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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    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Donovan's Reef
    Donovan's Reef, for a director of John Ford's stature, is a potboiler. Where Ford aficianados will squirm is during that occasional scene that reminds them this effort-less effort is the handiwork of the men who made Stagecoach and The Informer.
  2. Jack Goes Boating
    Displaying a girth that will give hope to overweight romantics everywhere, Hoffman knows his character inside and out and invites the viewer close to this limited, good-hearted fellow.
  3. In a Valley of Violence
    We never get more than a glimmer of personality within these well-worn character types, and West never digs beneath them to offer any sort of commentary or criticism.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Big Picture
    The Big Picture is a surprisingly genial, good-natured satire on contemporary Hollywood mores.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Muppet Christmas Carol
    This adaptation of Charles Dickens' Christmas classic is not as enchanting or amusing as the previous entries in the Muppet series. But nothing can really diminish the late Jim Henson's irresistibly appealing characters.
  6. Never-Ending Man: Hayao Miyazaki
    Had Arakawa widened the portrait just a bit to include other voices — whether artistic collaborators or the young audiences still just discovering his work — the film would easily have demonstrated how his legacy will live forever. Then again, it’s assumed that anyone watching “Never-Ending Man” knows that already.
  7. The Lodge
    There are too many explanations dangled here, to ends somewhat frustratingly contradictory rather than usefully ambiguous.
  8. Sebastian
    Despite the film’s confident naturalism, it seems less intimate as it goes on, with Max somehow growing more distant and generic as he becomes more comfortable in his own skin.
  9. Café Society
    The movie, watchable as it is, never quite overcomes the sense that it’s a lavish diagram working hard to come off as a real movie.
  10. Peter Pan
    Handsome, respectable and well cast, elaborate production lacks the excitement and magic that would elevate the film to beloved status, and sheer abundance of CGI work weighs on it too heavily.
  11. Nymphomaniac: Volume I
    Racy subject aside, the film provides a good-humored yet serious-minded look at sexual self-liberation, thick with references to art, music, religion and literature, even as it pushes the envelope with footage of acts previously relegated to the sphere of pornography.
  12. Gattaca
    Gattaca, New Zealander helmer Andrew Niccol's impressive feature debut, is an intelligent and timely sci-fi thriller that, with the exception of some illogical plot contrivances, is emotionally engaging almost up to the end.
  13. Robots
    It's meant as high praise to say that, very early in Robots, the extraordinary starts to seem perfectly ordinary.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Fire
    The third feature from this Indian-born writer-director... is an underwhelming effort that adds little new to the debate over arranged marriages and fails to ignite much interest in the problems faced by two frustrated New Delhi wives.
  15. Summer of 69
    It’s a big step backward from the likes of “Anora” in terms of respecting sex workers, but at least it scores as many laughs.
  16. Last Call at the Oasis
    Whether the glass is half full or half empty isn't the point of the effervescent Last Call at the Oasis: It's whether there'll be anything in the glass at all.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Marathon Man
    Film spends literally half of its length getting some basic plot pieces [from the novel by William Goldman] fitted and moving.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Starting Over
    Starting Over takes on the subject of marital dissolution from a comic point of view, and succeeds admirably, wryly directed by Alan J. Pakula, and featuring an outstanding cast.
  19. I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not
    If you go into the movie wanting to be shocked and appalled, you won’t be disappointed.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Ladyhawke
    LadyHawke is a very likeable, very well-made fairytale that insists on a wish for its lovers to live happily ever after.
  21. The Apprentice
    For its first half, “The Apprentice” is kind of a knockout: the inside look at how Trump evolved that so many of us have imagined for so long, and seeing it play out is both convincing and riveting. Yet I have an issue with the movie, and it all pivots around the mystery of Trump. I don’t think “The Apprentice” ever penetrates it.
    • Variety
      • Posted May 20, 2024
  22. Greyhound
    When the mortars aren’t firing, the movie ebbs, flows, occasionally sags, and sometimes rivets.
  23. The Mystic Masseur
    Succeeds as light entertainment -- even if at the cost of the material's greater potential.
  24. Trekkies
    A largely affectionate look at the weird and the wonderful subculture that's ensued and endured since the sci-fi series first beamed up in 1966.
  25. Looney Tunes: Back in Action
    A not-inventive-enough romp that belches out gags at a rapid-fire clip but connects so sporadically as to leave the audience enervated but only sparingly entertained.
  26. The Butterfly
    A solidly entertaining, cross-generational two-hander, The Butterfly strikes the right balance between humor and observational bite.
  27. Vengo
    Music has always played a vital role in the films of Tony Gatlif, and in Vengo it finally threatens to take over, submerging the frail, familiar vendetta plotline.
  28. Blood Work
    The 72-year-old star, who is centerscreen throughout, makes this rather far-fetched yarn go down much more easily than it otherwise might have.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men
    For his second British live-action production, Walt Disney took the legend of Robin Hood and translated it to the screen as a superb piece of entertainment, with all the action of a western and the romance and intrigue of a historical drama.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Fourth Protocol
    The Fourth Protocol is a decidedly contempo thriller, a tale of vying masterspies and a chase to head off a nuclear disaster. Its edge is a fine aura of realism.
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