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. Poser
    The whole thing is oddly beautiful, absurdly compelling and even freakishly watchable. The general sensation of it approaches the out-of-place feeling of being at a party you don’t quite feel cool enough for. But since you’re already there, why not linger for a few drinks and embrace an intriguing ride outside your comfort zone?
  2. Heaven
    Sports a lustrous performance by Cate Blanchett that gives the movie much of its final sheen but still can't keep it on the rails as the already flimsy story starts to disintegrate in the final act.
  3. Miracle
    Key to drama's success is the artful underplaying by Kurt Russell in the lead role of Herb Brooks.
  4. Bon voyage
    A rousing, well-crafted romp packed with ingenuity, duplicity, close calls and heroic gestures, Bon Voyage is true to its title.
  5. The Bourne Identity
    A first-rate thriller with grit and intrigue to spare.
  6. The Night House
    Though this tale of a new widow’s apparent haunting gets progressively lost in a narrative maze that’s complicated without being particularly rewarding, director David Bruckner suffuses the action with enough dread and unpleasant goosings to make this an above-average genre exercise.
  7. American Animals
    This is unabashedly virtuoso, show-off filmmaking, as cocky as the misguided young men at the film’s center, who, at least for a period, saw their lives as a Hollywood romp in itself.
  8. Meet the Fokkens
    Rob Schroder and Gabrielle Provaas' raunchy, hilariously uninhibited documentary should wow arthouse audiences.
  9. Abundant Acreage Available
    It’s a pleasure to see such a fine actress navigate the nuances of her role.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Long Riders
    What’s ultimately missing is a definable point of view which would tie together the myriad events on display and fill in the blanks which Hill has imposed on the action by sapping it of emotional or historical meaning.
  11. Leave the World Behind
    Per Howard Hawks’ too-easy rubric, “A good movie is three good scenes and no bad scenes,” this one’s a keeper. The best scene may be the last.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Last Ride
    Depicting a father-son relationship that's as tough as the Outback, engrossing road movie Last Ride reclaims the Australian landscape from the cartoonish cuteness of Baz Luhrmann's "Australia."
  13. Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping
    It longs to be a close-to-the-bone lampoon in the scathing spirit of Christopher Guest, and it has a few amusing moments, but it’s really a predigested one-joke comedy. It’s less an honest satire than an overscaled satirical package.
  14. Take This Waltz
    Despite a few tonal and structural missteps, this intelligent, perceptive drama proves as intimately and gratifyingly femme-focused as Polley's 2006 debut, "Away From Her."
  15. Everybody Knows
    Though the film is slow to reach a place where its revelations can have an impact, once that starts to happen, it becomes compulsively absorbing.
  16. The Wedding Banquet
    While occasionally heavy on exposition, memorable dialogue thrives via the actors’ convincingly comfortable banter.
  17. Bears
    Surely some of the film’s various incidents have been creatively stitched together from stray bits and pieces of footage, but its central conflict is an entirely organic one, and rarely is any offscreen string pulling distractingly evident.
  18. Off the Map
    Campbell Scott's latest foray behind the camera most excels as a subtly observed study of how the dynamics within a close-knit family can shift over time.
  19. The Third Murder
    Compelling enough while you’re watching it, frustrating then forgettable once it ends, this is a work that wouldn’t command much attention if it came from any other director. Coming from this one, it mostly intrigues as an unexpected if not terribly rewarding change of pace.
  20. Hustle
    Hustle doesn’t rewrite any rules, but the film’s wholesome seduction is that you believe what you’re seeing — in part because of the presence of players from the aging legend Dr. J to Trae Young to Kyle Lowry and several dozen more. But also because Sandler plays Stanley with an inner sadness, a blend of weariness and resilience, and a stubborn faith in the game that leaves you moved, stoked, and utterly convinced.
  21. Heartbeat Detector
    Both pertinent and discomfiting, this sober, well-cast drama remains quietly riveting, despite its 140-minute running time.
  22. Land Ho!
    What gives the story its moment-to-moment buoyancy is the pleasure of watching two actors working brilliantly in tandem.
  23. Songs My Brothers Taught Me
    A sparely plotted, low-key but ultimately rewarding slice of South Dakota reservation life.
  24. Thank You for Your Service
    No film drama can make us “know” PTSD, but by the end of Thank You for Your Service, you feel as if the agony, and bravery, of our soldiers has become less remote and more tangible. Hall’s filmmaking is crisp, assured, and, at times, quietly audacious.
  25. Imperium
    Imperium’s depiction of the white-nationalist underground is ultimately background for a straightforward potboiler, and the film is at its best when it stays in that arena.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Other Music
    More than any other visual document, it celebrates and immortalizes the culture of the record store and record nerds.
  27. Let the Canary Sing
    Let the Canary Sing does an excellent job of tracing how Cyndi Lauper came to be…Cyndi Lauper. Yet it’s sort of an idiosyncratic movie, because that’s all it does.
  28. Language Lessons
    Films explicitly about the formation of friendships are rare, and Morales and Duplass have fashioned rather a perceptive one, adapting the push-pull dynamics of a romantic comedy to more delicate psychological terrain.
  29. Europa Report
    Meticulously crafted by Ecuadorian helmer Sebastian Cordero and his team, this futuristic tale of astronauts searching for signs of life near Jupiter was ostensibly shot using cameras positioned aboard their spacecraft; their video diaries have been cannily reassembled into something coherent and genuinely compelling on their own low-key terms, if a touch over-earnest at times.
  30. Romántico
    Engrossing pic is impressively shot, edited and scored.
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