Variety's Scores

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For 17,771 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 2.5 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: 9,130 out of 17771
  2. Mixed: 7,005 out of 17771
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17771
17771 movie reviews
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  1. The Duke of Burgundy
    An act of cinephilic homage that transcends pastiche to become its own uniquely sensuous cinematic object, Strickland’s densely layered, slyly funny portrayal of the sadomasochistic affair between two lesbian entomologists tips its hats to such masters of costumed erotica as Jess Franco, Tinto Brass and Jean Rollin, without ever cheapening its strange but affecting love story.
  2. The Tsugua Diaries
    Whether wholly performed or partially authentic, The Tsugua Diaries wittily evokes the volatile mood swings of lockdown — how concentrated time with the same people can yield either irritation or intensified closeness from day to day, particularly in a sticky-hot summer haze.
  3. My Golden Days
    Desplechin perfectly times the moment when drollery ends and anguish begins, and it’s that sense of vulnerability that lends the film an unexpected emotional force as it moves toward its return-home epilogue.
  4. The Wind Will Carry Us
    Takes the refined work of Iranian helmer Abbas Kiarostami up another notch to ever more metaphoric ground.
  5. What the Constitution Means to Me
    Director Heller does a better job of adapting Schreck’s play than the team behind Disney Plus’ recent “Hamilton” film, in part because the underlying production is so much simpler.
  6. Night Is Not Eternal
    Though it leaves one wanting for more hard-hitting, confrontational exchanges with Payá, “Night Is Not Eternal” evinces the road to change as winding, perilous, and far from immaculate.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    A Tale of Two Cities
    Metro achieves in A Tale of Two Cities a screen classic.
  8. Force Majeure
    Visually stunning even in its most banal moments and emotionally perceptive almost to a fault.
  9. Good One
    Collias impresses in a role that doesn’t grant her any great extremes of expression. Sam’s temperate demeanor may simply be her nature, but Collias’s tautly wired performance shows how it’s also a defense.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tampopo
    A thoroughly offbeat but most enjoyable comedy on the subject of food.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    I Know Where I'm Going!
    I Know Where I'm Going! has all the values of a documentary as a foundation for the tale of a girl who is sure she knows where she is going until she gets sidetracked - and likes it.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Blow Out
    Writer-director Brian De Palma's Blow Out is a frequently exciting $18 million suspense thriller which suffers from a distracting emphasis upon homages to other motion pictures.
  13. Diane
    It’s a tender, wrenching, and beautifully made movie, and part of what’s revelatory about it is that it’s a story of boomers who are confronting the ravages of old age (disease and death, the waning of dreams), yet they’re doing it with a stubborn echo of the hopes and desires they had when they were younger.
  14. Ten
    10 dazzling and perceptive snapshots of women with which femmes everywhere can identify.
  15. Playground
    Wandel’s immersive, impressive debut is rigorous in its resolute focus on one little girl fighting a lonely, frightened battle for her future selfhood, in which what hangs in the balance is nothing less than the shape and measure of her developing soul.
  16. Tangerine
    Writer-director Sean Baker’s sun-scorched, street-level snapshot is a work of rueful, matter-of-fact insight and unapologetically wild humor that draws a motley collection of funny, sad and desperate individuals into its protagonists’ orbit.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    sex, lies, and videotape
    A sexy, nuanced, beautifully controlled examination of how a quartet of people are defined by their erotic impulses and inhibitions.
  18. The Remains of the Day
    All the meticulousness, intelligence, taste and superior This curious, cloistered piece... is continuously absorbing but lacks the emotional resonance that would have made it completely satisfying.
  19. The Tillman Story
    A riveting account of how a soldier's death in Afghanistan was spun into a web of public lies.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    To Be or Not to Be
    To Be or Not to Be, co-starring Carole Lombard and Jack Benny, under expert guidance of Ernst Lubitsch, is absorbing drama with farcical trimmings. It's an acting triumph for Lombard, who delivers an effortless and highly effective performance that provides memorable finale to her brilliant screen career.
  21. Room
    It’s a testament to the story’s underlying integrity that, even when deprived of some of the elements that made Emma Donoghue’s 2010 book so gripping, director Lenny Abrahamson’s inevitably telescoped but beautifully handled adaptation retains considerable emotional impact.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Dog Day Afternoon
    The entire cast is excellent, top to bottom. Dog Day Afternoon is, in the whole as well as the parts, film-making at its best.
  23. The Wolf House
    It’s an endless metamorphosis that unfolds like some kind of real-time art installation, and in all honesty, it can be a touch overwhelming to take in at times — which is why the digital release of The Wolf House is a blessing in disguise, as audiences can rewind to fully appreciate this awe-inspiring film’s layers of details.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé
    It’s satisfying without being indulgent, but most of all, it’s a monument to Beyoncé’s status as one of pop’s most enduring figures, and everything it takes to get there.
  25. Anatomy of a Fall
    From the opening scene, set in an unfinished chalet in the French Alps, it often feels as if the movie is eavesdropping on moments too intimate to be shared.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The English Patient
    A respectable, intelligent but less than stirring adaptation of an imposingly dense and layered novel.
  27. Fallen Leaves
    It’s a nice but exceedingly minor movie. It leaves little imprint.
  28. Nebraska
    Throughout, Payne gently infuses the film’s comic tone with strains of longing and regret, always careful to avoid the maudlin or cheaply sentimental.
  29. Ordinary People
    A powerfully intimate domestic drama, Ordinary People represents the height of craftsmanship across the board.
  30. Under the Sand
    An exquisite reflection on personal bereavement.
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