Variety's Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
  1. Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams
    The moments of inspired originality are all too infrequent. There's enough eye candy and marvels on screen, however.
  2. Heist
    While staccato dialogue and edgy confrontations have always been the wordsmith's forte, the precision-tooled mechanics of an elaborate crime caper have not, and the physical direction here could use some muscle.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Barbershop
    A rousing celebration of the family-run small business, this Ice Cube-topped ensemble comedy, without offering anything especially new or exciting, provides a springboard for high-voltage comic exchanges that double as wisecrack-coated lessons in community relations.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Bridget Jones's Diary
    Misses its mark, failing to capitalize on the staccato rhythms and sardonic wit of Bridget's inner life.
  5. We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists
    A cumulative feeling of urgency and you-are-there world-beating are key to the picture's seductive appeal, though lack of informed dissenting opinions reps an unfortunate editorial choice.
  6. Under the Influence
    Under the Influence is a very absorbing, very disquieting, very meaningful-for-our-time documentary.
  7. The Survival of Kindness
    Man’s enormous inhumanity to man is reproduced in precise, characterful miniature, with a pared-back artistry that somehow earns de Heer the right to be thematically blunt, and deeply pessimistic.
  8. Story Ave
    [An] affecting debut feature.
  9. Mothering Sunday
    Telling a story that advocates living boldly over not living at all, Husson has followed suit, opening up exciting new possibilities for her career in the process.
  10. Moebius
    A gloriously off-the-charts study in perversity.
  11. Elf
    Will Ferrell graduates to his first solo leading role with flying colors in Elf, a disarming holiday comedy about a clueless innocent who saves Christmas and fosters a renewed sense of family in his reluctant father.
  12. The Way Back
    This arduous travelogue focuses on the macro (stunning, David Lean-like landscapes) and the micro (countless closeups of blistered flesh) to the virtual exclusion of compelling characters.
  13. Shadow in the Cloud
    Hardly a minute of the movie registers as “realistic,” but that hardly matters, since Liang so fully commits to its over-the-top sensibility that you’ll be clutching the armrest and grinning with glee for most of the ride.
  14. Island of Lemurs: Madagascar
    A pleasant if fairly pedestrian viewing experience, one that more or less gets the job done in terms of balancing the requisite ooh-ahh moments with another unsurprising reminder of man’s capacity for selfishness and destruction.
  15. A League of Ordinary Gentlemen
    Chris Browne's sense of humor captures perfectly the contradictions, absurdities and drama at the intersection of class, media, money and sports without dissing any of his player/subjects.
  16. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
    Mixes satisfying dollops of fun, tears, travel, romance and lesson-learning in a handsome package whose two hours pass faster than many a grownup entertainment.
  17. The Sugar Curtain
    Those on both sides of the great Cuba divide should find food for thought in these sober, realistic reflections.
  18. Unsettled
    Hootnick seems determined to make everyone likable, no matter how vapid, objectionable or ill-articulated their views are. The emphasis on personality over politics or serious debate makes the pic feel lightweight, ill-suited to theatrical exposure.
  19. One Hundred Mornings
    Though never intended to match "The Road" for gruesome veracity or Michael Haneke's "Time of the Wolf" for full-on mysterious dread, this Irish production doesn't cut much of its own niche in an overworked genre.
  20. Cold Fish
    Like most Sono pictures, too long. But its gleeful humor and dare-you-to-watch aesthetic will help it rack up kills at specialty fests.
  21. The One I Love
    Boasting spectacular performances from Duplass and Elisabeth Moss as a husband and wife on the brink of separation, this incredibly assured directorial debut of Charlie McDowell essentially turns the idea of a two-hander upside down and inside out.
  22. One Floor Below
    Like a pot set to bubble only every few seconds, the drama is tightly measured to ensure a controlled level of tension that remains discreetly constant, nicely melding with Muntean’s skilled construction of three-dimensional bourgeois life.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Beguiled
    Marking a distinct change of pace for both director Don Siegel and star Clint Eastwood, The Beguiled doesn’t come off, and cues laughter in all the wrong places.
  24. Kangaroo
    Kangaroo deserves credit for presenting a wealth of informed opinions and impressing the need for a change of thinking if solutions are ever to be found.
  25. The Price of Free
    The film’s edge, if not its worthiness, is slightly dulled by an over-slick approach that in the end makes it feel less like reportage than a first-class fundraising video.
  26. Young Ahmed
    Instantly recognizable as a Dardenne film, Young Ahmed has that same deceptively “rough” quality as the directors’ earlier work, a carryover from their documentary background. And yet, they are astonishingly efficient storytellers, weaving the necessary clues audiences need to evaluate — and at times entirely reconsider — their characters with the expertise of veteran detective novelists.
  27. Harriet
    Harriet is a conscientiously uplifting, devoted, rock-solid version of her story. Yet when it comes to putting the audience in touch with what’s extraordinary about Harriet Tubman — not just illustrating what she did but letting us connect with that quest, and with her, on a moment-to-moment level — Harriet is a conventional and rather prosaic piece of filmmaking.
  28. Scare Me
    Scare Me would work even better onstage. On screen, it feels like an experiment in minimalism. The film is heavy-handed only in Fred’s fear of emasculation and Fanny’s digs at “desperate white dudes,” troweled on for socially relevant heft.
  29. Guidance
    The modest pic’s laughs get bigger as it goes along, and so does its surprising warmth.
  30. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
    Though the movie is too long, I was more gratified than not to sink into its relatively old-fashioned dramatic restraint.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »