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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    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Omen
    Suspenser starring Gregory Peck and Lee Remick as the unwitting parents of the Antichrist. Richard Donner's direction is taut. Players all are strong.
    • Variety
  2. Lbs.
    The intimately personal chronicle is more impressive for Famiglietti's disarming self-exposure than for any fully formed cinematic style or consistency of tone, but the modest production has a genuine, warm spirit.
  3. Hard Target
    A briskly vigorous, occasionally brilliant actioner.
  4. Flowers
    The three lead actresses, beautifully cast, form just enough of a contrast to each other to create extratextual tension while maintaining a high degree of sympathy.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Romancing the Stone
    Heading for the jungles in her high heels, Turner is like a lot of unwitting screen heroines ahead of her, guaranteed that her drab existence is about to be transformed – probably by a man, preferably handsome and adventurous. Sure enough, Michael Douglas pops out of the jungle. The expected complications are supplied by the kidnappers, Danny DeVito and Zack Norman.
  6. The Annihilation of Fish
    A minnow of a movie. A drear moment in the careers of all concerned.
  7. Dai si gin
    An interesting idea comes over only half-formed in Johnnie To's Breaking News, an effective Hong Kong crimer that partly returns to the realistic style of some of his late '90s dramas, but never properly knits its theme of media manipulation into pic's punchy thriller format.
  8. Bad Posture
    Bad dialogue and bad acting might convince some of the authenticity behind Bad Posture, but there's no getting around the tedious navel-gazing of Malcolm Murray's fiction debut.
  9. Splinters
    Surfing meets sociology in Splinters, a compelling documentary about the sport's arrival in the Papua New Guinea village of Vanimo.
  10. It's Me, It's Me
    Most of the comedy in It’s Me, It’s Me is behavioral, playing off the plausible notion that meeting exact copies of yourself would not be terrifying so much as socially awkward.
  11. 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.
  12. Monster Hunt 2
    Monster Hunt 2 is so perfectly good-natured and so utterly nonsensical that it makes not-thinking-about-it basically an act of self-preservation, for which, bless its bouncing, gurgling, flolloping heart.
  13. The Forest of the Lost Souls
    The Forest of Lost Souls is a nasty and impressive little thriller that goes about its business with ruthless cinematic efficiency.
  14. Snapshots
    Snapshots wallows a little too readily in cliché to be quite as stirring as its story — one drawn from Corran’s own family history — sounds on paper.
  15. Homecoming
    A terrific trio of performances go some way toward making the film’s more neatly schematic plotting feel organically, messily human.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    They All Laughed
    Rarely does a film come along featuring such an extensive array of attractive characters with whom it is simply a pleasure to spend two hours.
  17. Waydowntown
    Third outing for prairie auteur Gary Burns is his most ambitious, and most uneven, effort yet.
  18. Wendigo
    A mostly superb bit of modern horror from the writer-director-editor previously responsible for the Frankenstein story "No Telling" and the urban vampire pic "Habit."
  19. Out of Time
    A tasty if wildly far-fetched thriller, Out of Time proves far stronger in its characterizations than in developing genuine suspense.
  20. He Loves Me... He Loves Me Not
    Turns on an intellectual gimmick in the vein of "Memento," weaving down sinister byways, the better to click with satisfying symmetry.
  21. Secretary
    In a very demanding role demanding a vast emotional range from clueless innocent to confident role player and emotional adventurer, Gyllenhaal is outstanding.
  22. The Rage in Placid Lake
    Melds an insightful observational style with some rather clunky satire and the resulting mix is uneven at best.
  23. Drumline
    Brimming with heart and humor -- Drumline is a formulaic crowdpleaser set in the competitive world of university marching bands at predominantly black universities.
  24. The Patriot
    Has some emotional pull and isn't stuffy and dull.
  25. Children of Love
    The daunting logistics and emotional juggling act of child custody and visitation rights post-divorce are examined via spot-on acting and deft helming in docu-styled Children of Love.
  26. Misha and the Wolves
    Much of the lure of Misha and the Wolves is that it’s simply a tricky good yarn spun around the unbelievable things that human beings will do. But the movie also, in its way, taps into the soul of an era when fake reality is threatening to dislodge actual reality.
  27. A Perfect Getaway
    A big-reveal thriller with surprises that really do surprise -- and are worth waiting for through an audaciously long buildup -- A Perfect Getaway finds writer-director David Twohy in popcorn form with a muscularity not seen since 2000's "Pitch Black."
  28. Bloodthirsty
    Within its modest boundaries, Bloodthirsty does a creditable enough job balancing supernatural suspense with the drama of a young artist’s insecurities at a key early career juncture.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Fortune Cookie
    Generally amusing (often wildly so) but overlong.
  30. Love Crime
    Picture initially suggests a sort of Gallic "Damages," with Kristin Scott Thomas and Ludivine Sagnier in the Glenn Close and Rose Byrne roles, but the corporate catfight soon gives way to a cleverly designed whodunit.
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