Variety's Scores

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For 17,831 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: 9,163 out of 17831
  2. Mixed: 7,031 out of 17831
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17831
17831 movie reviews
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    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Die Hard 2
    Die Hard 2 lacks the inventivenes of the original but compensates with relentless action.
  2. Hellaware
    The cinematic equivalent of a modestly amusing shaggy-dog story that meanders toward a clever punchline.
  3. The Wall
    Though complementary, the pic’s images and voiceover never quite fuse into a single whole.
  4. Cuties
    Cuties' job is to coil the contrasting messages and spin them until her lead falls down dizzy, which can make the film feel as subtle as a headache.
  5. The China Hustle
    Jed Rothstein’s wildly entertaining documentary The China Hustle blows the lid off another multibillion-dollar heist built on complex financial instruments and a whole lot of smoke and mirrors.
  6. Halloween
    By contemporary horror standards, the original “Halloween” was actually quite tame, featuring just five (human) deaths, whereas this one more than triples the body count — and it does so with style, borrowing several of Carpenter’s classic devices...before getting into the more prosthetic-heavy mayhem that follows.
  7. Synecdoche, New York
    A wildly ambitious and gravely serious contemplation of life, love, art, human decay and death, the film bears Kaufman’s scripting fingerprints in its structural trickery and multiplane storytelling.
  8. Edge of Seventeen
    Unpretentious, funny and touching, Edge of Seventeen rates as a quintessential Amerindie sleeper.
  9. Charlie Wilson's War
    Charlie Wilson's War is that rare Hollywood commodity these days: a smart, sophisticated entertainment for grownups.
  10. Canvas
    First-rate performances, an uncompromising point of view and a fresh take on a well-worn movie subject -- madness.
  11. The Take
    An unlikely but entertaining amalgam of "Heat," "Memento" and "Regarding Henry," Brad Furman's streetwise caper drama The Take is elevated by the potent performances of John Leguizamo and Rosie Perez and a momentum that seldom stops.
  12. Garbage Dreams
    Mai Iskander's stunning documentary-helming debut.
  13. Stuck Between Stations
    Real people may not be this glib and witty, but Rosen and Lister-Jones sell us on Casper and Becky nonetheless.
  14. Alive Inside
    Rossato-Bennett’s over-the-top narration often sounds cloying and banal... But the filmmaker succeeds in providing context, medical and historical, in between awakenings.
  15. Parched
    Yadav pinpoints the various ways in which institutional and personal prejudices keep people enslaved, crafting a sharp portrait of gender inequality.
  16. A Midsummer Night's Dream
    This Midsummer Night’s Dream actually works. It’s charming, funny and moderately sexy, with witty use of the disconnect between modern manners and melodious prose. And yes, the actors can speak the language — which, as many a movie has proven before, is never a given.
  17. A Brother's Love
    Beneath the film’s soapier turns, and despite its more strident moments, there is a small dose of bittersweet wisdom here about the dangers inherent in entrusting one person — whomever it might be — with sole custody of your self-worth.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid
    Film is most engaging in its romantic sparring between Martin and his gorgeous client, Ward.
  19. The Stanford Prison Experiment
    The problem is not that this film is upsetting (it should be), but that it ultimately seems more interested, and skilled, at dispensing regular shocks than fresh insights.
  20. The Little Stranger
    Wilson’s extraordinary performance rules the film, weaving a lifetime of accumulating disappointment into a single arched eyebrow.
  21. Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare
    Lacking the outrage and wit of Michael Moore's "Sicko," which dealt with the different matter of health insurance, this documentary is stronger on finding viable solutions.
  22. The Armstrong Lie
    Director Alex Gibney delivers not just a detailed, full-access account of his subject, in all his defiance, hubris and tentative self-reckoning, but also a layered inquiry into the culture of competitiveness, celebrity, moral relativism and hypocrisy that helped enable and sustain his deception.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Take the Money and Run
    A few good laughs in an 85-minute film do not a comedy make. Basically a running gag about hero Allen's ineptitude as a professional crook, scatters its fire in so many directions it has to hit at least several targets. But satire on documentary coverage of criminal flop is overextended and eventually tiresome.
    • Variety
  24. We Are Freestyle Love Supreme
    It’s about as sweet to see friendship survive success as it is to see Lin-Manuel Miranda as the world’s most adorkable Beastie Boy.
  25. The Ambassador
    Brugger ensures it's a fairly entertaining excursion, especially when he starts to enjoy getting into character as the nefarious white man in Africa.
  26. The Idea of You
    This is Hathaway’s movie, and she owns it: independent, desirable and never, ever desperate.
  27. Fear Street Part One: 1994
    “Fear Street” may look like countless horror movies that have come before, but it’s desperately trying to be original, and that may pay off in the two installments to come.
  28. Melancholian 3 huonetta
    Walloping gut punch The 3 Rooms of Melancholia offers a harrowing docu look at war and militarism's wounds, as seen through the eyes of Russian and Chechen children.
  29. The Wolf of Snow Hollow
    The movie does get some zingers in there, and it balances the humor with some nicely atmospheric creepy small town vibes (courtesy of DP Natalie Kingston), but the tone is all over the place and a far cry from the “Fargo”-y Coen brothers feel Cummings seems to be going for.
  30. A Private Life
    While the ultimate destination somewhat underwhelms, it’s a thrill to see Foster navigating a fully bilingual role, while tossing off the kind of personal insights only an expat could feel toward the French — a tiny glimpse into Foster’s private life, perhaps.
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