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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    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Sterile Cuckoo
    It is Minnelli’s one-woman show. The 21-year-old Burton is not so much her costar as her straight man.
  2. Everybody Loves Touda
    The film holds back from showing us Touda’s soul in its chaotic, capricious entirety — her life as a single mother, in particular, is rather sketchily drawn — and remains most fixated on her in performance mode, where’s she’s fully in her power.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Murder by Decree
    Murder by Decree is probably the best Sherlock Holmes film since the inimitable pairing of Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce in the 1940s series at Universal.
  4. Harvest
    Tsangari’s vigorous, yeasty period piece occasionally loses the thread of its sprawling ensemble narrative, but transfixes as a whole-sackcloth immersion into another time and place.
  5. Stranger Eyes
    Solving one mystery unexpectedly quickly before diving into deeper, more searching uncertainties of human behavior and relationships, the third feature from Singaporean writer-director Yeo Siew Hua gradually reveals a broken heart beneath its sleek, chilly veneer.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Revenge of Frankenstein
    The production is a rich one. The screenplay is well-plotted, peopled with interesting characters, aided by good performances from Francis Matthews as Cushing’s chief assistant and others.
  7. Endurance
    It’s better to let us imagine what we can’t see. But what we do see in “Endurance” is quietly staggering.
  8. Kill Me
    There are times when the film can feel weighted down by its clever framework. Externalizing the steps of deeply internal emotional progress Jimmy and Margot make with one another’s help can occasionally seem like a separate pursuit from satisfying genre expectations when it really does appear there’s a killer on the loose. However, the approach proves fresh more often than not.
  9. The Balloonists
    It has the disposition of a vintage buddy movie and an underdog tale, one that celebrates human determination and the notion of advancement through science.
  10. The Illusionist
    A bizarre story of intrigue, magic and murder in turn-of-the-century Vienna casts a considerable spell in The Illusionist.
  11. Office Space
    Imagine a live-action version of the "Dilbert" comic strip with a touch of Hal Hartley's deadpan absurdism, and you're ready for the frequently uproarious "Office Space."
  12. Pulse
    Result is always watchable, occasionally creepy and teasingly pitched halfway between a genre riff and a genuine scarefest.
  13. Homeroom
    The Oakland students — and director Nicks — rise to the demands of overlapping crises. With its vibrant if abbreviated portraits and final scenes of burgeoning activism, Homeroom suggest that kids may not be alright, but they are very much on the case.
  14. Una Noche
    Writer-director Lucy Mulloy’s sexy, pulsing debut feature has an undercurrent of ribald comedy that doesn’t entirely prepare the viewer for the harrowing turn it eventually takes, but it nonetheless amounts to a bracing snapshot of desperate youths putting their immigrant dreams into action.
  15. Queen and Country
    Queen and Country lacks the immediacy of “Hope and Glory,” in part because there’s no single animating event here to rival the Blitz... But it remains a pleasure to spend time in the presence of these characters, and a third volume — perhaps focused on Bill’s entrance into the British film industry — would hardly be unwelcome.
  16. Charlotte's Web
    Nowhere to be found is any dramatic surprise, heightening of the pulse or genuine pulling of heartstrings. Gary Winick's direction consists of button pushing, and the mechanics are palpable at every step.
  17. True Things
    Harry Wootliff’s jaggedly grown-up psychological drama True Things thrives on the hot, tense chemistry between its two excellent leads: It’s what pulls the audience through an obstacle course of potentially implausible scenarios that instead ring stingingly true.
  18. The End of the Line
    In 82 minutes, Murray wrangles enough data to make his point that biology can't keep up with sophisticated fishing technologies and worldwide demand; attacks high-end restaurants such as Nobu for putting endangered species on the menu; praises Alaska as a paragon of responsible fishing.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Howling
    Director Joe Dante’s work reflects Alfred Hitchcock’s insistence that terror and suspense work best when counterbalanced by a chuckle or two.
  20. Chuck
    The film is most thoughtful, and sometimes even painful, as a study of the pitfalls (and pitiful rewards) of local celebrity.
  21. For Your Consideration
    It will garner critical huzzahs from those it lampoons, which will broaden the duo's (Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy) fan base.
  22. The Girl in the Book
    Cohn handles all the performers very deftly.
  23. Bikram: Yogi, Guru, Predator
    Bikram: Yogi, Guru, Predator is more than an indictment of a man. Orner cross-examines the community that protected a bully for four decades, ever since Bikram pranced before TV cameras flexing his pecs for a cheering audience.
  24. The Childhood of a Leader
    A overweening, maddening but not inconsiderable directorial debut for actor Brady Corbet
  25. Hustle & Flow
    Director Craig Brewer has given his second feature film a vibrant pulse amplified by an outstanding cast led by Terrence Howard.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Alice in Wonderland
    Walt Disney has gone a long way towards tightening the leisurely, haphazard adventure of Alice in the wonderland of her imagination. He has dropped some characters and sequences in the interest of a better picture, but the deletions are not missed.
  27. A Civil Action
    A solid and intelligent legal thriller that may be too complex in its issues, and too low-key and unexciting in its style, for today's market demands.
  28. The Water Man
    An engaging for-kids ghost story whose fantasy elements are thoughtfully grounded by real-world concerns.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Watch on the Rhine
    Watch on the Rhine is a distinguished picture. It is even better than its powerful original stage version. It expresses the same urgent theme, but with broader sweep and in more affecting terms of personal emotion.
  30. Richard Jewell
    A good story is a good story, and Eastwood knows how to tell a good story.
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