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. Goodbye Lenin!
    This triumph of historical verisimilitude in the service of solid storytelling requires no detailed knowledge of the period to be appreciated as the moving story of a son's unconditional love for his mother.
  2. A Trial in Prague
    Sheds valuable light on a complex period of post-World War II Czechoslovakia.
  3. War and Peace
    Though long-winded and discursive, the professionally assembled material is of immense interest and importance in reminding the viewer of the threat to world peace posed by the continuing posturing on the subcontinent.
  4. Valley of Tears
    Fascinating assemblage combines strike footage first shot in 1979 by Perry when he was working for the Texas Farm Workers Union with film and video lensed over the ensuing 20-plus years.
  5. The Go Master
    Perhaps the least accessible of Tian's films, this serenely elliptical poser will elude all but the most devoted arthouse auds.
  6. Winston Churchill: Walking with Destiny
    Pic benefits greatly from Ben Kingsley's brilliantly nuanced reading of frankly bombastic narration.
  7. The King (2012)
    Revelatory for the disabled and entertaining for the rest of us.
  8. Fire in the Blood
    Though the film comprehensively details the political and economic subtleties of what it declares “the crime of the century,” its narrative remains primarily a human-focused one, highlighting the stories of selected steadfast victims, as well as the heroic movers and shakers in the struggle.
  9. Go Grandriders
    Hua Tien-hau’s sentimental, conventionally inspiring film offers good-natured insights on the importance — and the difficulty — of living life to the fullest at any age.
  10. The Hateful Eight
    The movie absolutely delivers on the sheer moment-to-moment pleasures fans have come to expect, from dynamite dialogue to powder-keg confrontations.
  11. Han Gong-ju
    For some time, the pic holds interest while constantly frustrating curiosity with the way it parses out information, but soon after the midway point the game becomes tedious, and attention slackens considerably even as Gong-ju’s ordeal becomes clear.
  12. Showrunners: The Art of Running a TV Show
    The producers, obviously, are good storytellers, and there is something to be said — touched on here — about their shifting roles as TV has embraced an auteur quality. Still, the resulting doc finally feels like less than the sum of its anecdotes.
  13. If You Don't, I Will
    Distinguished by exquisite performances from Emmanuelle Devos and Mathieu Amalric as a bourgeois couple unsure when to call time on their marriage, the pic initially follows the dry, droll template set by so many tasteful French relationship dramedies, before venturing into less comforting emotional territory for its final act.
  14. Vessel
    The film is an intriguing story passionately told, shot through and through with activist zeal, although a greater deal of distance might have allowed it to make a stronger case.
  15. The Blackcoat's Daughter
    In addition to everything else he does right in February, Perkins plays fair: When you replay the movie in your mind after the final fadeout, you realize that every twist was dutifully presaged, and the final reveal was hidden in plain sight all along.
  16. Barbara
    The movie lightly plumbs that dangerously unsettled space between performing and literally being the protagonist in a biopic.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Great Train Robbery
    Crichton’s films drag in dialog bouts, but triumph when action takes over.
  18. Frank Serpico
    Frank Serpico is a finely etched and fascinating documentary.
  19. Inventing Tomorrow
    Inventing Tomorrow won’t win points for originality, but this snapshot of adolescent ingenuity and innovation, premiering at the Sundance Film Festival, nonetheless proves equally entertaining and inspiring.
  20. The Marriage
    It is a relevant, relatable and rewarding snapshot of how a society grows crookedly around its unresolved secrets, in the same way that a marriage can.
  21. Are We Not Cats
    Though this is a slightly unreal world in which no one looks at their iPhones or uses a computer...the sweet earnestness of the two leads makes their characters real.
  22. Treat Me Like Fire
    Monge’s deliciously seedy first film is light on originality but heavy on atmospherics: a sleazy, sultry, saxophone-blare echoing down a Parisian metro tunnel at night.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Breezy
    Clint Eastwood's third directorial effort is an okay contemporary drama about middle-aged William Holden falling for teenage Kay Lenz. Associate producer Jo Heims' script works the problem over with perhaps too much ironic, wry or broad humor for solid impact.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Fist of Fury
    Lee has a good deal of aggressive boyish charm. However, pic is archaically simple-minded in its storyline and marginally professional in its production. Lo Wei’s direction is a juvenile match for his own screenplay.
  25. Shéhérazade
    Shooting in a color-streaked vérité style and coaxing terrific performances from his non-pro cast, Marlin clearly has a promising future ahead. What keeps Shéhérazade from ranking higher in the pantheon of streetwise French crime dramas is the story’s overall familiarity.
  26. Deerskin
    A loopy entertaining WTF lark. ... The fact that it holds you, for 77 minutes, is a testament to the debauched rigor of Dupieux’s filmmaking.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    All of Me
    For all its clowning, All of Me makes some good points about taking chances and doing what you want in life. Tomlin undergoes a transformation from a crabby sheltered poor little rich girl to a compassionate woman. It’s a measure of her performance that even as a sourpuss she’s irressistible.
  28. Villain
    Actor Philip Barantini’s first directorial feature is nothing wildly original in content or style. Still, it punches both elements across with a satisfying low-key confidence, and does not shrink from occasionally letting things get pretty rough.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Little Miss Marker
    This picture is a good response to that element that claims there is nothing good in pictures. Clean, funny, with thrills and heart appeal all nicely blended. [22 May 1934, p.15]
    • Variety
  30. Downfall: The Case Against Boeing
    Riveting ... Kennedy not only builds a case against Boeing but offers an object lesson in the tragic consequences of corporate greed and hubris.
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