Variety's Scores

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For 17,828 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: 9,160 out of 17828
  2. Mixed: 7,031 out of 17828
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17828
17828 movie reviews
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  1. Starter for 10
    Showcasing the considerable talents of ubiquitous thesp James McAvoy ("The Last King of Scotland," "Penelope") and several other up-and-coming Brit actors, picture garnishes fairly standard college-set plot with wit, warmth and unexpected turns.
  2. 22 July
    It’s intelligently stern, storm-gray filmmaking, as we’ve come to expect from Greengrass; if it feels a bit mechanical as well, perhaps this is a near-impossible story to film with both tact and soul.
  3. Bloody Oranges
    Few movies swap genres halfway through, and even fewer do so successfully. “Bloody Oranges” does both.
  4. Stephen Curry: Underrated
    With enough fresh stories to keep basketball fanatics engaged and a coda that every soccer mom will appreciate, this is a film that’s worthy of its subject.
  5. The Good, the Bad, the Weird
    East meets West meets East again, with palate-tingling results, in The Good the Bad the Weird, a kimchi Western that draws shamelessly on its spaghetti forebears but remains utterly, bracingly Korean.
  6. The Elephant Queen
    There’s no denying the emotional pull of Victoria Stone and Mark Deeble’s storytelling or the vivid rapture of the images, but “The Elephant Queen” adheres too closely to the parameters of family-friendly nature docs, and the formula doesn’t always serve it well.
  7. The Bridges of Madison County
    Given the intelligent restraint of the treatment, this is about as fine an adaptation of this material as one could hope for, although there is still something of a gap between the impressive skill of the filmmaking and the ultimately irredeemable aspects of the source.
  8. Kurt Cobain About a Son
    Some fans will find the approach (which avoids Nirvana music and perf footage) too arty and indirect; but others will welcome the specialized theatrical release and the subsequent DVD.
  9. Stoked: The Rise and Fall of Gator
    It's a pungent study of fads, trends and the way everything once genuine ends up being homogenized and exploited beyond recognition by corporate America -- a fine companion piece to Stacy Peralta's "Dogtown and Z-Boys," but with a more raw, punkish aesthetic.
  10. Intimacy
    A tortured reflection on the complex relationship between love, sex, desire and obsession, distinguished by courageously raw performances from leads Mark Rylance and Kerry Fox.
  11. The Cuckoo
    Charming, smart and funny.
  12. Monsieur Ibrahim
    Unshaven and twinkling-eyed, Sharif is professionally light and entertaining in the title role.
  13. Changing Lanes
    Captures the excitement of lightning in a bottle.
  14. Itzhak
    Good music and good company make “Itzhak” a pleasure, though those seeking a methodical career overview should look elsewhere than this genial personality sketch of the world-famous violinist.
  15. Swinging Safari
    A cheerfully vulgar, consistently amusing and sometimes hilarious parody of life in a suburban Aussie cul-de-sac in the mid-1970s.
  16. Hitler's Children
    The sins of the fathers have seldom weighed so heavy as in the odd, intriguing and ultimately moving Hitler's Children.
  17. The Black Godfather
    The Black Godfather does yeoman’s work introducing a figure that few outsiders have likely heard of, but who needs no introduction in the power corridors of the entertainment industry.
  18. Magpie
    The first-time director, Sam Yates, working from a utilitarian script by Tom Bateman, slathers on mood, yet there’s a primitive charge to the film’s no-frills staging.
  19. Carry-On
    Although Collet-Serra brings creative solutions to each of the action sequences, the project is actually most effective when audiences are honed in on the core characters.
  20. Ong Bak
    Strongly recalls Hong Kong kung-fu movies of the late '60s and '70s, with physical grit, over-the-top heroics and inventive fight choreography providing the entertainment.
  21. Do Not Resist
    The doc is stylistically uninspiring, with a tedious threatening sound design, but the powerful subject matter largely overcomes such missteps.
  22. We Live in Public
    This astounding new documentary burrows into the thin and darkly funny spaces between artistry and vanity, isolation and community, collaboration and exploitation, sanity and madness.
  23. Sightseers
    The satire is firmly seated in character, and no one understands how well a good homicide can elucidate character better than Wheatley.
  24. The Pink Cloud
    Gerbase’s thoughtful, precise little film would have marked an impressive enough arrival under normal circumstances. As it is, it might endure as more era-evocative than many of the intentional pandemic dramas to come.
  25. The Milk of Sorrow
    At first, the picture seems a slow-moving, particularly well-framed ethnographic study of life in the big city in Peru; it only gradually becomes clear that Llosa's second feature perfectly aligns form and content.
  26. Uncertain Terms
    Silver offers up a generally assured and compelling film here.
  27. The Harder They Fall
    As much fun as Majors, Elba, Beetz and King are to watch in roles that allow for plenty of scenery chewing (and oh what scenery!), it’s Stanfield who steals the show here as the part-Indian, part-Black Cherokee Bill.
  28. Compliance
    In taut, gripping and deeply disturbing fashion, writer-director Craig Zobel measures the depths to which rational individuals will sink to obey a self-anointed authority figure in Compliance.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    A Dry White Season
    A wrenching picture about South Africa that makes no expedient compromises with feel-good entertainment values, A Dry White Season displays riveting performances and visceral style.
    • Variety
  30. Infamous
    Writer-director Douglas McGrath's boldest stroke is to impose a more overtly gay interpretation on a central relationship in which the attraction was generally supposed to be unspoken.
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