Variety's Scores

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For 17,786 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: 9,137 out of 17786
  2. Mixed: 7,013 out of 17786
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17786
17786 movie reviews
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  1. Black or White
    The good news is that Kevin Costner does some of the finest, most deeply felt work of his career as a widower lawyer fighting for custody of his biracial granddaughter in Mike Binder’s Black and White. The bad news is that this well-intentioned family drama never quite shakes free from its didactic, movie-of-the-week dramaturgy and a hand-holding approach to race-relations.
  2. Felony
    Thanks to Saville’s tightly controlled direction and a superlative cast, the mere exchange of glances builds as much suspense as the kinetic action sequence that opens the pic.
  3. Take Me to the River
    Take Me to the River compensates for a lack of originality and depth with no shortage of joyful celebration.
  4. The Good Lie
    Falardeau actually spent time filming in Sudan for a completely different project back in 1994 before being forced to evacuate by the U.N., but he consciously decides not to rub our noses in tarted-up awfulness, opting for steady-footed lensing and subdued music, then trusting our imaginations to fill in the horrors.
  5. Tusk
    An utterly bizarre, weirdly compelling story of manimal love that stakes out its own brazen path somewhere between “The Fly” and “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”
  6. This Is Where I Leave You
    If the movie never quite masters the feel of messy, grown-up life, it at least makes a few promising salvos in that direction... The actors help a lot.
  7. Beyond the Lights
    Beyond the Lights is a strange beast, a music-industry romance that alternates freely between wisdom and mawkishness, caustic entertainment-biz critique and naive wish fulfillment, heartfelt flourishes and soap-opera shenanigans.
  8. Dolphin Tale 2
    Blissfully swimming against the hyperactive kidpic tide, Dolphin Tale 2 gently peddles inspirational life lessons while respecting both its characters and its audience.
  9. The Maze Runner
    As world-creation YA pictures go, The Maze Runner feels refreshingly low-tech and properly story-driven.
  10. Born to Fly
    Born to Fly teasingly suggests that some displays of avant-garde virtuosity could be enjoyed equally by venturesome aesthetes, dance enthusiasts and devotees of World Wrestling Entertainment.
  11. I Am Eleven
    Genevieve Bailey displays a terrific knack for connecting with her subjects on topics ranging from religion to romance and the environment.
  12. No No: A Dockumentary
    While the film’s sense of chronology is at times strained and its tale of redemption hardly unique, its subject is certainly one of a kind.
  13. St. Vincent
    With St. Vincent, the chief pleasure is comedy, which typically arises from waiting to discover what Bill Murray might do next.
  14. The Equalizer
    Ponderously overlong and not even half as much fun as it should have been, The Equalizer still gets a lot of mileage out of Washington’s unassailable star presence.
  15. My Old Lady
    Its translation from stage to screen looks to have been a bit rocky, and the film never manages to transcend its actors-workshop aura and develop into something deeper.
  16. The Drop
    The Drop is at once upfront and highly effective in its manipulations, tugging at our heartstrings even as it flicks away at our nerves.
  17. Cymbeline
    Having learned a thing or two from Baz Luhrmann, Almereyda substitutes guns for daggers and picks his locations carefully, creating a rich, sultry-looking environment within which to stage the drama.
  18. The Humbling
    Fronted by a vibrant, deeply committed Al Pacino performance and very fine support from Greta Gerwig, this uneven but captivating film deserves to find its own audience, though doing so will surely prove to be an uphill climb.
  19. The Judge
    The Judge pivots on a simple yet inspired stroke of casting, pitting Duvall’s iconic gravitas against Downey’s razor-sharp wit, and then supplying no shortage of opportunities for both men to chew the scenery.
  20. The Identical
    All things considered, The Identical might have worked better as a TV miniseries, a format that would allowed the filmmakers to give equal time to Hemsley’s story.
  21. Thunder and the House of Magic
    It’s a thin premise that cues much cheery knockabout comedy, with ample scope for impressively whooshy 3D tracking shots.
  22. Rocks in My Pockets
    Boasting a narrative of extraordinary complexity and density, stuffed with irony, humor and tales-within-tales, the imaginative animated memoir Rocks in My Pockets merges a mini-history of 20th-century Latvia with that of helmer Signe Baumane and her forebears.
  23. Once Upon a Time Verônica
    “Veronica” is accomplished in aesthetics if not thematic weight, with a handsome look and some attractive soundtrack choices.
  24. Wild
    While Wild will surely be praised in the coming months for having a strong, well-written, flesh-and-blood female at its center, it’s to the film’s credit that it wears this badge of honor with a lightness that in no way undermines its sincerity.
  25. She's Funny That Way
    An enthusiastic but low-fizz romantic farce that gets by principally on the charms of a cast speckled with gifted funnymen (and, more particularly, funnywomen).
  26. Before I Go to Sleep
    There’s perilously little playfulness to be found either in the script or its otherwise handsomely ashen cinematic treatment.
  27. 99 Homes
    This dynamically acted, unapologetically contrived pic reps the filmmaker’s best chance to date of connecting with a wider audience — one likely to share the helmer’s bristling anger over corruptly maintained class divides in modern-day America.
  28. The Imitation Game
    So innately compelling is Turing’s story — to say nothing of Benedict Cumberbatch’s masterful performance — it’s hard not to get caught up in this well-told tale and its skillful manipulations.
  29. Manglehorn
    Something about working with Pacino forces what could have been a breaks-the-mold character portrait into factory-made territory.
  30. The Boxtrolls
    The meticulously crafted world is stunning to behold, imagined to the minutest detail and photographed with the sort of dramatic lighting and dynamic camera movement rarely seen in stop-motion. Trouble is, it’s not a place most folks would care to spend any time.
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