Variety's Scores

For 17,807 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:
17807 movie reviews
  1. Danner makes an elegant, warmly sympathetic heroine in this sometimes broadly played but always tender and appealing effort.
  2. Nothing about the circumstances revealed in The Harvest could be called normal, and yet it’s a credit to a fertile imagination that the film proves so terrifyingly relatable.
  3. A wry, oh-so-gentle dual character study saved from sleepiness by the unexpected star pairing of Catherine Deneuve and Gustave Kervern.
  4. A mesmerizing glimpse into Sarno’s search for a sub-Saharan Walden and the implications of that choice.
  5. The unresolvable tension between logic and feeling animates Eugene Green’s La Sapienza, an exquisite rumination on life, love and art that tickles the heart and mind in equal measure.
  6. The eighth entry in Disney’s eco-minded Disneynature series, Monkey Kingdom may well be its cheekiest, funniest and most purely entertaining.
  7. Desert Dancer traffics in the kind of spirited rebel-youth archetypes who’ve been endemic to dance movies for decades.
  8. Although it sports a few fresh moments, the tonally all-over-the-place drama is hampered by script and assembly problems.
  9. Superfast! takes aim at easy targets, and misses by miles.
  10. Munzi focuses on incongruous leftovers from a benighted past, where kinship and blood feuds in a marginalized corner of rural Italy fester until entire communities are drawn into a whirlpool of intimidation and violence. This is the film’s strong suit.
  11. As heroines go, it’s refreshing to get one as complex as this: When psychologically scarred female characters do turn up in thrillers, they’re usually little more than shivering victims who set a group of male cops in motion, but here, Libby does her own detective work, while Hendricks lends star power to the flashback scenes.
  12. A textbook noir premise gets an overamped and undercompelling treatment in The Girl Is in Trouble.
  13. Where Haupt succeeds is in conveying the passion felt by everyone who works on the Sagrada, from foremen to sculptors.
  14. Fails to convince on several crucial levels, including plotting and dialogue.
  15. Appealing performances by a trio of second- and third-generation Hollywood kids keep this three-hankie twaddle more bearable than it deserves.
  16. With nearly five-decade screen veteran Ulfsak setting the wry, soulful tenor, Tangerines balances humor and seriousness in deft fashion, its delicacy abetted by all thesps and design contributions.
  17. Cinematically speaking, this high-concept, low-budget sci-fi mind-bender falls into the same category as Shane Carruth’s shoestring marvel “Primer,” relying on creative ingenuity rather than elaborate effects to keep geek auds ensnared by its multi-layered mystery.
  18. Brand: A Second Coming is never dull, moving at a busy clip appropriate to its seemingly tireless globe-trotting protagonist.
  19. Momentarily abandoning the strain of imagining liberation within a realistically perceived Israel, Fox here settles for the ephemeral glow of an exuberant block party.
  20. What does register at every turn is a vibrant sense of time and place that pulls us into Hardy’s bygone world even when the drama falters.
  21. Even with such generic scripting, however, there’s a genial, palpably enthusiastic chemistry between the four young, capable stars that gives their hijinks a bit of bounce.
  22. Often poignant, occasionally pathetic, but never short of entertaining, Raiders! captures the obsessive hold movies have on young people’s imaginations.
  23. Shults’s approach craftily favors observation over exposition, and he proves as attentive to Krisha’s surroundings as he is to her inner life.
  24. This sophomore directing effort for Ross Katz (“Taking Chance”) resolves itself a bit too tidily in the final stretch, but sustains affection most of the way with its well-observed moments and gently offbeat comic rhythms.
  25. As carefully crafted as the clothes is Tcheng’s well-considered direction, privileging the creative process over stereotyped glamour or backstabbing.
  26. Last Knights is a fairly ludicrous mystery and a so-so action movie, but it’s nonetheless been constructed with an earnest attention to detail that shouldn’t be taken for granted.
  27. Watching an estimable quintet of character actors do their thing is the chief pleasure of Cut Bank.
  28. As much as the movie rocks, Lambert & Stamp drops the needle to reveal the deep pain barely hidden in the grooves.
  29. Boyle keeps the wheels churning nicely for the most part, and the climax ratchets up the pic’s sense of urgency without loosening its bearings.
  30. The Barber is a slick but ultimately underwhelming psychochiller.

Top Trailers