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. The Two Faces of January
    Best known as the screenwriter of such subtext-rich adaptations as “The Wings of the Dove” and “Drive,” Amini excels at conveying the subtle, unspoken tensions between characters, selecting a tightrope-risky example with which to make his directorial debut and orchestrating it with aplomb.
  2. The Great Museum
    There are no interviews, thankfully no voiceovers, and no music; Holzhausen respects the viewer’s intelligence, just as he respects the museum staff.
  3. A Woman, a Part
    A Woman, a Part knows how to hold an audience, and it’s got a fresh, if commercially limited, subject: What happens when hipsters get old.
  4. Nureyev
    Nureyev delivers Nureyev’s life in all its ecstasy and tragedy. As a documentary, it’s not definitive, but it’s good enough to leave you thrilled and haunted by this man who, at the height of his artistry, seemed to leap off the earth and leave it behind.
  5. The BFG
    No matter how fantastical the tale (and it gets pretty out-there at points), this splendid Steven Spielberg-directed adaptation makes it possible for audiences of all ages to wrap their heads around one of the unlikeliest friendships in cinema history, resulting in the sort of instant family classic “human beans” once relied upon Disney to deliver.
  6. The Kid Who Would Be King
    With its retro-video-game score and “Goonies”-style gang of misfit characters, the movie plays like a throwback to Spielberg-produced adventure films of the ’80s. And yet, the premise feels wobbly at best.
  7. Shaft
    Directed by Gordon Parks with a subtle feel for both the grit and the humanity of the script. Excellent cast, headed by newcomer Richard Roundtree, may shock some audiences with heavy dose of candid dialog and situation.
  8. The Dog Doc
    This documentary is not an infomercial for the Smith Ridge Veterinarian Center, but rather a wildly compassionate call to arms for a profession in need of advancement.
  9. Users
    In her voiceover, Almada, who has made one fiction feature but mostly works in documentary form, shuffles through half-formed ideas too randomly to gather these scattered wonders into an identifiable thesis.
  10. Diggers
    Basically "Diner" in wading boots, it feels very familiar in conceit and unadventurous in execution, but offers the undeniable pleasures of a well-observed, well-played modest seriocomedy.
  11. Crash
    The tense drama eventually becomes off-putting when it becomes clear almost every scene hinges on an unpleasant or ugly racial interaction.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Tommy
    Ken Russell's filmization of Tommy is spectacular in nearly every way. The enormous appeal of the original 1969 record album by The Who has been complemented in a superbly added visual dimension.
  13. The Danish Girl
    There’s no denying that Hooper and screenwriter Lucinda Coxon have delivered a cinematic landmark, one whose classical style all but disguises how controversial its subject matter still remains.
  14. Game Night
    The movie manipulates its audience in cunning and puckish ways. It’s no big whoop, but you’re happy to have been played.
  15. Don Jon
    Gordon-Levitt’s script can be a bit on-the-nose at times, but that’s an indulgence easily forgiven in a debut feature, and this ensemble winningly sells the movie’s tricky tonal mix.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    White Palace
    Outstanding performances by Susan Sarandon and James Spader, working from a relentlessly witty script, make White Palace one of the best films of its kind since The Graduate (1967).
    • 66 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Colors
    A solidly crafted depiction of some current big-city horrors and succeeds largely because of the Robert Duvall-Sean Penn teaming as frontline cops.
  18. So Close
    Slickly packaged, unashamedly exploitative popcorn movie.
  19. Voices of Iraq
    With Iraqis pointing cameras at each other, the result is cheerier than might be expected.
  20. Bend It Like Beckham
    Writer-helmer Gurinder Chadha assembles a gallery of broadly played stereotypes into a movie about social attitudes that's more rooted in small-screen sitcom than anything deeper.
  21. El bonaerense
    Not exactly a police corruption thriller, the film is more a study of innocence betrayed, though its insights into Argentine law enforcement are pretty scary.
  22. Barking Dogs Never Bite
    While the slender idea feels stretched at feature length and fails to brings its themes of societal chaos together in a fully cohesive way, the film is fresh and lively enough to score further festival bookings, particularly at events devoted to new talent.
  23. Rhino Season
    Burdened with a complex flashback structure and an unemotional core, this multi-decade saga of an imprisoned Iranian poet and his family has surprisingly little resonance.
  24. The Prestige
    Clearly, director Nolan is aiming for something else. But the delight in sheer gamesmanship that marked his breakout "Memento" doesn't survive this project's gimmickry and aspirations toward "Les Miserables"-style epic passion.
  25. I Get Knocked Down
    When the movie — co-directed and produced by Emmy winner Sophie Robinson (“My Beautiful Broken Brain”) — relaxes into a more traditional doc approach, it’s on surer, if less dramatic, footing.
  26. POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold
    A consistently amusing and not entirely vacuous stunt.
  27. Judy
    Director Rupert Goold and resurgent star Renée Zellweger have pulled off something unusual and affecting in Judy: a biographical portrait in which performer and subject meet halfway, illuminating something of each other in the process.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    I.Q.
    A paean to movies past, I.Q. recalls the style and attitude of a bygone era while retaining a contemporary spirit and polish. The material provides Robbins with the kind of likable, charismatic role that gained him early recognition.
  29. Better Nate Than Ever
    Funny, vibrant, yet schmaltzy to a fault, this Disney Plus family film can carry a tune, but falters in crafting a runaway hit.
  30. Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die
    Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is an unapologetically irreverent, wildly inventive, end-is-nigh take on the time-loop movie — call it “Terminator 2: Groundhog Day” — except that here, Rockwell’s dizzy protagonist knows what it takes to stop the cycle.
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