Variety's Scores

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:
17825 movie reviews
  1. With Crossing, writer-director Levan Akin wants to open our eyes to the easily overlooked.
  2. If Huppert’s endearingly scatty, offhand performance lends proceedings a veil of comfy familiarity, however, A Traveler’s Needs nonetheless finds the indefatigable Korean auteur at his most puckishly cryptic.
  3. The Roundup: Punishment minimizes unnecessary originality, while gloriously maximizing the opportunities for Lee to crack wise, or look aggrieved and a little bored, as though he’s just remembered he needs to do laundry, all while his meaty forearms land a flurry of sledgehammer punches so rapid their recipients, often quite literally, do not know what hit them. This, truly, is cinema.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Francis Coppola has drawn topflight performances from his talented cast.
  4. The new movie isn’t “dark” (Zack Snyder’s ambitious mistake) so much as it’s a loopy, spinning, multifaceted story with genuine emotional stakes. That’s why it treats Superman’s powers as the most spectacular and least interesting thing about him.
  5. Whether you view this illuminating doc as a portrait of an institution, a snapshot of a generation or a sketch of the dedication and stamina shown by those in the teaching profession, Art Talent Show bears sprightly comparison to the various styles and modes of artistic expression it showcases.
  6. The evocative visuals here sing in unison with the characters’ yearning to fulfill the promise of their lifelong dreams. They are chasing a glimmer of light before twilight.
  7. There’s never been an animated movie that reflects the world in quite this way.
  8. Daniel Hanna (“Miss Virginia”) and a strong cast, making for a satisfying scenic ride that picked up several festival audience awards last year.
  9. As subjects share vivid memories of taking the field, their stories appear to stir back up the attitudes that made them great competitors.
  10. Set in the 1980s Midwest with a mix of the drab and the eccentric, Dead Mail is an effective, twisty thriller with a singular edge of off-kilter black comedy.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Boston Strangler, based on Gerold Frank's book, emerges as a triumph of taste and restraint with a telling, low-key semi-documentary style. Adaptation is topnotch not only in structure but also in the incisive, spare dialog which defines neatly over 100 speaking parts.
  11. Time may unravel in Omni Loop, but admirably, it opens up the space to think less about the secrets of the larger universe than to take stock of the smaller ones that exist around us.
  12. Death isn’t an ending in this achingly funny-sad film, just an anxiety passed between loved ones.
  13. Hausmann-Stokes’ message is simple, and his movie is a perfect place to start: Take an interest in our veterans.
  14. Timestalker may get a lot of mileage out of unrequited affection, but it still gives audiences plenty to love.
  15. A deliciously observed, ironic take on middle-class Austrian life through an introverted teen's eyes, "Lovely Rita" reps a strong step up to the feature plate by 28-year-old Jessica Hausner after a couple of well-remarked shorts.
  16. This is closer to a grandly efficient greatest-hits thrill ride, packaged like a video game. Yet on that level it’s a confidently spooky, ingeniously shot, at times nerve-jangling piece of entertainment.
  17. For all its bawdy humor, it’s good clean fun.
  18. Genuinely funny, charming and sincere, it’s a respectful and revelatory update in a world where those are few and far between.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Charley Varrick is a sometimes-fuzzy melodrama but so well put together that it emerges a hardhitting actioner with a sock finale.
  19. Inspired by Sidle’s experience as a musician on the rise, Lost Soulz tells a raw personal story in a fragmented structure deriving its strength from the original music composed and performed by its talented cast.
  20. Fly Me to the Moon only needs to sell one thing: that beneath Kelly and Cole’s fast-paced dialogue and combative flirtation, there exists a mutual attraction compelling enough to keep us guessing. We already know how the lunar mission turns out, but never tire of gazing upon stars such as these.
  21. The dense but undeniably enjoyable saga doubles as a moving father-daughter tale and ultimately seems far more interested in exploring the robber baron spirit of 20th-century capitalism than its consequences.
  22. Bombach’s movie finds its real flavor in exploring the differences in the duo’s two very distinct personalities, which up till now might have seemed like a fuzzy, singular unit by all but the most hardcore fans.
  23. This intelligent, sensitive treatment of the rarely seen, everyday lives of young Palestinian citizens of Israel marks tyro feature writer-director Firas Khoury as a talent to watch.
  24. Throughout Rønning’s sophisticated film and alongside Ridley’s stunning performance — a career highlight for her — we all hold our collective breath and swim with Trudy. Talk about the kind of film they hardly ever make anymore.
  25. These movies are comedies first and crime-film homages second, but it’s their tertiary value as social commentary that makes the franchise so indispensable: Behind the laughs are teachable moments.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    It is a sensitive treatment of faith told in terms of moving, human drama which packs emotional impact.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Budd Schulberg's vehement novel about the fight racket is given a strong pictorial going-over in The Harder They Fall. It's main-event stuff.

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