Variety's Scores

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For 17,807 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 2.4 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: 9,148 out of 17807
  2. Mixed: 7,022 out of 17807
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17807
17807 movie reviews
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  1. A LEGO Brickumentary
    Most of the jokes are real groaners, though the humor is welcome, while shooting select exteriors with tilt-shift lenses (for a miniature-faking effect that makes real-world buildings look like tiny Lego sets) adds another creative touch to the overall package.
  2. Ricki and the Flash
    This is a shaggy, easily distractible film that consistently defies expectations to both charming and baffling effect.
  3. Straight Outta Compton
    If “Compton” is undeniably of the moment, it’s also timeless in its depiction of how artists and writers transform the world around them into angry, profane, vibrant and singular personal expression.
  4. The Seventh Dwarf
    At half the length or twice the budget, this CG-animated musical mash-up of fairy tales would still be a pretty pathetic excuse for children’s entertainment, short on charm and utterly devoid of magic.
  5. The Kindergarten Teacher
    Always engrossing but also perplexing and offering little deeper than the obvious, “Teacher” still reps a new development in a striking, idiosyncratic director.
  6. A Brilliant Young Mind
    Matthews’ background as a documentarian is obvious and beneficial. But Matthews also demonstrates expertise as a director of actors, getting creditable performances across the board.
  7. I Am Chris Farley
    Worth watching for its trove of emotional testimonies from family and friends — including an atypically forthcoming Lorne Michaels and Adam Sandler — the pic is somewhat defanged by its surface-level approach and standard-issue filmmaking style.
  8. Big Significant Things
    It’s as hard for us to get invested in his journey as it is for the film to find a narrative foothold.
  9. 10 Cent Pistol
    Martin’s screenplay is so tricky in the plot-twist and scrambled-chronology departments, there’s little attention left to limn the character depths that might make us more invested in sussing out so many double- and triple-crosses.
  10. Dark Was the Night
    Solid performances help the dramatic aspects achieve at least some of the gravity aimed for, which in turn helps elevate the proceedings a notch above standard horror suspense until the final reel’s requisite violent payoff.
  11. Frank the Bastard
    Coley’s screenplay contains a few witty references and sharp one-liners, but they often work at cross-purposes with the overall narrative drive, drawing scenes out and stretching believability needlessly.
  12. Vacation
    Key to the success of the Vacation movies was their underlying sweetness — the sense that, for all their foibles, the Griswolds were a surprisingly functional lot. Families looked up at the screen and saw a version of themselves reflected back. Look at the new Vacation and all that stares back is a great comic void.
  13. Cop Car
    Watts demonstrates masterful control, pushing right up against the limits of what we can take (even non-parents will be rattled watching the boys mishandling loaded weapons), and yet, at every turn, the screenplay falls short of the picture’s full potential, missing opportunities that could have made this a classic.
  14. Cub
    Jonas Govaerts’ first feature is a pastiche of familiar horror elements that’s well crafted throughout, but falls prey to the common dilemma of finding a payoff worthy of the buildup.
  15. Zipper
    Tawdry but cripplingly self-serious, the second feature from Mora Stephens (a full decade after her little-seen, also politically themed debut “Conventioneers”) benefits from Patrick Wilson’s committed star turn.
  16. Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation
    At once questioning and reaffirming the pleasures of cinematic espionage, this is the rare sequel that leaves its franchise feeling not exhausted but surprisingly resurgent at 19 years and counting.
  17. The Vatican Tapes
    Silly, screechy and eminently watchable.
  18. A Gay Girl in Damascus: The Amina Profile
    The insights the movie has aren’t exceptional; this stranger-than-fiction series of events is enough.
  19. Five Star
    A low-key but powerfully affecting urban drama that tells a familiar story — of drugs, power and respect on the inner-city streets — with such unusual authenticity and dramatic force that it’s as if we’re seeing it for the first time.
  20. American Heist
    Slick but derivative and forgettable on all levels.
  21. Two Step
    This character-driven picture takes its time marinating in quiet conversations and Austin atmosphere, making the sudden jolts of violence all the more shocking when they land.
  22. The Gift
    Where The Gift toys with our expectations is in its refusal to align itself with any one character or to manufacture obvious heroes and villains.
  23. Pixels
    Where Sandler once exulted in our outrage (and frequently, our laughter), he now seems barely capable of mustering enough effort to carry a scene, let alone advance to level 255 of “Galaga.” There’s no joy left in his shtick.
  24. Samba
    Running a full reel longer than needed, the film’s balance of romance, humor and pathos starts to slip in the final stretch... though the emotional notes ring true.
  25. Lucky Stiff
    Another theater adaptation that remains stuck to the boards, despite the considerable talent and energy on tap..... equal parts diverting and strained, most likely to please the same niche audiences who have given the material a modest stage shelf life for the last quarter-century.
  26. Do I Sound Gay?
    Thorpe’s documentary can sometimes seem a bit intimidated by the various cans of worms it pries open, but it’s nonetheless a breezy, funny, often quite clever film more concerned with minor epiphanies than big answers.
  27. Strangerland
    Too much of Strangerland simply feels dodgy and overdetermined, veering between art-film pretensions and melodramatic gestures, and governed by ambitions that outstrip the filmmakers’ abilities.
  28. Safelight
    A handful of solid performances and some subtle ’70s period detailing are hardly enough to recommend this flat, predictable drama.
  29. Twinsters
    The overriding effect of Twinsters is a sense of pleasure at having borne witness to emotional epiphanies of the most affecting and intimate sort.
  30. A Hard Day
    It’s the nerve-racking situation that faces our hard-luck protag, with its heady black humor, social satire and a touch of surrealism, that keeps audiences on the edge of their seats.
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