Variety's Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
  1. The Grab
    The big picture here is so elusive and vast that it helps Cowperthwaite to have a few intrepid investigators to follow, letting their research drive the shape of the film (which, when you unpack it, must have been one hell of a task to structure).
  2. Wild Diamond
    After all the despair, the piling up of glitzy delusion, there’s a feeling of redemption to it connected to what a good movie can do.
  3. My Best Friend
    My Best Friend is a sex farce on steroids, overflowing with energy and excessive curiosity about what the movie camera actually can do.
  4. When the Light Breaks
    Rúnarsson’s film eschews easy melodrama for a more tacit, sensory exploration of the sudden connections that death forges among the living. The future waits in limbo; simply getting through the day is drama enough.
  5. Drop
    It’s a junk-food thriller fried to near-perfection, balancing the tensions of kidnapping, conspiracy and murder with those of a nerve-wracking first date. It’s crisp and delicious.
  6. Black Dog
    Achieving a delicate balance between drama and deadpan comedy, Guan’s approach gives the scenes of violence or tragedy a certain antic, Buster Keaton quality, which is enhanced by both Peng’s impassive yet physically expressive performance, and that of his wonderful canine co-star.
  7. Christmas Eve in Miller's Point
    Tyler Taormina‘s delightful stocking-stuffer Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point is as alive to the domesticated magic of the season as a classic carol.
  8. Rumours
    The massed foibles and outright idiocies of the seven principals — all sharp individual comic creations, but collectively a devastating hot-air hydra of enfeebled contemporary democracy — add up to a frustrated protest against our elected elite fiddling while Rome (or the planet, rather) burns, offering mealy-mouthed sentiments that gesture toward coordinated action without ever getting there.
  9. The Other Way Around
    Trueba has drawn a funny little valentine, shot through by a bright, sharp arrow of feeling.
  10. Universal Language
    Rankin may have conceived Universal Language in the spirit of homage, but there’s something undeniably original about the end result. Don’t be surprised if that translates into a modest cult following and more creative ideas in the future.
  11. Souleymane's Story
    If the hero’s dire situation is a ticking clock, Lojkine’s intelligent and empathetic film places us right alongside him, with each cog of circumstance and each gear of good fortune grinding against him at every turn.
  12. The Nature of Love
    The Nature of Love refreshingly centers the female adulterer’s experience, in a richly comic mode.
  13. Backspot
    It is Jacobs’ performance that makes “Backspot” such an exciting watch, even as it hits well-known beats and otherwise expected character arcs.
  14. Big Boys
    With low-budget Big Boys, Sherman crafts a memorable outing on limited means, brought to life by an unusually endearing cast.
  15. Invisible Nation
    There are no fancy flourishes in Invisible Nation. This is strong, effective observational documentary filmmaking that does not employ voiceover or text narration, and allows viewers to form their own views.
  16. Under Paris
    As a sensory experience, Under Paris is never less than seaworthy.
  17. It Ends with Us
    When I say it’s a soap opera, I mean that as praise. Based on Colleen Hoover’s 2016 novel (the script is by Christy Hall) and directed by Justin Baldoni (who is one of the film’s costars), it’s an avid and emotional movie that pulls you right along. If you go in not knowing what it’s about, and are therefore all the more surprised by where it goes, it may be even more effective.
  18. Family Portrait
    While free-floating and airy in its construction, the film’s deceiving familiarity slowly erodes, morphing into an unsettling, formally astute brain-tickler observing the placid domesticity of an affluent Texas family in their natural habitat.
  19. Jazzy
    At first glance, Jazzy might seem more polished and traditionally structured than its predecessor. But the two films share a proudly scrappy and loose-limbed spirit in their soulful, tranquil pace.
  20. The Vourdalak
    Everything about the film manages to be forward-thinking and old-school at the same time, giving the genre a bite in the neck it might not have wanted but certainly needed.
  21. The Sheep Detectives
    The filmmakers have lightened and brightened their source material to a kid-friendly degree — even the English countryside, as glisteningly shot by George Steel, has never looked less overcast. Yet there’s wisdom amid the silliness, as the story gently makes a case for the necessity of grief, mindfulness and mortal awareness, even in a life otherwise unburdened by adult human responsibility.
  22. Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale
    Despite the nostalgic glow that prettily coddles the film, there is a delectably unsubtle passing-the-baton theme that runs through the richly populated affair.
  23. The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie
    The entire project — including a handful of fun fourth-wall-shattering asides — is crafted with love and a genuine respect for the franchise.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Murder by Decree
    Murder by Decree is probably the best Sherlock Holmes film since the inimitable pairing of Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce in the 1940s series at Universal.
  25. Panopticon
    Panopticon may not have quite the all-seeing eye its title implies, but its gaze is piercing and sharp and strange.
  26. Hollywoodgate
    The power of documentary filmmaking often lies in discovering seams of humanity running though even the bleakest environments. But the sledgehammer impact of Hollywoodgate comes from director Nash’at peering into the Taliban leadership’s inner circle for a year and finding not even a glimmer of goodness. Finding, in fact, nothing — a terrible emptiness.
  27. Great Absence
    Even though Great Absence, is a little overlong and its framing device, an avant-garde theater piece, feels unnecessary, in another way its multiple strands and many endings are extraordinarily, poetically appropriate.
  28. Never Let Go
    Though not all of its clever ideas come together efficiently in the finale, its thematic ruminations on grief, sanity, rebellion and redemption are intrinsically intertwined to harrowing, claustrophobic effect, heightening the hallucinatory horrors and dread-soaked atmospheric pull.
  29. The Sparrow
    [An] elegantly vicious domestic horror movie, which forensically unpicks the compacted resentments, betrayals and traumas underpinning a single weekend family gathering, with a touch as icy as the lighting is consistently, relentlessly warm.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Tales of Hoffmann
    Film is a brilliant integration of dance, story and music.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »