Variety's Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
  1. Fifty-Fifty
    Schizo manages to keep it fresh.
  2. Comedy of Power
    While the picture may be too subtle and oblique in places for more general audiences, it remains enjoyable as a sardonic glimpse of unspoken codes at the intersection of politics and business.
  3. I am Cuba, the Siberian Mammoth
    Pic's rediscovery in the capitalist U.S., and its reappraisal as a masterpiece of visual pyrotechnics, gives Brazilian documaker Vicente Ferraz's tale an upbeat final twist -- after some mid-film doldrums.
  4. Slingshot
    Supplies no end of shock, but an underdeveloped emotional core keeps the viewer at arm's length.
  5. Infinitely Polar Bear
    Forbes brings a marvelous warmth and specificity to this story of a mixed-race family struggling to survive, aided considerably by one of Mark Ruffalo’s richest, most appealing performances.
  6. Cloverfield
    Despite its indie-flavored shooting style, first-rate visual effects, reasonable intensity factor, nihilistic attitude and post-9/11 anxiety overlay, this punchy sci-fier is, in the end, not much different from all the marauding creature features that have come before it.
  7. Miles Ahead
    Don Cheadle flails about trying to channel the spirit of late jazz-trumpeting legend Miles Davis in Miles Ahead, a biopic that rejects typical genre conventions to the point of chasing itself down lame, tangential paths.
  8. Fury
    Though colorfully embellished with authentic detail and logistically complex to bring to the screen, Ayer’s script is bland at the most basic story level, undermined by cardboard characterizations and a stirring yet transparently silly climactic showdown.
  9. Tamara Drewe
    Adapted from a comicstrip-turned-graphic novel by Posy Simmonds, which was itself based on Thomas Hardy's "Far From the Madding Crowd," picture represents a satirical but soft-biting swipe at contempo middle-class mores among Blighty's chattering countryside classes.
  10. To the Bone
    It’s not an easy sit, nor a terribly entertaining one, but in the hands of writer-director Marti Noxon, it delivers painful insights in a relatively fresh way.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Fool for Love
    Robert Altman directs a fine cast with all the authority and finesse a good play deserves, so it's too bad the play fooled them all. Sam Shepard's drama of intense, forbidden love in the modern West is made to seem like specious stuff filled with dramatic ideas left over from the 1950s.
  12. The Reception
    Superb emotional thesping complements script's measured restraint.
  13. Nadja
    After creating such promise through the intriguing setup of stunning twin vampires in trendy, nocturnal Gotham, it’s disappointing that Almereyda develops narrative butterfingers, letting the storyline become too diffuse and cutting among too many principal characters.
  14. Following Sean
    As fascinating as it is frustrating.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Micki + Maude
    Micki + Maude is a hilarious farce. For his part, Dudley Moore is in top antic form, and Amy Irving has never been better.
  16. The Young Victoria
    Well-groomed, upscale, three-hankie entertainment for the “Masterpiece Theater” crowd.
  17. The Road
    Except for the physical aspects of this bleak odyssey by a father and son through a post-apocalyptic landscape, this long-delayed production falls dispiritingly short on every front.
  18. Bombay Rose
    Indeed, there’s such an abundance of labored-over beauty in Bombay Rose that it feels almost churlish to say its storytelling is less enrapturing: Rao, who animated, edited and wrote the film on her own, seems to be least assured on the last of those tasks.
  19. Coma
    As difficult as it can be to tell what’s real and what’s not here, it’s even more difficult to care: “Coma” seems to have poured out of Bonello stream-of-consciousness style, and analyzing it is about as rewarding as trying to make sense of the half-remembered dream your friend won’t stop talking about.
  20. True Crime
    Eastwood's latest picture boasts tight storytelling, sharp acting and an eye for unexpected, enlivening detail.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Cross of Iron
    Cross of Iron more than anything else affirms director Sam Peckinpah's prowess as an action filmmaker of graphic mayhem.
  22. The Musical
    Like its eminently problematic anti-hero, The Musical says its piece with conviction to spare, and a welcome streak of cat-among-the-pigeons danger rarely found in contemporary American comedy.
  23. Surf's Up
    Every bit as entertaining as the early Christopher Guest efforts.
  24. Miss Sloane
    Miss Sloane is a talky, tense political thriller, full of verbal sparring and fiery monologues, undone by a really dumb ending. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t smart for most of its running time.
  25. Vivarium
    Vivarium has a canny visual design (you won’t soon forget the rows of Monopoly houses), but the movie becomes an example of the imitative fallacy. It makes the audience feel deadened too.
  26. The Luzhin Defence
    A smoothly made period romancer that's elevated by strong playing from its whole cast, led by John Turturro and Emily Watson as the starstruck lovers.
  27. The Princess and the Warrior
    Eminently stylish, visually striking romantic thriller.
  28. AKA
    Always watchable yet ultimately self-defeating in terms of its tonal/aesthetic choices.
  29. The Dancer Upstairs
    The film is powered by a superbly controlled performance from Javier Bardem. While it lacks economy and could have used a firmer hand in shaping the key central relationship, this intelligent, arrestingly sober drama packs a cumulative punch.
  30. Sleep Furiously
    Picture's tone is far more poetic than polemical.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »