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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    • 55 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo
    As a phenomenon, the hip-hop, breakdancing, sidewalk graffiti and rap music culture lends itself well to a comic book approach and to his credit director Sam Firstenberg doesn’t try to interject too much reality into the picture.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Sudden Impact
    A brutally hard-hitting policier which casts Clint Eastwood as audiences like to see him, as the toughest guy in town.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    When a Stranger Calls
    More than anything else, When a Stranger Calls resembles a good, old-fashioned grade B thriller.
  4. Tombstone
    Tombstone is a tough-talking but soft-hearted tale that is entertaining in a sprawling, old-fashioned manner.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Hills Have Eyes
    Wes Craven’s blood-and-bone frightener about an all-American family at the mercy of cannibal mutants is a satisfying piece of pulp.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Electric Horseman
    Even though Redford, as an ex-rodeo champ, and Fonda don’t create the romantic sparks that might be expected, it’s their dramatic professionalism that salvages Horseman and makes it a moving and effective film by the time the final credits roll by.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Falcon and the Snowman
    All the way through The Falcon and the Snowman director John Schlesinger and an exemplary cast grapple with a true story so oddly motivated it would be easily dismissed if fictional. Timothy Hutton and Sean Penn are superb.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    FernGully: The Last Rainforest
    Drawn in brilliantly verdant colors immediately inviting the viewer into a special world, FernGully is certainly simple enough for any youngster to understand, yet is sufficiently hip around the edges to contain the sap.
  9. The Gospel According to André
    “Gospel” is Novack’s first solo feature, though she co-directed “Eat This New York” with husband Andrew Rossi, whose “Page One: Inside the New York Times” she also produced, and she seems to have an implicit understanding that shot composition is every bit as important in a documentary as in a narrative feature.
  10. The Cleanse
    You might wish that the ending, and the story overall, had packed a bit more dramatic oomph, but Miller’s decision to keep the emphasis entirely on character and theme shows impressive confidence. He gives the movie all the juice it needs.
  11. Cargo
    Radiating not only paternal devotion but also a blunt matter-of-factness that amplifies as his situation becomes more dire, Freeman’s empathetic turn makes Andy an endearing center of attention, and the film — even for those who’ve seen its source material — a heartfelt entry in the overstuffed genre.
  12. Mrs. Fang
    This is a merciless film, and whether the process of teasing its meaning out for yourself feels like a punishment or a reward will depend entirely on your patience and your point of view.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Sammy and Rosie Get Laid
    Frears levitates the film’s harsh realism with a fantastical counterpoint in touches like the ghost of a tortured labor leader who haunts Rafi from the outset, and a band of gypsy buskers who serenade the ongoing anarchy.
  14. Greyhound
    When the mortars aren’t firing, the movie ebbs, flows, occasionally sags, and sometimes rivets.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Kill Me Again
    The tale of a down-and-out detective and a seamy femme fatale is a thoroughly professional little entertainment.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The China Syndrome
    A moderately compelling thriller about the potential perils of nuclear energy, whose major fault is an overweening sense of its own self-importance.
  17. Journeyman
    If Considine doesn’t seem to know his characters as intimately as he did in his debut, however, he still knows acting inside out. It’s his unguarded conviction in the lead — and that of a superb Jodie Whittaker as his devoted but devastated wife — that finally lands Journeyman a victory on points, if not quite a knockout blow.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Streets of Fire
    A pulsing, throbbing orchestration careening around the rescue of a kidnapped young singer. The decor is urban squalor.
  19. Star Maps
    Stays consistently interesting through some risky tonal shifts.
  20. The Wife
    The Wife is Close’s film from start to finish, and several of the supporting performances fail to rise to her level, with Pryce and Slater the only ones who manage to impress in her orbit.
  21. Terminator: Dark Fate
    "Dark Fate” is a lean, tough, and absorbing sequel that taps back into the enthralling surface of the “Terminator” series’ comic-book kinetics as well as the sinister sweet spot of its grandiose pulp mythology.
  22. This Is Home: A Refugee Story
    This Is Home gestures toward a more detailed, heterogeneous understanding of these war victims as human beings, characterizing its four chosen families in detailed, individual terms, and listening attentively to their varied expressions of ambition and concern for their new future.
  23. Little Pink House
    If the story’s political and personal nuances have been a bit flattened in Balaker’s script, keeping proceedings in a movie-of-the-week register, this Little Pink House nonetheless retains what property developers would call good bones.
  24. The Escape
    Savage’s film thoughtfully and credibly outlines the conflict between a superficially abundant lifestyle and overwhelming internal lack. It’s on less sure footing with the morally fraught wish-fulfilment of its second half, though Arterton’s quiet, consistent emotional conviction pulls matters through.
  25. Clouds of May
    Though it moves more slowly than the tortoise prominently featured in one sequence, Clouds of May is the kind of film that creeps up on the patient viewer.
  26. Barking Dogs Never Bite
    While the slender idea feels stretched at feature length and fails to brings its themes of societal chaos together in a fully cohesive way, the film is fresh and lively enough to score further festival bookings, particularly at events devoted to new talent.
  27. The Quest of Alain Ducasse
    Gorgeously shot for the big screen by multihyphenate Gilles de Maistre, it thoughtfully explores what makes the globe-trotting chef-businessman tick.
  28. Ghostbox Cowboy
    This original if sometimes befuddling vision blurs the line between fiction and documentary elements, conventional storytelling and improvisational collage, all to oft-bracing effect.
  29. In a Relationship
    The movie is much funnier than the vast majority of indie comedies, serving as a great audition piece for a career of sitcom directing.
  30. Jonathan
    Taken on its own confidently crafted terms, Jonathan is an intelligent, absorbing tale that provides an impressive showcase for “Baby Driver” star Ansel Elgort.
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