Variety's Scores

Select another publication »
For 17,771 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 2.5 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: 9,130 out of 17771
  2. Mixed: 7,005 out of 17771
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17771
17771 movie reviews
view
per page
  1. The Competition
    Imagine a standard-issue romantic comedy drained of humor and suffused with sincerity, and you’ll know what to expect from The Competition, a ponderous trifle that plays very much like the cinematic equivalent of a 45 RPM record spun on a turntable set at 33 1/3.
  2. The Ritual
    Though well-cast and competently written, The Ritual owes its primary effectiveness not so much to story or character per se as to the unsettling atmosphere Bruckner and company have eked out of the forest itself.
  3. Agnyaathavaasi
    Huge swaths of “Agnyaathavaasi” are jaw-droppingly absurd, but those are preferable to the stretches that are dull and/or obnoxious.
  4. Bleeding Steel
    Efficiently directed by Leo Zhang, the film features all the zesty fights, slick effects and goofy slapstick one expects from a Jackie Chan family movie, while glossy production values, a snappy beat and composer Peng Fei’s deafening score mimic that of a Hollywood movie, though the film’s corny cyberpunk pastiche appeals exclusively to kids.
  5. 1987: When the Day Comes
    Directed by Jang Joon-hwan with a combination of humanistic ardor and intelligent insight comparable to the measured procedural mode of “Spotlight,” this is a compelling depiction of how brave individuals from all walks of life mobilized a whole nation to bring a recalcitrant dictator and his henchmen to their knees.
  6. Bucky and the Squirrels
    The unshakable perkiness of the whole endeavor, its blithe lack of topicality, edge or satirical intent (it’s not even a spoof, just a goof) would be irritating if it didn’t work so hard to remind us that you don’t have to be mean to be funny.
  7. American Folk
    Heinz, demonstrating considerable assurance in his feature directorial bow, makes good use of the chemistry between the two musicians.
  8. A Futile and Stupid Gesture
    Wain made a terrible mistake when he decided to turn Kenney’s story into a goof, a sketch, a riff of threadbare mockery, instead of treating it as a relatively straight movie with laughs. If he had done that, it might have been hilarious, though in an acidly downbeat and far-reaching way.
  9. Desolation
    Around the halfway mark, Desolation stops making sense altogether and spins off into the realm of free-form absurdity.
  10. The Last Family
    The film is a remarkable, frequently unsettling exercise in staged voyeurism, recreating the interdependent lives of the three members of the troubled Beksiński family.
  11. Beirut
    Hamm’s bleary but still debonair presence, Gilroy’s cynically witty dialogue, and the not-quite-confusingly-large array of colorful characters underline how Beirut aims to be less a statement about Middle Eastern strife than a good yarn propelled by the unpredictable currents of international politics.
  12. Like Me
    The film’s lack of a traditional narrative will no doubt alienate many, but for the more adventurous, it offers a uniquely weird take on loneliness and lunacy.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    West of the Jordan River
    The 66-year-old helmer delivers not only a thought-provoking, moving and surprisingly optimistic documentary, but an intimate, handmade artifact.
  14. Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot
    Some will find it entirely too sentimental, others a tad repetitive (Callahan tends to repeat the same stories), but it’s hard to argue with a movie that celebrates the kind of recovery he went through.
  15. Allure
    A Worthy Companion is a lacerating snapshot of what abuse really does: how it can tear away someone’s identity.
  16. Kaleidoscope
    Darkly dainty as this ornate storytelling geometry is, however, it’s hard to remain heavily invested in the outcome through a runtime that, even at a modest 90-plus minutes, feels a tad stretched.
  17. Rat Film
    Artfully assembled and often entertaining, the diverse whole nonetheless doesn’t quite gel, with the film finally coming off as somewhat pretentious and heavy-handed.
  18. My Art
    The very artlessness of My Art is what sometimes makes it endearing, but its storytelling could use a few more foundational lines.
  19. Abe & Phil's Last Poker Game
    This low-key and deeply felt indie is unsentimentally blunt while addressing the humiliating debilitations that often define geriatric life. At the same time, however, it scrupulously eschews excessive grimness and shameless heart-tugging, and elicits more than a few laughs in the bargain, while focusing more often on how the title characters deal with last chances and unfinished business.
  20. Showdown in Manila
    Its intrigue and action neither very well developed nor integrated, Showdown in Manila feels like a checklist of elements typical of such movies — hey, where’s our training montage?!? — with arthritic-level connective tissue.
  21. Forever My Girl
    Forever My Girl is a sweet but slight romantic drama that got lost on its way to the Hallmark Channel — or, more likely, was rebuffed by that channel’s gatekeepers for being, even by their standards, entirely too predictable — and wound up in theaters instead.
  22. The Green Fog
    If this hour-long collage might fairly be summed up as little more than an inspired goof, of primary interest to cineastes, it’s nonetheless one whose giddy fun will hold up for such an audience through repeat viewings.
  23. The Banishment
    The undeniably talented helmer’s sophomore feature has little of the emotional power of “The Return,” though d.p. Mikhail Krichman does stellar work and thesping is faultless.
  24. Kangaroo
    Kangaroo deserves credit for presenting a wealth of informed opinions and impressing the need for a change of thinking if solutions are ever to be found.
  25. Den of Thieves
    Den of Thieves is better at set-up than follow-through. The movie is clever enough, until it cheats. It tries to fill in its characters, until reducing them to plot devices.
  26. Maze Runner: The Death Cure
    Downplaying some of the property’s sillier elements when not jettisoning them entirely, and streamlining the narrative into a rousing and at times even emotional action film, “Death Cure” is the most successful entry in the franchise by far.
  27. 12 Strong
    On its own terms, the film is watchable enough, but it’s blunt and stolid and under-characterized, and at 130 minutes it plods.
  28. Early Man
    The result is a welcome return to a form of stop-motion that takes pride in the technique’s inevitable imperfections (such as thumbprints in the modeling clay), while putting extra care into the underlying script, with its daffy humor and slightly-off characters.
  29. Humor Me
    Humor Me manages to earn its audience’s indulgence, if never its full affection.
  30. Acts of Violence
    The script has been written compactly if without great imagination by Nicolas Aaron Mezzanatto, and directed likewise by actor-turned-helmer Donowho, whose work here reps an uptick from his prior, mostly B-grade horror features.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »