Variety's Scores

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For 17,810 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: 9,150 out of 17810
  2. Mixed: 7,023 out of 17810
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17810
17810 movie reviews
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  1. Walking with the Enemy
    Made with obvious passion and drive, but also a nagging predilection for Holocaust-drama cliches.
  2. Small Time
    The narrative becomes more tenuous the deeper it strays into drama.
  3. Tasting Menu
    Bringing together some of the least compelling dinner guests in recent memory at a world-class restaurant that’s about to permanently close its doors, this blandly seriocomic misfire from Spanish co-writer/director Roger Gual is too lazy to rise to the level of farce, too banal and insincere to work as drama.
  4. Brick Mansions
    Delamarre knows his way around an action scene and keeps the proceedings moving briskly enough, even if the picture clocks in at about 10 minutes longer than its taut, 81-minute predecessor.
  5. The Machine
    Closer to “Her” in its musing on human/machine connectivity, while also incorporating the dystopian and action-thriller aspects of “Blade Runner” and its ilk, albeit on a much smaller scale, the pic will divide fantasy fans, some of whom will give it props for breaking somewhat from genre formula, while others will be disappointed by the largely budgetary limits of its imagination.
  6. Beneath the Harvest Sky
    Beneath the Harvest Sky offers a heartbreakingly authentic, vividly realized account of adolescent frustration and yearning.
  7. For No Good Reason
    While the effort is admirable, the result is a bit unwieldy, casting too wide a net to really plumb its subject’s depths, and defanging some of Steadman’s acid wit with an overly busy, hit-and-miss aesthetic approach.
  8. Last Passenger
    A sturdy runaway-train thriller that flaunts its influences but chugs up a decent amount of suspense.
  9. The Other Woman
    As it winds its way toward an unexpectedly grisly final showdown, The Other Woman often feels stranded between gross-out comedy, romantic fantasy and distaff psychodrama in a way that compels fascination and impatience alike.
  10. Lucky Them
    The film’s truest and most meaningful chemistry is generated by Ellie and Charlie, two individuals who are so fun to hang out with that they justify even the film’s flimsiest narrative setups.
  11. The German Doctor
    As horror scenarios go, Puenzo’s setup takes the most heavy-handed approach possible.
  12. Make Your Move
    A slick, disposable soap opera.
  13. A Haunted House 2
    It’s certainly likely to be among the worst movies in wide release this year, but it’s far from the most hateable, and that should count for something.
  14. Gabrielle
    Archambault’s handling of Gabrielle and Martin’s sexuality is one of the pic’s strong suits, presenting their desire with a refreshing, straightforward honesty.
  15. Obvious Child
    The humor springs either from real-world recognition, as Robespierre and her co-writers go where others fear to tread, or in response to the cast’s lively, eccentrically lived-in characters.
  16. God's Pocket
    John Slattery makes a wobbly transition into feature filmmaking with this drab and uninvolving dark comedy.
  17. Nas: Time Is Illmatic
    This brisk, stylish and extremely heartfelt portrait of Nas’ rise from the housing projects of Queensbridge to the heights of hip-hop royalty ably stands on its own, marked by an admirable focus on the man and his music rather than hype and hagiography.
  18. Dancing in Jaffa
    A surprising, well-crafted documentary.
  19. Stand Clear of the Closing Doors
    Consistently fascinating and suspenseful.
  20. That Demon Within
    Lam’s darkest work to date, one where violence is not just graphic but ugly, and Hong Kong symbolically comes to resemble a charnel house.
  21. Cesar's Last Fast
    While not necessarily the definitive cinematic account of Chavez’s life or the UFW movement, Cesar’s Last Fast provides a well-crafted, sometimes stirring encapsulation.
  22. Transcendence
    There are intriguing, half-formed ideas afoot in Transcendence, but the script and Pfister’s heavy, humorless direction tend to reduce everything to simplistic standoffs between good and evil.
  23. Heaven Is for Real
    Those willing to engage may be pleasantly surprised by some of its understated virtues.
  24. The Players
    The Players is an odd beast that, like all omnibus films, is only as strong as its weakest link.
  25. The Love Punch
    A creaky heist-caper comedy that hopes to get by on sunny amiability.
  26. The Sea
    [A] good, middlebrow adaptation — which, despite being scripted by Banville himself, sacrifices much of the novel’s structural intricacy for Masterpiece-style emotional accessibility.
  27. Magic Magic
    Meticulously acted, gorgeously shot and hilariously insightful about the strange, inarticulable ways people can get on one another’s nerves, this psychological thriller takes its premise to surprising, darkly comic extremes.
  28. Proxy
    Skirting horror and black-comedy terrain without quite surrendering to either, the pic proves rather bracing even if it doesn’t hold up to much plot-logic scrutiny.
  29. Perfect Sisters
    Stan Brooks’ first directorial feature provides scant psychological depth, drawing its characters and staging their incidents in crude fashion, despite superficial production gloss.
  30. Bad Country
    A blandly executed action-thriller whose cast names (Matt Dillon, Willem Dafoe) and mild ’80s Louisiana flavor offer only modest compensations for the story’s workmanlike construction and routine twists.
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