Variety's Scores

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For 17,833 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: 9,165 out of 17833
  2. Mixed: 7,031 out of 17833
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17833
17833 movie reviews
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  1. Mondays in the Sun
    A tough-but-tender movie driven by perfectly modulated performances, an accomplished script and naturalistic dialogue, all at the service of an oft-told message about overcoming circumstances.
  2. Enigma
    Intelligent, involving and intricately plotted thriller.
  3. The Sixth Sense
    Borderline dull to sit through, The Sixth Sense is actually rather interesting to think about afterward because of the revelation of its ending.
  4. Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle
    Gleefully upends expectations and delivers an energetic comedy tracing two guys'all-night search for the perfect White Castle burger.
  5. Chain
    Links narrative fiction filmmaking to avant-garde with vision and authority.
  6. Pizza Movie
    Pizza Movie is disposable, practically by design, but it may have happened upon a comic duo worth reteaming.
  7. Swiss Army Man
    At times deliriously dynamic, at others patience-grating in the extreme, the constantly inventive film fires off ideas that are as exhilarating as anything American audiences will see all year, only to lag in long swells on either side.
  8. Bettie Page Reveals All
    It has a somewhat routine midlevel-cable-production feel. But the content is engaging, and the use of old movie clips to illustrate biographical details... is amusing.
  9. Whitney: Can I Be Me
    It just has a story to tell, and it does that incredibly compellingly.
  10. Medora
    Filmmakers Andrew Cohn and Davy Rothbart uncover and illuminate a strain of stoic resilience that could be the last best defense against bottomless despair. Unfortunately, as Medora repeatedly suggests, that invaluable resource may not be inexhaustible.
  11. XX
    Even at their least individually striking, each of these mismatched tasters stirs an appetite for a fuller, meatier meal from its maker — cooked as bloodily rare as possible, please.
  12. Keep an Eye Out
    It’s a mildly amusing trifle, but Dupieux has already made several of those. It’s one thing not to challenge your viewers, but another not to challenge yourself — something Dupieux has shown little interest in doing.
  13. Ready or Not
    The violence here is so over-the-top that it can lapse into comedy, prompting shocked laughter when certain characters are unexpectedly killed, and again when it comes time to dispose of their bodies, none of which can adequately prepare you for the film’s explosively funny finale.
  14. Che
    If the director has gone out of his way to avoid the usual Hollywood biopic conventions, he has also withheld any suggestion of why the charismatic doctor, fighter, diplomat, diarist and intellectual theorist became and remains such a legendary figure; if anything, Che seems diminished by the way he's portrayed here.
  15. Wolke Neun
    Overall tone lies somewhere between Mike Leigh and Ken Loach in performances and look, with a modest tech package.
  16. Youth
    Paolo Sorrentino, with Youth, delivers his most tender film to date, an emotionally rich contemplation of life’s wisdom gained, lost and remembered — with cynicism harping from the sidelines, but as a wearied chord rather than a major motif.
  17. The Kidnapping of Michel Houellebecq
    This genuine curio gets surprising mileage from Houellebecq’s deft, self-effacing performance at the center of a lively comic ensemble.
  18. Look Both Ways
    An imaginative, humorous and truthful contemplation of human reaction to the inexplicable.
  19. Canopy
    The aural landscape here is key, as Wilson’s strategy is to create a visual theater of the mind in which the majority of the action is heard and not seen.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Hills Have Eyes
    Wes Craven’s blood-and-bone frightener about an all-American family at the mercy of cannibal mutants is a satisfying piece of pulp.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Saboteur
    Saboteur is a little too self-consciously Hitchcock. Its succession of incredible climaxes, its mounting tautness and suspense, its mood of terror and impending doom could have been achieved by no one else. That is a great tribute to a brilliant director. But it would be a greater tribute to a finer director if he didn't let the spectator see the wheels go round, didn't let him spot the tricks - and thus shatter the illusion, however momentarily.
  22. Babysitter
    The film is based on screenwriter Catherine Léger’s play, and perhaps the herky-jerk structure works on stage. On screen, however, it just feels undisciplined, as its Quentin Dupieux-style visual drollery never quite gels with its more obvious, broadly smutty farce.
  23. The Whale
    When a baby orca strayed from its family pod near Puget Sound and showed up 200 miles away in Canada in 2001, it became the center of a long-running human drama by turns cute, inspirational, ludicrous and tragic, as documented in The Whale.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Code of Silence
    Code of Silence is a predictability cacophonous cops-and-crooks yarn [by Michael Butler and Dennis Shryack] that is actually quite good for the type.
    • Variety
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Continental Divide
    For a picture that you can't really believe for a second, Continental Divide still comes off as a reasonably engaging entertainment thanks to some lively performances and a liberal dose of laughs throughout the script.
  26. Mitt
    This is neither an indictment nor an endorsement but simply a refreshing departure from the combative tone of contemporary politics and political coverage.
  27. Nasty Baby
    Silva assembles a loosely scripted, raucously nonconformist laffer that looks like it’s going one way, only to arrive somewhere else entirely — a change of heart that’s not at all to the advantage of a film.
  28. Born to be Blue
    Upending the conventions of the musical rise-and-fall formula while still offering a relatively straightforward three-act narrative, the film is anchored by an Ethan Hawke performance that ranks among the best of his career.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Wolfen
    Wolfen is consistently more interesting than it is thrilling. Wadleigh creates a surreal point-of-view for the killers that works effectively, accented by handy digital sound.
  30. Come Early Morning
    Despite her (Judd's) efforts and those of a generally talented cast, picture just pokes along and offers nothing out of the ordinary in terms of drama, characterization or insight. Judd's presence notwithstanding, this one would be more at home on small than on big screens.
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