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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  1. After Everything
    Its refractory tone, both deadpan and swoony, announces that the first-time feature directors have a phenomenal eye for character (which is something those who’ve been watching Marks’ work as an actress may already have realized).
  2. The Loneliest Whale: The Search for 52
    The result is a well-meaning but somewhat granola, partly engaging yet disorganized documentary, one that searches for an imprecise story and struggles to keep its chief ambitions afloat.
  3. XXY
    Picture has more in common with standard child-parent conflict dramas than it would probably care to admit, but its sensitive treatment of an equally sensitive theme elevates it into something memorable.
  4. Fresh
    Fresh comes across as a carefree bit of bloody fun. But there’s considerably more going on beneath the surface, and the allegory is open-ended enough to hit a range of viewers on different levels.
  5. Moulin
    It’s a gorgeous-looking film, but one that doesn’t go anywhere anytime soon, given the linearity and literal nature of its approach to human anguish. At over two hours in length, its points are made with clarity before being repeated ad nauseam.
  6. Kink
    The consistently celebratory stance of “Kink” is commendable, but also feels somewhat limiting.
  7. As You Are
    A promising and impressively self-assured debut for 23-year-old filmmaker Miles Joris-Peyrafitte, As You Are is crafted with the confidence and skill of a veteran, but also the youthful eye of someone not far removed from his protagonists.
  8. The New Radical
    The great strength of The New Radical is that it’s not on its subjects’ side (or totally against them either). It’s the rare documentary that lets you decide.
  9. Zi
    If the film weren’t so arresting to look at, it could often be absorbed with eyes closed: If its larger message is elusive, Zi advocates for taking the world in at your own sensory pace.
  10. Perfect Blue
    Forsaking the usual anime fantasy terrain for a straight suspense plot that might easily have been executed in live-action form, director Satoshi Kon's debut pic, "Perfect Blue," is a psychological thriller that intrigues without quite hitting the bull's-eye.
  11. Marvin's Room
    The whole film is laced with shards of humor and irony, which proves helpful, considering the basically downbeat nature of the material.
  12. Spoor
    The movie is murky and disjointed, held together not so much by what happens as by a vague atmosphere of obsession.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Silent Running
    Silent Running depends on the excellent special effects of debuting director Douglas Trumbull and his team and on the appreciation of a literate but broadly entertaining script. Those being the highlights, they are virtually wiped out by the crucial miscasting of Bruce Dern. Production lacks dramatic credibility and teeters on the edge of the ludicrous.
  14. Meduzot
    Tightly constructed, cleverly stylized, serio-comic ensemble piece. Highly cinematic, with a mood of existential loneliness leavened by magical whimsy, its different story strands share themes including the need for affection and the struggle to communicate.
  15. Annette
    In this particular cocktail, Carax is boiling lead to Sparks’ soda-pop fizz, sucking all the fun from the root-beer float. What does go well with the French auteur’s honesty-insisting earnestness is Adam Driver’s over-committed lead turn.
  16. Chappaquiddick
    The movie is avidly told and often suspenseful, but it’s really a fascinating study of how corruption in America works. It sears you with its relevance.
  17. A Late Quartet
    Centered around four outstanding performances, Yaron Zilberman's fiction-feature debut feels like the work of a filmmaker who knows and appreciates the art form under scrutiny, laying a credible foundation for a story that lays bare the often melodramatic passions of the artistic soul.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Good Morning, Vietnam
    From the start, the film bowls you over with excitement and for those who can latch on, it’s a nonstop ride.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Mrs Palfrey at The Claremont
    A low-key drama with comedic undertones that will appeal to older auds, arthouse patrons, and Joan Plowright fans.
  20. Korengal
    Junger has emerged with a worthy companion piece in Korengal, a less harrowing, more reflective dispatch from the front lines, and an equally vital examination of the strange crucible of selflessness, courage, bloodlust, rage, confusion and fear endured by the brave men interviewed here.
  21. A Faithful Man
    If “Two Lovers” was a lively New Wave lark, exploding with color and energy, then A Faithful Man is its sober, cerebral opposite, gray and stylistically restrained, an efficient short story of a film that feels more like an intellectual exercise than an emotional experience.
  22. Sanctuary
    This is a terrifically nasty thriller about seizing control, over others and over oneself. Wigon proves to have a great grasp on it, as well; his assuredness is half of the film’s success.
  23. The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie
    Possesses charm, as well as visual and musical appeal, on the bigscreen. But as with many short-form TV entities when sextupled in length, "SpongeBob" proves more palatable as scrumptious fast food than full-scale repast.
  24. The Ninth Day
    A thoughtfully written drama of ideas with vivid performances by August Diehl and Ulrich Matthes.
  25. The Flower of Evil
    A terrific multigenerational cast brings a subtle, mordant, frequently funny tale of family secrets vividly to life.
  26. Open Range
    An intensely scenic, refreshingly humanistic oater that dares to be sincere and open-hearted.
  27. Inventing Our Life: The Kibbutz Experiment
    Toby Perl Freilich's thought-provoking documentary Inventing Our Life sketches the history of the radically socialist, more-than-100-year-old kibbutz movement.
  28. The Last Christeros
    The final days of a band of 1930s Christian rebels in the central Mexican wilderness are depicted with majestic stoicism in Matias Meyer’s elegant ode to independence.
  29. Imperial Dreams
    Even in moments that don’t ring entirely true, Boyega’s grounded performance keeps the film headed in the right direction.
  30. Evergreen: The Road to Legalization
    This dual focus on the need to end the ineffective, destructive “war on drugs” and broader questions of political compromise gives director Riley Morton’s film particular resonance.
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