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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  1. Stop the Pounding Heart
    Where “Heart” excels, however, is simply in capturing the rhythm of life.
  2. Sidemen: Long Road to Glory
    "Sidemen” is an exceptionally entertaining and captivating tribute to the men and their music — and that there’s more than enough of said music here to please blues aficionados and recruit converts.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Offence
    There's a powerful confrontation of authority and accused between police sergeant Sean Connery and suspected child molester Ian Bannen in Sidney Lumet's The Offence. A brilliant scene, however, does not in itself make for a brilliant overall feature.
  4. Nightmare Alley
    A gorgeous, fantastically sinister moral fable about the cruel predictability of human nature and the way entire systems — from carnies and con men to shrinks and Sunday preachers — are engineered to exploit it.
  5. I Love Boosters
    It’s an incendiary prank of a movie that begs our indulgence at times yet also invites us to get high on what a playful provocation it is.
  6. The Hoax
    Lasse Hallstrom's breezy, fast-paced, somewhat loose-ended account of how he (Irving) did it offers a surprisingly layered vehicle for a maniacally conniving Richard Gere, backed up by a superb Alfred Molina as his accomplice.
  7. Who Killed the Electric Car?
    Oil companies aren't the only ones profiting from a spike in prices at the gas pump. It's likely also to boost the prospects of Who Killed the Electric Car? a likable if partisan post-mortem on the now-defunct auto.
  8. Outsourced
    This unaffected charmer treats a hot-button contempo issue with old-fashioned grace and benevolent wit, rendering it a sure-fire word-of-mouth crowd-pleaser.
  9. Rotting in the Sun
    With its tricky tone and its wildly ambitious themes, it’s not surprising to find Silva’s outrageous, salacious film stumbling as it brings its many threads into focus. Like Sebastián’s art and his journal in the film, Rotting in the Sun remains a patchwork of quotes and ideas and provocations hastily if hilariously stitched together.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Journey from the Fall
    A post-Vietnam War boat people saga is launched to compelling effect in Journey From the Fall, a sleek U.S. production.
  11. Pauline and Paulette
    Heartfelt and heart-rending performances make all the difference in Pauline and Paulette, a delightfully bittersweet story.
  12. Our Father
    Haroun's film is both touching and, ultimately, almost perversely optimistic.
  13. Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry
    Butler is in no way a hot-headed or contentious piece of agit-prop, unlike so many other election year documentaries; like Kerry himself, the film speaks to the mind, not the emotions.
  14. Blue Collar Comedy Tour: The Movie
    Unlikely to draw new fans but destined to please followers who couldn't catch the live act.
  15. Teddy Bear
    The low-key drama is well crafted and likable as far as it goes, but there's not enough narrative impetus or depth to maintain more than passing viewer interest.
  16. The Quake
    There’s nothing terribly profound or innovative about what The Quake achieves. But like “The Wave” before it, it’s just intelligent and serious enough to give you your escapist cake — deluxe popcorn perils in all their big-screen glory — without making you eat the familiar guilt of empty-calorie overload.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Sisters
    Sisters is a good psychological murder melo- drama, starring Margot Kidder as the schizoid half of Siamese twins, and Jennifer Salt as a news hen driven to terror in her investigation of a bloody murder. Brian De Palma's direction emphasizes exploitation values which do not fully mask script weakness.
  18. Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person
    “Humanist Vampire” doesn’t want us to think too deeply, and aims mostly to charm. Largely it succeeds, which is its own kind of critique in this post-“Titane” and -“A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night” era, when some viewers might expect provocation or transgression from their horror archetypes.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Lethal Weapon 2
    Loaded with the usual elements, Lethal Weapon 2 benefits from a consistency of tone that was lacking in the first film. This time, screenwriter Jeffrey Boam and director Richard Donner have wisely trained their sights on humor and the considerable charm of Mel Gibson and Danny Glover's onscreen rapport.
  20. Studio 54
    The film shows you the club from every angle, and seems to be gawking at every patron. It puts us right inside.
  21. Mother of Flies
    It’s a densely textured, quite gorgeous dive into folkloric witchiness that avoids nearly all anticipated clichés, finally arriving at something not so much terrifying as unexpectedly poignant.
  22. Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story
    Too much of “Bombshell” skims over Lamarr’s more troubling and troubled aspects to paint her in somewhat stock terms as the victim of keep-her-on-that-pedestal misogyny.
  23. 21 Grams
    Ambitiously structured in non-chronological fragments that form a fascinating puzzle, this raw drama about grief, guilt and redemption becomes ultimately overextended and overwrought in its final stretch.
  24. The Cat Returns (2002)
    Animated by Hiroyuki Morita -- a protege of Hayao Miyazaki -- story draws more from fairy tales than the eerie transformative productions by Studio Ghibli. Result is catchy entertainment for kids and adults.
  25. Merchants of Doubt
    An intelligent, solidly argued and almost too-polished takedown of America’s spin factory — that network of professional fabricators, obfuscators and pseudo-scientists who have lately attempted to muddle the scientific debate around global warming — this is a movie so intrigued by its designated villains that it almost conveys a perverse form of admiration, and the fascination proves contagious.
  26. Martin Margiela: In His Own Words
    The grandest irony to emerge is that despite its unquestionable sincerity, soft-spoken iconoclast Martin Margiela’s insistent non-image may yet turn out to be fashion’s canniest bit of image-making of all.
  27. Ted K
    Quite what we gain from the experience is uncertain, with most viewers likely to leave the film understanding little more of the Unabomber than they did two hours before. Still, Ted K is impressive and oppressive in equal measure.
  28. The Lady in the Van
    Low on narrative drive, and marred by a misjudged final-act swerve into extravagant whimsy, Nicholas Hytner’s amiable luvvie-fest is enlivened by Smith’s signature irascibility.
  29. The Letter: An American Town and the 'Somali Invasion'
    An especially dramatic, if needlessly frantic, work of polemical reportage on racism in America.
  30. Benjamin
    Benjamin wrings a lot of warmly perceptive, occasionally acidic humor. The film might be termed a romantic comedy, though the will-they-won’t-they dynamic that usually powers the genre feels beside the point here.
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