Variety's Scores

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For 17,832 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: 9,164 out of 17832
  2. Mixed: 7,031 out of 17832
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17832
17832 movie reviews
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  1. Kid 90
    In many ways, Frye’s collage only makes sense to its maker, where someone else might have brought enough distance to put all this material in perspective.
  2. Idiots
    Sure, the case can be made for this contrast between scatological humor and serious insight working as a mirror for how quickly a person’s reality can shift from joy to sorrow, but the overall effect is puzzling.
  3. The Blackening
    The Blackening is a slasher movie that’s also a slapdash enjoyable social satire. That the satire turns out to be sharper than the scares isn’t a problem — it’s all part of the film’s slovenly demonic party atmosphere.
  4. Deadstream
    What keeps the film from being anything more than an enterprising but minor diversion is that, with Shawn being is such a loud comic character from the get-go, scares and laughs alike don’t have much space to build. Winter gives his all, entertainingly so. But the performance is also dialed too high, too soon, its ultimate payoff diminished because we’ve already had so much of this protagonist screaming, bragging and sniveling.
  5. Light of My Life
    Scene for scene, Affleck does a decent job of directing — his touch is soft, intimate, humane — but he has saddled himself with a script that isn’t entirely there.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Naked Lunch
    Stretching himself with each new work, David Cronenberg has come up with a fascinating, demanding, mordantly funny picture.
  7. Dig Two Graves
    It’s all quite nicely handled by Adams’ direction and his script (co-written with Jeremy Phillips), though the latter ultimately somewhat disappoints.
  8. Hush
    Siegel’s likable perf keeps the audience on her side and highlights Maddie’s knack for thinking on her feet. Gallagher is even better as the mysteriously motivated antagonist.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Super Fly
    Best that can be said for this quickie is its unpretentiousness in not seeking any pseudo-sociological meaning or theme, or assuming any airs that one is supposed to be enriched or provoked by it all. It's strictly action-adventure, alternating, like clockwork, drugs-sex-violence for its duration with hardly a plot line to hold it together.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Flamingo Kid
    Dillon does a good job in his fullest, least narcissistic characterization to date.
  11. Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Movie: Infinity Castle
    The film’s humor doesn’t necessarily translate, and the animation style doesn’t come close to the medium’s most artistic work. Beyond the sheer inventiveness of the movie’s made-up martial arts, that leaves the tragic elements, which can be disarmingly effective in giving audiences reason to feel invested in the battles — battles that have only just begun.
  12. Other People
    While Chris Kelly’s semi-autobiographical writing-directing debut gets off to a painfully broad start, it does intermittently find its footing as it progresses, gathering enough well-observed moments and details to counterbalance its otherwise flailing stabs at humor and pathos.
  13. Thirteen Days
    Reasonably intelligent, well-crafted and dramatically understated.
  14. Ghosts of the Abyss
    Though quite routine on the logistics of deep-sea exploring, pic develops a visual style as it replays the events of the sinking that some viewers may find more visually exciting and satisfying than what Cameron staged in his original mega-blockbuster.
  15. Almost Peaceful
    A gentle, sad and at times funny film in the best French tradition of high-quality cinema.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Interiors
    Watching this picture a question keeps recurring: what would Woody Allen think of all this? Then you remember he wrote and directed it. The film is populated by characters reacting to situation Allen has satirized so brilliantly in other pictures.
    • Variety
  17. Kung Fu Panda 2
    Once again, the DreamWorks team demonstrates that humor is the primary weapon in its arsenal.
  18. Queen of the Sun: What Are the Bees Telling Us?
    A creative exploration of the global honeybee crisis replete with remarkable nature cinematography, some eccentric characters and yet another powerful argument for organic, sustainable agriculture in balance with nature.
  19. Robot and Frank
    Debuting helmer Jake Schreier, screenwriter Christopher D. Ford and a wry and wily Frank Langella all shine in a smart, plausible and resonant film.
  20. Slither
    Slither begins briskly, gradually accelerates and eventually achieves a breakneck momentum that makes the wild ride even more exhilarating.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    At Close Range
    Audiences will respond to the very strong performances of the two leads, especially Walken in one of his best roles.
  22. Manny & Lo
    Despite the imaginative setup and the original sensibility, pic ultimately suffers from a slight, rather contrived narrative and a lack of secondary characters.
  23. Vox Lux
    Powered in its second half by a riveting performance of fiercely mannered bravado by Natalie Portman, as a kamikaze electropop diva running her Faustian fame off and under the rails, Vox Lux paints a sharp, shellacked portrait of a ghost in the celebrity machine.
  24. Children of Invention
    Urgent, artful and even austerely poetic.
  25. Future Weather
    Centered around a quietly spectacular performance by young Perla Haney-Jardine, Future Weather integrates a green message into a striking and emotional drama about intergenerational female conflict.
  26. Honeyjoon
    The movie delivers subtext aplenty, overflowing in ways that help overcome its reserved exterior and make for an unobtrusive comedy-drama that, on occasion, comes close to working.
  27. In Bruges
    Closer to pics like “The Hit” and “Miller’s Crossing” than to McDonagh’s bristling, funny plays, this half-comic, half-serious account of two Irish hitmen who are sent to the titular Belgian burg to cool their heels after a job is moderately fair as a nutty character study, but overly far-fetched once the action kicks in.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    That's Entertainment, Part II
    That's Entertainment, Part II is a knockout. The very handsome and polished sequel to That's Entertainment! transforms excerpts from perhaps $100 million worth of classic Metro library footage into a billion dollars worth of fun, excitement, amusement, escapism, fantasy, nostalgia and happiness.
  29. Ned Rifle
    Though lacking the emotional depth and almost epic scope that made “Henry Fool” loom so large after Hartley’s anecdotal, idiosyncratic early features, Ned Rifle is a far more satisfactory extension of its memorable characters than the misbegotten “Fay Grim.”
  30. Brigsby Bear
    Rather than milking the outre premise for broad comedy, everyone involved strives to keep the characters and situations grounded and warm.
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