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
    • 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.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Silverado
    Rather than relying on legendary heroes of Westerns past, writer-director Lawrence Kasdan with his brother Mark have used their special talent to create a slew of human scale characters against a dramatic backdrop borrowing from all the conventions of the genre.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Paradine Case
    The Paradine Case offers two hours and 11 minutes of high dramatics.
  4. In Search of a Midnight Kiss
    Performances are aptly quirky and ingratiating, Holdridge's seriocomic balance nicely judged. But the most outstanding element in an accomplished low-budget package is Robert Murphy's lensing, which recalls "Manhattan" in its B&W celebration of a cityscape.
  5. Lymelife
    Intense perfs by Rory Culkin and Alec Baldwin are standouts in a movie that brims with vivid supporting turns.
  6. The Professional
    Widescreen lensing favors tight close-ups, and multiple shoot-'em-ups are edited with panache.
  7. Cupcakes
    Momentarily abandoning the strain of imagining liberation within a realistically perceived Israel, Fox here settles for the ephemeral glow of an exuberant block party.
  8. Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans
    Ultimately, Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans comes across as a portrait of the artist as a spoiled jerk, albeit a jerk whose charisma cannot be denied, and whose artistic ambitions elicit grudging admiration.
  9. Maya and the Wave
    Has some gaps in storytelling and contextualization that leave it feeling like a less-than-complete picture of the protagonist’s career to date. Yet the film more than succeeds in its primary goals of providing an inspirational role model plus lots of stupendous surfing footage, a combination that will enthrall most viewers.
  10. Shortbus
    Unquestionably the most sexually graphic American narrative feature ever made outside the realm of the porn industry, John Cameron Mitchell's ambitious attempt to merge his characters' active sexual lives with more conventional emotional content is playfully and provocatively entertaining for roughly the first half, but loses staying power thereafter when investment in the uncompelling characters' problems is requested.
  11. The Grey
    The picture's dialogue-heavy stretches and ambiguous finale could leave ticketbuyers impatient for less chatter and more chomping.
  12. Mifune: The Last Samurai
    A dutiful and diverting but rather bare-bones documentary portrait.
  13. The History of Sound
    The History of Sound is a movie that never fully finds a life beyond what it is on paper.
  14. The Long Dumb Road
    Instead of slapstick laughs, The Long Dumb Road pays attention to how these two opposites connect.
  15. Fast Food Nation
    Richard Linklater's rough-hewn tapestry of assorted lives that feed off of and into the American meat industry is both rangy and mangy; it remains appealing for its subversive motives and revelations even as one wishes its knife would have been sharper.
  16. The Bad Guys
    Cheery and diverting as The Bad Guys is, it has all the emotional weight of a few crisp, stolen Benjamins.
  17. District 13: Ultimatum
    The fight sequences (choreographed by Raffaelli) are especially creative, with the combatants using any available object, including a priceless Van Gogh painting, to get the job done.
  18. Michael
    Illustrating the banality of evil in an impressively controlled and sometimes darkly humorous fashion, Michael takes a coolly nonjudgmental, non-psychological approach to a disturbing topic.
  19. The Salvation
    There’s really only one ingredient for which The Salvation is likely to be remembered: Eva Green.
  20. Serial Mom
    Fun, almost endearing in its cheeky irreverence, but also rather mild and scattershot in its satiric marksmanship, Serial Mom provokes chuckles and the occasional raised eyebrow rather than guffaws and gross-outs.
  21. To the End
    To the End keeps its large canvas entertaining and informative. Even so, it preaches enough to the choir that this documentary can hardly serve as an introduction for those belatedly coming to terms with its central issues.
  22. Synchronic
    Making underwhelming use of its not-bad ... conceit, Benson’s sci-fi-tinged script is not at all ingeniously plotted, insists we care about tritely sketched characters, and is never credible enough to transcend an air of escalating silliness.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Tin Drum
    Adheres to the book more than enough not to disappoint avid readers of the bestseller.
  24. Words of War
    It’s a polished, pedestrian biopic, with direction by British TV veteran James Strong that smooths over instead of elevating Eric Poppen’s cliche-riddled script. While the subject matter is compelling, one hopes Politkovskaya can someday get a punchier, less formulaic screen treatment.
  25. Dora and the Lost City of Gold
    The most endearing quality of Nicholas Stoller and Matthew Robinson’s script — not counting the fact they didn’t try to whitewash their Latina heroine — is the way it permits Dora to remain indefatigably upbeat no matter what the situation, whether navigating treacherous Incan temples or facing an auditorium of jeering teenage peers.
  26. Tokyo!
    An uneven but enjoyable trio of films that take affectionate (and sometimes literal) aim at the Japanese capital.
  27. Woman Is the Future of Man
    Taken as a film about muddling along, "Woman" never bores the viewer with indecisive filmmaking. Basically, it's an elegant jeu, played and constructed with an almost Gallic lightness heightened by Jeong Yong-jin's bursts of music, all bouncy piano and pizzicato.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Little Big Man
    Little Big Man is a sort of vaudeville show, framed in fictional biography, loaded with sketches of varying degrees of serious and burlesque humor, and climaxed by the Indian victory over Gen George A. Custer at Little Big Horn in 1876.
  29. Good Girls Get High
    With heartening, encouraging messages that speak to the target audience and beyond, Good Girls Get High doesn’t stray too far from the formula, but manipulates it in such a way that feels fresh.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Defending Your Life
    Defending Your Life is an inventive and mild bit of whimsy from Albert Brooks.
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