Variety's Scores

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For 17,779 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: 9,134 out of 17779
  2. Mixed: 7,009 out of 17779
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17779
17779 movie reviews
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  1. Dragon Blade
    The writer-director has overcome his tendency to weave florid plots that quickly run out of steam, here forging a coherent narrative that’s strong on physical and emotional drive.
  2. A Borrowed Identity
    Riklis’ strongest film in several years, this is another well-intentioned plea for coexistence, though apart from one scene that lays bare, with welcome righteousness, the disturbing orientalism infiltrating even Israeli intellectual circles, the whole thing is rather too scrubbed and clean.
  3. The Strongest Man
    Thinly amusing, The Strongest Man stretches a short’s worth of potentially funny ideas to feature length, where they slowly and surely lead nowhere in particular.
  4. Max
    It’s too bad the film doesn’t provide a better sense of what makes the Belgian Malinois so uniquely suited to the battlefield, or find a way to pay more than lip service to the deep bonds developed between military men and animals.
  5. Soaked in Bleach
    This heavy buildup of investigative intel may be TMI for those not already obsessed with all things Cobain. The dramatic sequences have a straightforward telepic-mystery feel, though undeniably enliven by Scott’s blowsy impersonation of the worst detective’s client imaginable.
  6. Terminator Genisys
    For all its initial playfulness, the script never rises to the level of surreal, cortex-tickling pleasure it seems to be aiming for, and for all its self-awareness it’s weirdly devoid of humor.
  7. Ted 2
    Both “Ted” movies are, ultimately, one-joke affairs rooted in the idea of taking some emblem of childhood innocence and vulgarizing it.... That joke, though, turns out to be a resilient one, and the chemistry between Wahlberg and MacFarlane is infectiously puerile.
  8. The Midnight Swim
    For much of the running time, The Midnight Swim is effectively ambiguous, but Smith’s decision to play coy with the sisters’ backstories eventually frustrates.
  9. Advantageous
    Advantageous presents an offbeat, intimate dystopian vision that is strongly intriguing for a while. But just when it should shift from a focus on ideas to emotional involvement, the pic instead grows slower and less engaging.
  10. The Princess of France
    Even the most deliberately airy amusement can use more ingenious structuring and assertive personality than Pineiro is inclined to provide at this (still early) stage in his career.
  11. Top Spin
    The film doesn’t so much avoid cliches as brush off any sentimental excess, briskly maintaining narrative flow.
  12. Boulevard
    This is one of the kindest characters Williams has ever played, which makes his self-imposed turmoil — the consequence of not wanting to hurt anyone, least of all his wife — all the more tragic.
  13. Gabriel
    An admirable if downbeat character study, Gabriel still sinks into a psychological quagmire.
  14. Any Body Can Dance 2
    If you haven’t come to see lots (and lots) of dance, you’ve come to the wrong place; and even if nothing in the second half of ABCD 2 quite reaches “Happy Hour” levels, D’Souza shoots and edits dance with a lot more savoir faire than most contemporary musical directors, mindful to keep the dancers’ entire bodies in frame, and cutting with a strong sense of spatial continuity.
  15. Minions
    Stronger on concept than story, Brian Lynch’s Minions script emphasizes scale over quantity.
  16. Ardor
    Fendrik seems more interested in the rich jungle surroundings than in the generic human struggle in the foreground, alternating between clunky setpieces (such as the sitting-duck rowboat shootout) and long stretches where the characters say nothing.
  17. Southpaw
    The undeniable intensity of Gyllenhaal’s bulked-up, Method-mumbling performance may leave you feeling more pummeled than convinced in this heavy-handed tale of redemption, in which director Antoine Fuqua once more demonstrates his fascination with codes of masculine aggression, extreme violence and not much else.
  18. 3 1/2 Minutes, 10 Bullets
    Silver (“Who is Dayani Cristal?”) keeps the focus outside the courtroom primarily on Davis’ parents, who see prosecution as their only hope of some closure in losing their only child. Their grief, bafflement and attempt to maintain some hope in the justice system lends 3 1/2 Minutes considerable poignancy.
  19. The Yes Men Are Revolting
    Another entertaining mix of agitpop, pranksterism and autobiography.
  20. Set Fire to the Stars
    Its appreciation of Thomas’ work remains superficial, while the polished filmmaking never quite finds its own poetry.
  21. Chagall-Malevich
    To call results over-the-top is less a criticism than a statement of intent. While it may be old-fashioned and silly in many respects, Mitta’s film is not dull, and its heedless embrace of cliche has a retro charm.
  22. Grandma
    Though likely to be variously praised and pilloried as a pro-choice film, Weitz’s film is really a movie about choice in both the specific and the abstract — about the choices we make, for good and for ill, and how we come to feel about them through the prism of time.
  23. Listen to Me Marlon
    The pic is a superbly crafted collage whose soundtrack is as complexly textured as the curation and editing of visual elements.
  24. Jurassic World
    It’s fun enough while it lasts, but somehow, finally, all too much and not enough. The problem isn’t that dinosaurs have ceased to impress us, but that dinosaurs alone are not enough to sustain us
  25. Alléluia
    Alleluia may be a remake, but its somber look couldn’t be more original — all the better for the film to spring its nasty surprises on auds, none more unexpected than the way certain shots remain seared into one’s subconscious in the days and weeks that follow.
  26. Doomsdays
    This kind of movie would be nothing without a terrific comic pairing, and Fitzpatrick and Rice make near-musicality of their mutual irritation.
  27. Patch Town
    Generally speaking, Goodwill doesn’t seem to know how to direct his cast, focusing more on big-picture details like the look and feel of the film. That makes for a frightfully uneven mix of acting styles, many of which are all too obviously from first-timers.
  28. Charlie's Country
    Charlie is the vessel through which de Heer navigates these turbulent waters, and the script was developed during sessions when the actor would throw out ideas and the director would structure the results. It is to both men’s credit that amid the suffering, there’s a ray of hope for Charlie in the end.
  29. Every Last Child
    Impressive though the results of the WHO’s campaign to eradicate polio may be, it is Zaidi’s lensing of the streets, waterways and people of Pakistan that lingers in the mind.
  30. Cartel Land
    There are no solutions posed; Cartel Land vividly conveys the sense that this cycle of violence can’t be stopped as long as anyone who tries to take charge (including, the film suggests, government forces in Mexico) is susceptible to corruption.
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