Variety's Scores

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For 17,777 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 2.4 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: 9,133 out of 17777
  2. Mixed: 7,008 out of 17777
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17777
17777 movie reviews
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  1. The World of Love
    Expertly balancing its lighter and darker themes while unfolding with almost documentary-like realism, The World of Love rings achingly true at every humorous and heartbreaking turn.
  2. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma
    A steamy stew of sex, death, VHS and junk food, as though workshopped by Eros, Thanatos, Colonel Sanders and the Jolly Rancher in the seediest recesses of a Blockbuster Video, Schoenbrun’s delirious third film is their most accomplished, most persuasive and most playful movie yet.
  3. Josephine
    While some might find it triggering, “Josephine” dares to confront the life-shattering intersection of sex and violence in our culture, facing the toughest of “adult situations” with clear eyes.
  4. The Invite
    The Invite is marvelously entertaining, but part of the reason for that is that I think a lot of people are going to see themselves mirrored in this movie, which for all its sharp-tongued bravura is humane enough to play a truth game that rings true.
  5. Leviticus
    This outstanding debut from writer-director Adrian Chiarella organically marries blood-curdling fright with incisive social commentary.
  6. Yellow Letters
    At its core is the kind of cinema that has long sustained the medium at large: the family drama. But it’s presented here with invigorating flourishes that encircle the story within specific moments in time, while also granting it a stirring dramatic transcendence. The scope of its ambition is met, at every turn, by deft control over what is witnessed, and how.
  7. Closure
    With a standout central protagonist and an urgent quest that is every parent’s nightmare, the film plays like a thriller but manages to deliver honest and piercing emotions at almost every sequence along the way.
  8. Brian
    That such a hefty topic can be used to create such breathless, eye-watering comedy without tipping into self-indulgence — and without robbing the film of its most meaningful drama — is practically a miracle.
  9. All of a Sudden
    The Japanese director’s gorgeous new feature, is the rarest type of film, not merely good enough to remind you what cinema can be, but great enough to remind you what life can be.
  10. Avatar
    Avatar is all-enveloping and transporting, with Cameron & Co.'s years of R&D paying off with a film that, as his work has done before, raises the technical bar and throws down a challenge for the many other filmmakers toiling in the sci-fi/fantasy realm.
  11. Up in the Air
    The timing in the Clooney-Farmiga scenes is like splendid tennis, with each player surprising the other with shots but keeping the rally going to breathtaking duration.
  12. The White Ribbon
    Immaculately crafted in beautiful black-and-white and entirely absorbing through its longish running time, Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon nonetheless proves a difficult film to entirely embrace.
  13. A Single Man
    Like the speck of sand that seeds a pearl, it’s the tiny fleck of kitsch at the heart of “A Single Man” that makes it luminous and treasurable, despite its imperfections.
  14. Fish Tank
    What makes the picture feel special is its unflinching honesty and lack of sentimentality or moralizing, along with assured direction and excellent performances.
  15. Sita Sings the Blues
    Paley sustains a consistently funny, sometimes even self-deprecatory comic tone.
  16. District 9
    Though compelling throughout, District 9 never becomes outright terrifying, largely because Blomkamp is less interested in exploiting his aliens for cheap scares than in holding up a mirror to our own bloodthirsty, xenophobic species.
  17. The Men Who Stare at Goats
    A superbly written loony-tunes satire, played by a tony cast at the top of its game.
  18. Ponyo
    Though targeted at tots, Ponyo may appeal most to jaded adults thirsty for wondrous beauty and unpackaged innocence
  19. Sideways
    A beautifully observed, small-scale study of personal foibles, romantic uncertainty and two sides of the sadly predictable male animal.
  20. The Hangover
    At once raucously free-wheeling and meticulously contrived, picture satisfies as a boys-gone-wild laff riot that also clicks as a seriocomic beat-the-clock detective story.
  21. In the Loop
    Intelligent political satire this expertly acted is nothing to sneeze at.
  22. Bright Star
    Breaking through any period-piece mustiness with piercing insight into the emotions and behavior of her characters, the writer-director examines the final years in the short life of 19th-century romantic poet John Keats through the eyes of his beloved, Fanny Brawne, played by Abbie Cornish in an outstanding performance.
  23. A Town Called Panic
    A sparkly little gem.
  24. The Departed
    This reworking of a popular Hong Kong picture pulses with energy, tangy dialogue and crackling performances from a fine cast.
  25. Goodbye Solo
    Utterly engrossing dual-character study, unfolding with a serene disregard for indie quirkiness, Goodbye Solo radiates authenticity.
  26. The Best of Youth
    At nearly six hours, pic's extreme length lets Giordana and screenwriters Sandro Petraglia and Stefano Rulli build up a novelistic rhythm, pulling the audience so deeply and forcefully into their story that it becomes like a enveloping dream; when it's over, parting with the characters is truly sweet and sorrowful.
  27. Werckmeister Harmonies
    A stunning feature -- another hypnotic meditation on popular demagogy and mental manipulation.
  28. Rachel Getting Married
    Brimming with energy, elan and the unpredictability of his "Something Wild," Jonathan Demme's triumphant Rachel Getting Married may just lay the wedding film to rest, being such a hard act to follow.
  29. Turtles Can Fly
    Ghobadi in this pic displays a complete command of his art as he shifts between -- and even blends -- wrenching tragedy and amusing comedy.
  30. Persepolis
    This autobiographical tour de force is completely accessible and art of a very high order.
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