Variety's Scores

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For 17,832 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: 9,164 out of 17832
  2. Mixed: 7,031 out of 17832
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17832
17832 movie reviews
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  1. Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine
    Though it never disguises its sympathies for Kasparov and contempt for a powerful corporation's machinations, documentary is finally a speculation on the limits of the human mind and how truth can never be fully known.
  2. 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.
  3. Werewolves Within
    Maintaining a lean sense of suspense throughout, the scribe fashions all her characters with memorable attributes and plenty of social observations, yielding a compelling range of suspects none of which you can write off entirely.
  4. On the Outs
    Skillfully entwines stories of three young women drifting in and out of a Jersey City juvenile detention center.
  5. Much Ado About Something
    Utterly fascinating, playfully probing mystery story.
  6. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
    T3 delivers the goods. A hard-hitting, straight-ahead sci-fi actioner with none of the pretentions and ponderousness that have put at least a portion of the public off of "The Matrix Reloaded" and "Hulk."
  7. Seaside
    The whole endeavor pleases with its wealth of tiny observations that add up to an affecting whole.
  8. The Lost Arcade
    The Lost Arcade is an engaging minor movie, but it touches on something that’s being lost in the age of technology that’s much bigger than video-game arcades: the feeling that there’s a reason — driving and inescapable and romantic — to leave home.
  9. The Exiles
    Columbus and Klein present a palimpsest of erratically overlapping perspectives. The results are untidy and unbalanced, but derive considerable energy from that eccentric approach.
  10. Julie & Julia
    This middling melange of Child biopic and contempo dramedy feels overstuffed and predigested as it depicts two ladies who found fame and fulfillment in their respective eras by cooking and writing about it.
  11. Emma
    A fine cast, speedy pacing and playful direction make this a solid contender for the Austen sweepstakes.
  12. Avengers: Age of Ultron
    The new movie is a sleeker, faster, funnier piece of work — the sort of sequel (like “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan,” “Superman II” and “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” before it) that shrugs off the self-seriousness of its predecessor and fully embraces its inner Saturday-morning serial.
  13. Captain America: The First Avenger
    As Marvel heroes go, Captain America must be the most vanilla of the lot.
  14. Glassland
    Rather than presenting a nuanced ending that’s open to interpretation, Barrett simply leaves us scratching our heads as to what just happened.
  15. Three... Extremes
    Plenty of vile little secrets and ghastly urges are explored in the stylishly made Asian-fusion horror triptych.
  16. Born to Be Wild
    Sticks faithfully to the giantscreen brand's impress-and-educate formula.
  17. Smash & Grab: The Story of the Pink Panthers
    Marking does an admirable job of ceding centerstage to the Panthers without letting the film turn soft or letting her subjects turn themselves into latter-day Robin Hoods.
  18. An Open Secret
    The amazing invincibility of Hollywood-entrenched pedophiles creates a thematic unity of its own in Berg’s otherwise somewhat shakily constructed film.
  19. Our New President
    The relentless flow of manufactured scandal and over-the-top lies in Our New President, all packaged with “authentic” video footage and flash-cut techniques, is sometimes funny, and sometimes depressing.... But mostly it’s scary.
  20. Brian and Charles
    A deceptively unserious movie it may be, but Brian and Charles leaves a serious trace through its pure sense of optimism.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Boston Strangler
    The Boston Strangler, based on Gerold Frank's book, emerges as a triumph of taste and restraint with a telling, low-key semi-documentary style. Adaptation is topnotch not only in structure but also in the incisive, spare dialog which defines neatly over 100 speaking parts.
  22. The Kitchen
    Even at its shakiest, however, “The Kitchen” gets by on the steam of its own fury, and on its tender depiction of a trampled underclass staving off defeat through small, everyday acts of care and empathy.
  23. Missing
    An improbable escalation of events and more than a few niggling questions about who’s doing what and how renders this screenlife thriller in dimensions that unfortunately resonate better on an intimate, handheld scale than the big screen.
  24. Something's Gotta Give
    Jokes about impotence, menopause and other middle-aged maladies reside where a screenplay ought to live.
  25. Patti Smith: Dream of Life
    The textured, thoughtful results may prove too cerebral and abstract for audiences beyond Smith's hardcore followers,
  26. The Girlfriend Experience
    Fascinating study of free enterprise in free fall. While it may disappoint thrill-seekers, "Girlfriend" should still delight Soderbergh fans and niche auds.
  27. Sausage Party
    Sausage Party is something far short of Shavian in terms of sophisticated dialogue — really, there is just so much novelty value one can milk from repetitious fusillades of F-bombs launched by animated characters — but it is difficult to deny the hilarity quotient of a movie so exuberantly and unapologetically rude and crude.
  28. Shin Godzilla (Godzilla Resurgence)
    The Original Gangsta Lizard gets a largely satisfying reboot in Shin Godzilla, a surprisingly clever monster mash best described as the “Batman Begins” of Zilla Thrillers.
  29. Mind Game
    Brain-teasing, wildly unpredictable animated feature.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Beverly Hills Cop
    Beverly Hills Cop is more cop show than comedy riot. Expectations that Eddie Murphy's street brand of rebelliousness would devastate staid and glittery Beverly Hills are not entirely met in a film that grows increasingly dramatic.
    • Variety
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