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. Dayveon
    The more Dayveon attempts to up the dramatic and moral stakes of its narrative, the less persuasive it is as idiosyncratic, indigenous storytelling.
  2. Don't Swallow My Heart, Alligator Girl!
    Don’t Swallow My Heart, Alligator Girl! aims for poetry yet, like its ridiculously clumsy title, manages only an odd mix of magical realism with over-heated Lynchian touches.
  3. Kung Fu Yoga
    As the leading man, Chan keeps the ball rolling with an assortment of neat acrobatic tricks and martial arts sparring, but his days of life-risking physical exertion is over.
  4. Brigsby Bear
    Rather than milking the outre premise for broad comedy, everyone involved strives to keep the characters and situations grounded and warm.
  5. Axolotl Overkill
    Hegemann deserves considerable praise for avoiding the standard pitfalls of both the neophyte director and the writer-turned-filmmaker: Her movie is not overly wordy, and is anything but over-explained.
  6. Crown Heights
    Crown Heights doesn’t break much new ground, and it takes a while to find its footing, but thanks to strong, unshowy performances from Lakeith Stanfield and Nnamdi Asomugha, the film does project the feelings of helplessness and frustration that come from fighting against such an immovable object.
  7. Lost in Florence
    Bland even for the armchair traveler, “Lost” is as inoffensive as a picture-souvenir booklet, and equally unmemorable.
  8. Resident Evil: The Final Chapter
    A few individual scenes of hand-to-hand and foot-to-face combat are undeniably exciting, and Jovovich once again impresses with her kinetic athleticism. Overall, however, the repetitiveness and occasional incoherence of the nonstop action leave the audience exhausted for all the wrong reasons.
  9. City of Ghosts
    What City of Ghosts does best is to humanize those who’ve suffered most from the conflict in Syria, educating us through both outrage and compassion.
  10. The Polka King
    When it comes to the film’s overall success, these wildly amusing situations take a back seat to the contributions of an excellent cast.
  11. Pop Aye
    This bucolic escape from big-city life is anchored by a solid script filled with characters who, despite reaching the end of the road, find ways to make peace with the world.
  12. The Yellow Birds
    The film keeps acting like it has something big to tell us; it plods and broods with self-importance. Yet in almost every crucial way, The Yellow Birds is a flat and listless piece of moviemaking, a monotonous indie dirge.
  13. Beatriz at Dinner
    Hayek’s performance, by the end, grows unexpectedly moving. Yet Beatriz at Dinner is a little tidy. It seizes and charms without soaring.
  14. Beach Rats
    Writer-director Eliza Hittman has a sensitive ear for the way adolescents reveal themselves through evasion: It’s a tension crucial to this anxious, tactile, profoundly sad study of a young man’s journey of sexual self-discovery and self-betrayal.
  15. Whose Streets?
    Whose Streets? is not a movie intended for those seeking an explanatory recap, let alone “balanced” analysis, of the original case itself. What it does offer, however, is a pulse-taking of one community’s response — variably constructive, occasionally chaotic — to perceived institutionalized abuse by law enforcement.
  16. Trophy
    Trophy’s wealth of conflicting facts, figures, and arguments routinely force one to re-calibrate their feelings about the issues at hand. The result is a lament for both the animals at the center of so many crosshairs, and for a modern world seemingly only capable of saving lives by taking them.
  17. The Last Word
    Watching MacLaine’s Harriet embrace her life, after spending too much time rejecting it, leads The Last Word to a touching finish. MacLaine has something that shines through and elevates a film like this one. The movie is prefab indie whimsy, but she gives it an afterglow.
  18. Wilson
    In Wilson, Daniel Clowes’ voice, which was once acerbically hip, sounds dated.
  19. A Dog's Purpose
    Viewed in a vacuum, it’s hard to fault the movie’s earnestness; Hallström’s canine cinema pedigree (which includes the superior “Hachi: A Dog’s Tale”) shows through; and Rachel Portman’s score is understandably sentimental without going completely saccharine.
  20. Wind River
    Wind River adds up, and skillfully, but in the end it’s not all that exciting. It’s a vision of the new American despair — not an inner-city movie, but an inner-wilderness movie — and it could have used another twist or two.
  21. Mudbound
    Though the sheer scope of the material overwhelms “Pariah” director Dee Rees at times, she finds shoots of optimism among the mire that couldn’t be more welcome at a moment when the country seems more divided than ever.
  22. Get Out
    Blending race-savvy satire with horror to especially potent effect, this bombshell social critique from first-time director Jordan Peele proves positively fearless — which is not at all the same thing as scareless.
  23. Berlin Syndrome
    Between more trickily opaque stretches of character development, Shortland nails a handful of straight-up, nerve-shredding tension sequences, teasing a version of the film that might have tilted into full-bore horror.
  24. Before I Fall
    While the story easily could have fallen into a broken-record rut, “Nobody Walks” director Russo-Young finds ways of making the day in question feel fresh each time Sam lives it, while giving the overall presentation a look, feel, and voice that’s distinct from the vast swatch of YA movies.
  25. The Little Hours
    A medieval convent comedy for the megaplex crowd.
  26. Call Me by Your Name
    Even as he beguiles us with mystery, Guadagnino recreates Elio’s life-changing summer with such intensity that we might as well be experiencing it first-hand. It’s a rare gift that earns him a place in the pantheon alongside such masters of sensuality as Pedro Amodóvar and François Ozon, while putting “Call Me by Your Name” on par with the best of their work.
  27. Landline
    Landline is a dramatic comedy about a family full of secrets, and what’s mature — and, in its way, reassuring — about the film is that it views this state of affairs as an all-too-natural one.
  28. It Happened in L.A.
    First-time writer-director (and also star) Michelle Morgan brings just enough specificity, and a surprisingly sharp eye, to make the film an interesting calling card for future work.
  29. Ingrid Goes West
    A semi-ironic, yet still-empathetic “Single White Female” for the Facebook generation, Spicer’s squirm-inducing directorial debut understands both the pleasures and frustrations of judging one’s worth via virtual connections.
  30. A Ghost Story
    While Lowery’s actual method of delivery may not be scary, it’s sure to haunt those who open themselves up to the experience.
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