Variety's Scores

Select another publication »
For 17,777 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: 9,133 out of 17777
  2. Mixed: 7,008 out of 17777
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17777
17777 movie reviews
view
per page
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Written on the Wind
    Tiptop scripting from the Robert Wilder novel, dramatically deft direction by Douglas Sirk and sock performances by the cast give the story development a follow-through.
  2. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
    They’ve done it. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse doesn’t just extend the tale of Miles Morales. The film advances that story into newly jacked-up realms of wow-ness that make it a genuine spiritual companion piece to the first film. That one spun our heads and then some; this one spins our heads even more (and would fans, including me, have it any other way?).
  3. Stand Clear of the Closing Doors
    Consistently fascinating and suspenseful.
  4. Heavenly Creatures
    An exhilarating retelling of a 1950s tabloid murder, it combines original vision, a drop-dead command of the medium and a successful marriage between a dazzling, kinetic techno-show and a complex, credible portrait of the out-of-control relationship between the crime’s two schoolgirl perpetrators.
  5. Dreamcatcher
    Conventionally constructed but remarkable for the honest, intimate rapport it achieves with highly vulnerable human subjects.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Richard III
    Spirited acting, machine-gun pacing and ominous Art Deco settings combine to rousing effect in this Richard III, a sure-fire crowd-pleaser among recent Shakespeare movies.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    They Were Expendable
    The picture vividly portrays the big job the little boats did. The battle scenes in which the P-Ts go after Jap cruisers and supply ships were exceptionally well directed.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Black Narcissus
    The cast has been well chosen, but Kerr gets only occasional opportunities to reveal her talents.
  9. Million Dollar Baby
    Staying at the top of his game when most of his contemporaries have long since hung up their gloves, Clint Eastwood delivers another knockout punch with Million Dollar Baby.
  10. Last Days in Vietnam
    The docu’s accomplished summary of tension-filled events as they transpired from minute to minute comes at the expense of wide-angle historical context.
  11. Krisha
    Shults’s approach craftily favors observation over exposition, and he proves as attentive to Krisha’s surroundings as he is to her inner life.
  12. Dawson City: Frozen Time
    The remarkable thing is that the movie acquires the quality of a time machine. You don’t just watch “Dawson City.” You step into it to and draw back a magical curtain on the past, entering a world of buried memory that’s the precursor to our own.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Rebecca
    Picture is noteworthy in its literal translation of Daphne du Maurier’s novel to the screen, presenting all of the sombreness and dramatic tragedy of the book in its unfolding. More important, it commands attention in establishing Joan Fontaine as a potential screen personality of upper brackets.
  14. Josephine
    While some might find it triggering, “Josephine” dares to confront the life-shattering intersection of sex and violence in our culture, facing the toughest of “adult situations” with clear eyes.
  15. The Inheritance
    Brainy, mannered, dryly amused, “The Inheritance” can appear willfully inexpert; the self-conscious acting feels both deliberate and the work of a director who hasn’t spent much time working with actors. But Asili dives confidently into big ideas — ideas as ideology, as wondrous inspiration, as both.
  16. The Babadook
    This meticulously designed and directed debut feature from writer-director Jennifer Kent (expanded from her award-winning short, “Monster”) manages to deliver real, seat-grabbing jolts while also touching on more serious themes of loss, grief and other demons that can not be so easily vanquished.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Dead Ringers
    Cronenberg handles his usual fondness for gore in muted style.
  18. Little Men
    Ira Sachs’ Little Men is a little movie brimming with little truths about modern life. It won’t change the world, but it does understand it
  19. Boogie Nights
    Darkly comic, vastly entertaining and utterly original.
  20. The Kids Are All Right
    Sparked by wonderfully lived-in performances from Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo, The Kids Are All Right is alright, if not up to the level of writer-director Lisa Cholodenko's earlier pair of new bohemian dramas, "High Art" and "Laurel Canyon."
  21. Welcome to Chechnya
    The ironically inviting title only hints at part of the story in this wholly devastating documentary: The crisis, it turns out, is all around us.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Straight Story
    Lynch has directed his most satisfyingly disciplined movie.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Great Escape
    Producer-director John Sturges has fashioned a motion picture that entertains, captivates, thrills and stirs.
  24. Manakamana
    For all its manipulations and self-imposed restrictions, Manakamana is expansive, intricate and surprisingly playful.
  25. Cave of Forgotten Dreams
    Filtering the world's oldest paintings through the latest in cinematic technology, Werner Herzog delivers a one-of-a-kind art-history lesson in Cave of Forgotten Dreams.
  26. Our Land (Nuestra Tierra)
    A slow-burning, increasingly incensed unraveling of a horrific murder case underpinned by colonialist privilege and prejudice, it too demands patience of its viewers — though it rewards them with steadily rising emotional impact and a long view of Latin American history that transcends any true-crime trappings.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Big Sleep
    Brittle Chandler characters have been transferred to the screen with punch by Howard Hawks' production and direction, providing full load of rough, tense action most of the way.
  28. King of the Hill
    King of the Hill has all the rich satisfactions of a fine novel.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Carrie
    Carrie is a modest but effective shock-suspense drama about a pubescent girl, her evangelical mother and cruel schoolmates. Stephen King's novel, adapted by Lawrence D. Cohen, combines in unusual fashion a lot of offbeat story angles.
    • Variety
  30. The Red Turtle
    Michael Dudok de Wit’s hypnotizing, entirely dialogue-free The Red Turtle is a fable so simple, so pure, it feels as if it has existed for hundreds of years, like a brilliant shard of sea glass rendered smooth and elegant through generations of retelling.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »