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. Rancher, Farmer, Fisherman
    Rancher, Farmer, Fisherman is designed to go down easy among exactly the audiences who might assume all environmentalists are “radicals,” but would readily identify with the folksy protagonists herein.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Carny
    Edgy tale [from a story by Phoebe and Robert Kaylor and Robbie Robertson] of three born outsiders living on a tightrope vividly recalls, both in style and content, the doom-laden films noir of the late 1940s.
    • 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
  4. Take Every Wave: The Life of Laird Hamilton
    Even at two full hours, “Take Every Wave” must do a lot of condensing. Still, as ample and awesome as Hamilton’s exterior doings are, one gets something of a classic “authorized portrait” vibe here in that he’s not about to let us get too far into his head.
  5. Borg vs. McEnroe
    When the big tennis finale arrives, Metz finds all sorts of ways to make the match interesting, blending urgent music, creative camera vantages and ridiculously hyperbolic announcer commentary to generate the desired tension. But the real reason we’re invested is far simpler than that: Metz and his cast have made us care about both Borg and McEnroe by this point.
  6. Everybody Knows
    Though the film is slow to reach a place where its revelations can have an impact, once that starts to happen, it becomes compulsively absorbing.
  7. A Skin So Soft
    Côté assures them a humanity as well, without trying to analyze their obsession with this extravagant concept of masculinity, nor the need for self-display.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Bronco Billy
    Bronco Billy is a caricature of many of the strong heroes whom Eastwood has played in other pix and he's obviously having a wonderful time with the satire.
    • Variety
    • 58 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Sharky's Machine
    Directing himself in Sharky’s Machine, Burt Reynolds has combined his own macho personality with what’s popularly called mindless violence to come up with a seemingly guaranteed winner [from the novel by William Diehl].
  10. Euthanizer
    The script’s more grotesque aspects integrate well enough into a portrait of everyday life among the least-reputable citizens of a grime-flavored community...while the film’s grungy aesthetic likewise keeps the bizarre story feeling at least somewhat grounded.
  11. The House by the Sea
    The House by the Sea feels like the work of a filmmaker gazing back over his own filmography as one might across a sparkling blue sea, and observing its tides.
  12. Nico, 1988
    Dyrholm’s performance is a powerhouse of authenticity. Her moroseness is mesmerizing, but she also gives Nico a tense intelligence, and her singing is uncanny.
  13. Papillon
    On its own terms, Noer’s adventure is ultimately a dramatic and dynamic-enough telling of an indelible fact-based story to connect with viewers.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Eiger Sanction
    Eastwood, who also directs and according to studio did his own mountain climbing without doubles, manages fine suspense. His direction displays a knowledge that permits rugged action.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Blue Thunder
    Blue Thunder is a ripsnorting live-action cartoon, utterly implausible but no less enjoyable for that.
  16. Ad Astra
    Gray proves beyond measure that he’s got the chops to make a movie like this. He also has a vision, of sorts — one that’s expressed, nearly inadvertently, in the metaphor of that space antenna. Watching Ad Astra, you may think you’ve signed on for a journey that’s out of this world, but it turns out that the film’s concerns are somberly tethered to Earth.
    • 28 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Amityville Horror
    Flies swarm where they shouldn't, pipes and walls ooze ick, doors fly open, and priests and psychic sensitives cringe and flee in panic. It's definitely a house that audiences will enjoy visiting, especially if unfamiliar with the ending.
    • Variety
  18. Under Siege
    Under Siege is an immensely slick, if also old-fashioned and formulaic, entertainment. Steven Seagal fans and action buffs should eat up this taut suspenser, which is set entirely on board a battleship.
  19. Clive Davis: The Soundtrack of Our Lives
    Clive Davis: The Soundtrack of Our Lives...is an example of how a movie can be flagrantly hagiographic, sentimental, and hypnotized by its own subject — and still make you want to keep watching it.
  20. It: Chapter Two
    It: Chapter Two is much longer than it needs to be, but it builds to something significant — and a lot of that filler feels justifiable in terms of how audiences’ consumption patterns are changing.
  21. Boy Erased
    Edgerton shows an admirable sense of restraint, even when hitting all the usual beats. He includes moments of quiet introspection for the characters and the audience alike.
  22. Crooked House
    With such an enticing cast, it’s tougher than one might think trying to divine which of these eccentrics might be responsible for the crime, and “Crooked House” keeps you guessing, right up to its shocking conclusion.
  23. Sylvio
    Even when their bananas premise grows a bit stale, the directors prove at least semi-serious about their material’s rawer emotions, thereby making the film an uncanny character study about an alienated anthropomorphic primate who yearns to be himself.
  24. Diamond Island
    this compassionate film is as much about its very specific Cambodian setting as it is the characters, with the film’s standout star its neon-pastel location work.
  25. Bad Match
    The movie is “Fatal Attraction” for the age of the revolving-door hook-up, and in its fevered low-budget way it’s just clever enough to do what it sets out to do. It gives toxic masculinity its just desserts.
  26. Ghost Stories
    There’s the phantom of a psychothriller for the ages inside “Ghost Stories” that never quite fights its way out of the film’s tightly structured creepshow homage, but the goosebumps it raises are real, and honestly earned.
  27. I Am Not a Witch
    Singular as that story might be, what makes I Am Not a Witch unique, however, is Nyoni’s abundant, maybe even overabundant directorial confidence. It’s rare and exhilarating that a new filmmaker arrives on the scene so sure of herself and so willing to take bold, counter-intuitive chances.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Guilty by Suspicion
    First writing-directing effort by vet producer Irwin Winkler squarely lays out the professional, ethical and moral dilemmas engendered by the insidious political pressures brought to bear on filmmakers in the early 1950s. Robert De Niro is excellent as a top director brought down by reactionary paranoia. But the drama comes to life only fitfully.
  29. Deliver Us
    The documentary wisely avoids questioning beliefs, but it does force audiences to question how those responsible for shepherding the faithful use their influence, for good or bad.
  30. Bad Day for the Cut
    Chris Baugh’s accomplished debut feature manages to develop its own distinct flavor while fitting snugly into the general tradition of latter-day U.K. gangster pics, with their rueful humor, colorful characters and realistically nasty violence.
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