Variety's Scores

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For 17,777 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: 9,133 out of 17777
  2. Mixed: 7,008 out of 17777
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17777
17777 movie reviews
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  1. Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
    Each of these episodes is well acted, follows a reasonably conventional three-act structure and emphasizes interesting female characters in a compelling situation — which is more than can be said for many portmanteau films, where one segment is markedly more satisfying than the others. But it also suggests an ongoing resistance on Hamaguchi’s part to engage with the feature form itself.
  2. City of Ghosts
    What City of Ghosts does best is to humanize those who’ve suffered most from the conflict in Syria, educating us through both outrage and compassion.
  3. Springtime in a Small Town
    Exquisitely made love story.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Player
    Mercilessly satiric yet good-natured, this enormously entertaining slam dunk quite possibly is the most resonant Hollywood saga since the days of "Sunset Blvd." and "The Bad and the Beautiful."
    • Variety
  5. Sweet Sixteen
    Rendered deeply moving by the director's peerless capacity to combine humor and compassion with honesty and despair.
  6. Ponyo
    Though targeted at tots, Ponyo may appeal most to jaded adults thirsty for wondrous beauty and unpackaged innocence
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Last Detail
    The Last Detail is a salty, bawdy, hilarious and very touching story about two career sailors escorting to a naval prison a dumb boot sentenced for petty thievery. Jack Nicholson is outstanding at the head of a superb cast.
  8. Strong Island
    It’s a moving film, but it leaves a hole in one’s outrage.
  9. The Interrupters
    James captures candid counseling sessions and heated tussles with equal dynamism, but never quite earns his 164-minute running time.
  10. Ernest & Célestine
    A charming animated feature.
  11. American Factory
    American Factory is anything but a dry documentary, and will likely be a prime contender in awards season.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Only Angels Have Wings
    In Only Angels Have Wings, Howard Hawks had a story to tell and he has done it inspiringly well.
  13. First Reformed
    In First Reformed, Paul Schrader courts respectability and leaves it in the dust, getting stoned on excess. But make no mistake: He’s still one hell of a filmmaker.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Z
    Z is a punchy political pic [from the novel by Vassilis Vassilikos] that mixes action, violence, and conspiracy on a robust, lavish scale.
  15. Baby Driver
    Like all Edgar Wright movies, Baby Driver is a blast, featuring wall-to-wall music and a surfeit of inspired ideas. But it’s also something of a mess, blaring pop tunes of every sort as it lurches between rip-roaring car chases, colorful pre-caper banter, and a twee young-love subplot.
  16. A Little Prayer
    MacLachlan’s writing style is at once honest and slightly elevated, the kind we’re used to hearing onstage, where the structure of the entire script matters, and subtext is every bit as important as what’s spoken.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Bad and the Beautiful
    The screenplay of the George Bradshaw story is exceptionally well-written.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Silence of the Lambs
    A mesmerizing thriller that will grip audiences from first scene to last.
  19. Sabaya
    Sabaya is remarkable not least for how cleanly Hirori excises himself from it, careful to not get in between the viewer and these devastating stories with their 10 different flavors of heroism.
  20. Beasts of the Southern Wild
    A stunning debut that finds its dandelion-haired heroine fighting rising tides and fantastic creatures in a mythic battle against modernity.
  21. Let the Fire Burn
    The brilliantly edited tapestry of actions and reactions exposes a pattern of prejudice and fear capable of infinitely repeating itself.
  22. Last Train Home
    The picture laudably adopts an intimate, personal approach to a subject -- hardworking Chinese garment workers -- that's been covered in more hectoring fashion elsewhere.
  23. Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution
    The movie succeeds in enlightening without ever coming across as an “eat your spinach” civics lesson.
  24. Andy Warhol: A Documentary Film
    Art aficionados the world over will want to catch the pic, which PBS airs later this month; given the impact Warhol had on the world, it's a must for culture vultures.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Persona
    Bergman has come up with probably one of his most masterful films technically and in conception, but also one of his most difficult ones.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Desire
    The direction is subtle and inspired, with many smart little Lubitschian touches adding to the general appeal of the yarn [by Hans Szekely and R.A. Stemmle] and its plot.
  27. One Fine Morning
    It knows the fragility of quiet, which is sometimes the sound of inner peace, and sometimes, per that Prévert poem, the echoing unrest of an empty space.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Double Life of Veronique
    Despite pic’s many-splendored outbursts of filmic creativity and intense emotion, final result, about the opposite destinies of a Polish girl and a French girl who look alike and have the same name and tics, remains a head-scratching cipher with blurred edges.
  29. Flight of the Red Balloon
    This eloquent study of loneliness and postmodern drift likely will be received with more admiration than rapture by the helmer's followers. But Juliette Binoche's turn as a harried single mom and pic's enlivening portrait of domestic rupture make this a highly accessible Hou.
  30. No Other Choice
    The more chaos descends, the more meticulous Park’s filmmaking becomes, as he finds giddy new ways to exploit pre-established quirks of terrain and architecture.
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