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. Small Town Murder Songs
    It's a rare film that feels too short, but Small Town Murder Songs leaves one wanting more -- more murder story, mystery and revelations from lead thesp Peter Stormare and virtuoso helmer Ed Gass-Donnelly.
  2. Bumblebee
    Bumblebee shows that there’s room for a bit more nuance within the formula, but if you break it down, this relatively enjoyable film is made entirely from recycled parts.
  3. Holy Spider
    Before a final act dealing with the fascinating social fallout once Saeed’s crimes are known and he becomes, in some quarters including his own household, a hero on a righteous moral crusade, Abbasi’s film hews close to this established template.
  4. Tuck Everlasting
    Disney's tradition of intelligent, live-action family period cinema is magnificently revived in Tuck Everlasting.
  5. Dog Days
    An acid portrait of contemporary Austria (and by extension, the whole middle class) as unspeakably dull, violent and stupid. The film itself, miraculously, is just the opposite: vibrantly inventive, aesthetically rigorous, sardonic and occasionally quite brilliant.
  6. Steamboy
    Dry storytelling and boy's-toys mechanics will stop this from being the next "Spirited Away"-style crossover hit.
  7. Phantom Boy
    Though Felicioli and Gagnol’s visuals suggest colorful kidlit illustrations come to life, their labor-intensive style isn’t for everyone.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    American Me
    The criminal life is portrayed with all the glamour of a mugshot in American Me, a powerful indictment of the cycle of violence bred by the prisons and street culture.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Blue Thunder
    Blue Thunder is a ripsnorting live-action cartoon, utterly implausible but no less enjoyable for that.
  10. Yellow Letters
    At its core is the kind of cinema that has long sustained the medium at large: the family drama. But it’s presented here with invigorating flourishes that encircle the story within specific moments in time, while also granting it a stirring dramatic transcendence. The scope of its ambition is met, at every turn, by deft control over what is witnessed, and how.
  11. Fly Away
    Exceptional performances by two femme leads and sensitive but unsentimental storytelling throughout.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Take Me Out to the Ball Game
    Take Me Out to the Ball Game, backgrounded by an early-day baseball yarn, is short on story, but has some amusing moments - and Gene Kelly.
  13. Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story
    Deeply influential, even to his enemies, Atwater's career is viewed here with fascination and some sympathy.
  14. Megan Leavey
    Often too clunky for its own good, and (ahem) doggedly apolitical throughout, this earnest feel-good tale nonetheless manages to pull on the heartstrings with sufficient gentleness.
  15. The Bling Ring
    The Bling Ring traces an intriguing feedback loop of which it is knowingly a part: a movie that affords its subjects the very immortality they so aggressively sought.
  16. Dinosaur 13
    [An] engrossing documentary.
  17. The Report
    Burns, by trusting the audience, has created a darkly authentic political thriller that does exactly what a movie like this one should do. It leaves you chastened and inspired.
  18. Tread
    Tread abounds in memorable images and interviews that range from darkly comical to deeply disquieting.
  19. Causeway
    Causeway is a drama of redemption that’s both touching and a little arduous. Just because your characters are suffering doesn’t mean they have to mostly stop talking.
  20. You Don't Nomi
    The fascination of You Don’t Nomi is that it doesn’t find some fatal contradiction among the three views. “Showgirls,” it says, is a bad movie that also is a tasty slice of kitsch that also is a flawed but honestly bracing drama.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Bronco Billy
    Bronco Billy is a caricature of many of the strong heroes whom Eastwood has played in other pix and he's obviously having a wonderful time with the satire.
    • Variety
  22. After Love
    In a remarkable performance that at times suggests a desperate animal with nothing to lose, Kahn conveys the fact that Boris’ attachment to Marie hasn’t yet run its course.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Pirates of Penzance
    With the exception of Angela Lansbury, entertaining as the pirates’ nursemaid and aide-de-combat, all principal cast members have repeated their Broadway performances here, and in exemplary fashion.
  24. The Midwife
    What do you call a movie about a midlife non-crisis? How about tame, competent, mildly touching, and a little dull — except for Catherine Deneuve's fearless turn as a boozing, ailing wreck.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Q & A
    Key to film’s success is how the case gradually uncovers new layers of corruption and insidious racism, with escalating awareness (and danger) for Hutton. Nolte is outstanding, bringing utter conviction to the stream of racist and sexist epithets that pour from his good ole boy lips.
  26. Idiocracy
    A satire for its time. What Judge is less sure of here than in his previous, perfectly pitched live-action comedy "Office Space," is how to build a complete movie around his key ideas.
  27. The Trigger Effect
    David Koepp's writing-helming bow is a bleak, highly stylized view of modern civilization. While The Trigger Effect maintains a potent mood of postmodern dread, even its proponents will be wondering what all the queasy fuss was about.
  28. The Informant!
    Amusingly eccentric rather than outright funny.
  29. Crimson Peak
    Aflame with color and awash in symbolism, this undeniably ravishing yet ultimately disappointing haunted-house meller is all surface and no substance, sinking under the weight of its own self-importance into the sanguine muck below.
  30. Cyrano
    With its swooping cameras and beyond-dazzling production design, Wright’s style is more alive than ever, giving new meaning to the word “panache.”
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