of female solidarity.
  22. Gehenna: Where Death Lives
    It’s not a total wash, but the eventually dreary mix of vague religious morality and rather ponderous horror suggests Katagiri should pay more attention to script development next time out.
  23. The Desert Bride
    It’s a loving showcase for its star’s most finely wrought powers of expression, but equally beguiling as a display of its first-time helmers’ gentle observational acuity and surprisingly inventive visual storytelling.
  24. Overboard
    Overboard has been made with enough bubbly comic spirit and skill that the gender switch turns out to be a smart move, from both an entertainment and commercial vantage. Like the original, the new version is a snarky situational farce that evolves into a cheese-dog fable of home and hearth, and the role reversal lets it feel halfway fresh.
  25. The 12th Man
    A stirring adventure by any standard.
  26. Bad Samaritan
    It’s all thoroughly unpleasant, but then, that’s what audiences for this kind of movie want from the experience, so consider it a success of sorts.
  27. Racer and the Jailbird
    The whole thing becomes drenched in a kind of downbeat sentimental martyrdom that feels oppressively old-fashioned and moribund.
  28. Duck Butter
    There’s dialogue, but very little interchange. The movie makes your average mumblecore mumblefest sound like Preston Sturges.
  29. Diane
    It’s a tender, wrenching, and beautifully made movie, and part of what’s revelatory about it is that it’s a story of boomers who are confronting the ravages of old age (disease and death, the waning of dreams), yet they’re doing it with a stubborn echo of the hopes and desires they had when they were younger.
  30. Zoe
    Zoe, like Cole, ties itself up in a lot of high-minded hand-wringing, and the result is that the movie, though it’s not badly told, fails to grip you.
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