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. Archive
    The sleek result, like the scientist’s hi-tech Frankenstein creation, impressively looks and sounds the part, without quite having a soul of its own. That’s enough to make Archive a compelling calling card for the British freshman, with the promise of more advanced models to come.
  2. Detention
    The absorbing and entertaining Detention works well enough as a primer on a traumatic period of history, and as a story of semi-supernatural salvation for sins past, that it earns its surprisingly moving final moments, and even its heavily on-the-nose exhortation to modern-day Taiwan to remember and honor its ghosts.
  3. Ponyboi
    Sparkling like a rhinestone in the rough, Ponyboi stands out amid a lineup of cartoon gangsters, tough-guy dealers and gum-smacking prostitutes — lowlifes recycled from a hundred late-night cable movies with superficially similar plots.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Boy Who Could Fly
    Under Nick Castle’s careful direction, scenes never become maudlin, which is remarkable considering the potential of the subject matter. Deakins and Underwood handle their difficult roles with amazing grace.
  5. Brothers of the Head
    Feature debut by Yank duo Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe isn't so far from their engrossing docus on Terry Gilliam's filmic adventures, "The Hamster Factor" (1996) and "Lost in La Mancha" (2001), except here the madness and exploitation is part of the music scene.
  6. The Green Wave
    Mixed-media approach is eye-catching, and the subject is unquestionably powerful, but the sentimental score and stridently drawn imagery detract from picture's impact.
  7. Private Parts
    A funny and unexpectedly beguiling account of the outrageous humorist's unlikely rise to the pinnacle of radio celebrity.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle
    Top-flight cinematic entertainment.
  9. Patti Cake$
    In the end, it’s the ensemble’s collective attitude, plus the palpable chemistry between Patti and her friends, that defines the experience, not the stock desire to be discovered. Though if Patti Cake$ really did exist, this movie would certainly make her star.
  10. Death at a Funeral
    With a circus parade of mourning Brits and enough appalling circumstances to set proper Englishness back to the Dark Ages, Death at a Funeral pits decorum against sex, drugs and dysfunction.
  11. The Surfer
    The film is trying for something, but it’s also sketchy in the extreme.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Moscow on the Hudson
    Directed by Paul Mazursky with his usual unusual touches, Moscow would be in a lot of trouble without a superbly sensitive portrayal by Robin Williams of a gentle Russian circus musician who makes a sudden decision to defect while visiting the US.
  13. While You Were Sleeping
    Director Jon Turteltaub has a smooth style suited to classic farce and knows just how to pace the material to accentuate the positive.
  14. Yiddish Theater: A Love Story
    Its extremely narrow focus on the death throes of an art form, rather than the art itself, limits its appeal.
  15. Ma
    While the entire project seems to be commenting on all the ways that social pressures try to trap or confine us, the cinematic medium has seldom felt as free as it does in Rowlson-Hall’s hands.
  16. Wild Life
    Sidestepping thornier questions of optics and ownership, Wild Life ultimately takes the side of nature over politics, and most viewers will follow suit.
  17. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
    Shot for shot, line and line, it’s an extravagant and witty follow-up, made with the same friendly virtuosic dazzle. Yet this time you can sense just how hard the series’ wizard of a director, James Gunn (now taking off from a script he wrote solo), is working to entertain you. Maybe a little too hard.
  18. Farewell, My Queen
    A well-observed but emotionally muted costume drama that might well have been titled "My Week With Marie Antoinette."
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Deep Cover
    Convoluted and mostly unconvincing as a portrait of the drug underworld, Deep Cover [based on a story by Michael Tolkin] still carries some resonance due to its vivid portrait of societal decay and a heavyweight performance by Larry Fishburne.
  20. The Life of Chuck
    Any romantic notions the film might have are swiftly undone when it starts to explain the disappointing method behind its sleight of hand — until this explanation becomes the magic trick itself.
  21. Carol Channing: Larger Than Life
    A celebration and a lament -- a celebration of Channing's seven decades as musical comedy star, and a lament that there's really no one like her anymore.
  22. Jealousy
    More tightly scripted than Garrel’s usual rambles, the comedy-drama also has an unexpected emotional warmth.
  23. The Paper Tigers
    The three leads summon lovely chemistry, re-creating a dorky-kid dynamic in later life that feels like the perfect summation of the film’s almost Spielbergian belief that at 10 years of age we are our best and truest selves.
  24. Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot
    Some will find it entirely too sentimental, others a tad repetitive (Callahan tends to repeat the same stories), but it’s hard to argue with a movie that celebrates the kind of recovery he went through.
  25. Reality Bites
    The verite of this saga of Generation X is that it is no more fierce than a peck. "Reality Bites" begins as a promising and eccentric tale of contemporary youth but evolves into a banal love story as predictable as any lush Hollywood affair.
  26. Rosewater
    Stewart’s confident, superbly acted debut feature works as both a stirring account of human endurance and a topical reminder of the risks faced by journalists in pursuit of the truth.
  27. Stranger Than Fiction
    Sometimes becomes too self-consciously clever, and it doesn't entirely resolve its own central dilemma. But it remains inventive and funny to the end, features fine performances from Will Ferrell and especially Emma Thompson.
  28. Cairo Time
    The fourth feature from Canadian writer-helmer Ruba Nadda ("Sabah") has a slightly breathless, old-fashioned feel, calling to mind the cliched fiction found in the type of ladies' magazine the heroine edits.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Arachnophobia
    Arachnophobia expertly blends horror and tongue-in cheek comedy in the tale of a small California coastal town overrun by Venezuelan killer spiders. Frank Marshall’s sophisticated feature directing debut never indulges in ultimate gross-out effects and carefully chooses both its victims and its means of depicting their dispatch.
  30. Damsels in Distress
    Stillman proves he still knows how to write crackling, articulate dialogue for quirky preppie characters whom he loves laughing at as much as with.
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