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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    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    A Shot in the Dark
    Sometimes the narrative is subordinated to individual bits of business and running gags but Sellers’ skill as a comedian again is demonstrated, and Sommer, in role of the chambermaid who moves all men to amorous thoughts and sometimes murder, is pert and expert.
  2. Wilde
    Toplining British comedian/wit Stephen Fry in a once-in-a-lifetime role as the brilliant, acerbic playwright, and mounted with a care and affection in all departments that squeezes the most from its $10 million budget, movie is a tony biopic that manages to combine an upfront portrayal of the scribe's gayness with an often moving examination of his broader emotions and artistic ideals.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Holiday Inn
    Loaded with a wealth of songs, it's meaty, not too kaleidoscopic and yet closely knit for a compact 100 minutes of tiptop filmusical entertainment. The idea is a natural, and Irving Berlin has fashioned some peach songs to fit the highlight holidays.
  4. Hard Miles
    Daniel Hanna (“Miss Virginia”) and a strong cast, making for a satisfying scenic ride that picked up several festival audience awards last year.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Brother from Another Planet
    Pic is essentially a series of behavioral vignettes, and many of them are genuinely delightful and inventive. Once the Brother discovers the Harlem drug scene, however, tale takes a rather unpleasant and, ultimately, confusing turn.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Quo Vadis
    Quo Vadis is a super-spectacle in all its meaning. That there are shortcomings [in this fourth version of the tale] even Metro must have recognized and ignored in consideration of the project’s scope.
  7. A Traveler's Needs
    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.
  8. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
    This odd, epic tale of a man who ages backwards is presented in an impeccable classical manner, every detail tended to with fastidious devotion.
  9. Devils on the Doorstep
    Has all the classic faults of a picture not only directed by an actor but by an actor who is his own producer.
  10. Smoke
    Too often goes off on a tangent with unessential anecdotes and then fails to deliver in more important areas.
  11. Owning Mahowny
    Philip Seymour Hoffman and John Hurt give compelling performances... But the coldly unrewarding drama is as distant and joyless as its protagonist, representing a disappointment for director Richard Kwietniowski.
  12. Girlfight
    Blends in a most satisfying manner the conventions of several genres, resulting in a coherent picture that is at once a poignant inner-city drama, a rousing sports movie, an emotional family yarn and, above all, a sweet romance.
  13. Warrior of Light
    Universally embraceable subject matter, coupled with helmer's sterling rep as benevolent booster of humanistic pioneers.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Cutter's Way
    Cutter's Way suffers from a terminal case of creative indecision. With any number of initially intriguing plot lines, director Ivan Passer and scripter Jeffrey Alan Fiskin never come close to shedding light on what, if anything, this picture is really about. Jeff Bridges, John Heard and Lisa Eichhorn all deliver exceptionally fine topline performances, but their efforts seem wasted in such a weak vehicle.
  15. Spring
    Co-directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead (“Resolution,” “V/H/S: Viral”), working from a script credited to Benson, do a clever job of entwining elements of budding romance, mounting dread and indolent vacation in their leisurely paced, handsomely produced indie feature.
  16. Out of the Blue
    Chilling, often moving docudrama focuses not so much on the mayhem or murderer, but on the bewildered, occasionally courageous reactions of ordinary citizens caught in the inexplicable violence.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    More Than Honey
    Most striking in “Honey” are closeups of the bees in their hives, symbiotically working together in creating their new queen: Imhoof rightfully spends time detailing the extraordinary nature of bee social structure.
  18. Hedda
    Not everyone knows Ibsen going in, but that needn’t diminish the satisfaction of watching “Hedda Gabler” so vividly reinvented.
  19. Nakom
    There’s an air of authenticity as well as a pleasingly laid-back yet substantive narrative engagement to this polished effort.
  20. Heartstone
    Sympathetic as Thor’s journey to awareness is, Heartstone’s languid, rollingly repetitive storytelling never quite justifies its weighted focus on his character at the expense of his friend’s more active anguish; a more judicious edit could place both in sharper relief.
  21. Wicker
    The filmmaking pair don’t stray far from Wills-Jones’ intention, using the story’s unspecified time and place to poke fun at superstition, the pressures to conform and the institution of marriage.
  22. Unstrung Heroes
    A coming-of-age piece that is slight to the point of anemia, Unstrung Heroes sports a willful eccentricity that almost immediately becomes annoying.
  23. Rodeo
    Rodeo is a movie that’s all surface, all present tense, all too-cool-to-be-anything-but-French-vérité gestures.
  24. The Friend
    A by-the-numbers crowd-pleaser with a bit more on its mind than your typical canine-centric tearjerker.
  25. Colossal
    Colossal takes diminishing advantage of an amusing premise, one that seems made for satirical treatment yet is executed with an increasingly awkward semi-seriousness the characters aren’t depthed (or likable) enough to ballast.
  26. Blank City
    The major draw of Blank City lies in its generous glimpses of rare, virtually lost Super-8 and 16mm films.
  27. Citizen Jane: Battle for the City
    The movie just about pulses with contemporary resonance.
  28. In & Out
    Aside from Dillon, who brightens every scene he's in, the delightful surprise here is Selleck, who brings wonderfully mischievous, energizing and self-deprecating qualities to the role of the dirt-digging but ultimately on-the-level broadcaster.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Bad Lieutenant
    Abel Ferrara's uncompromising Bad Lieutenant is a harrowing journey observing a corrupt NY cop sink into the depths, with an extraordinary and uninhibited performance by Harvey Keitel in the title role.
  30. Late August, Early September
    A kaleidoscopic but engrossing study of the shifting sands of friendship among a group of Parisians, "Late August, Early September" reps a major advance by writer-director Olivier Assayas in warmth and maturity of observation.
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