Variety's Scores

For 17,791 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 2.4 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:
17791 movie reviews
  1. The brilliantly edited tapestry of actions and reactions exposes a pattern of prejudice and fear capable of infinitely repeating itself.
  2. Nevertheless, Babygirl has sufficient authenticity and charm as a summer-in-the-city miniature to easily hold attention, however modest its payoff.
  3. Hampered by pedestrian, underpopulated mise-en-scene, a sketchy script and uneven thesping, “Destiny” definitely underwhelms.
  4. The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet is the perfect 3D vehicle and Jeunet takes full advantage, offering a feast of amusing visual flourishes suited to the book’s playfulness.
  5. It speaks well of The Investigator that, for much of its running time, it’s possible to lose sight of the movie’s agenda and get caught up in its hokey machinations.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    There are some subjects so horrific, so far beyond our understanding, that the mind goes numb. Such is the case with Marc Wiese’s chilling docu Camp 14: Total Control Zone.
  6. It’s a chirpy heart-on-sleeve confection that’s populist in a somewhat generic way.
  7. Director Argento half-heartedly mixes schlocky 3D f/x with one-dimensional characters for a near-two-hour joke that ought to have been funnier.
  8. One of Wiseman’s best, a summation of sorts of a career’s worth of principled filmmaking from a director in his ninth decade.
  9. Too many stretches of Wedding Palace are so garishly lit and broadly overplayed that they seem more cartoonish than the actual animated sequences that pepper the live-action production. That’s a pity, since this indie romantic comedy is not without its minor charms during its infrequent quiet moments.
  10. An initially intriguing but ultimately exhausting tale of grieving parents left quite literally dazed and confused in the wake of their young son’s death.
  11. Serviceable but uninspired, this latest version of Emile Zola’s much-adapted 1867 novel “Therese Raquin” sends its characters to their doom on schedule without stirring much sense of tragedy or emotional involvement.
  12. Despite an impressive global scope and admirable ethnic diversity among the interview subjects, the central thesis that women are leading the charge on green issues receives nothing but anecdotal support.
  13. Incandescent performances by Naomi Watts and Matt Dillon and an unerring grasp of strip-mall-dominated Florida distinguish Sunlight Jr.
  14. It’s an inspiring picture, particularly given the difficulty of imagining one of today’s sports superstars going so far out on a limb for unpopular beliefs.
  15. A carefully constructed and beautifully acted tale of two very different sisters brought together when their aging father falls seriously ill.
  16. Runner Runner’s appeal increases dramatically whenever Affleck enters the frame.
  17. Flu
    The story flatlines as the crisis escalates, falling prey to pedestrian human drama and improbable conspiracy subplots.
  18. +1
    Carefully repeated imagery, in-camera tricks and well-executed fx combine to create a tantalizing visual puzzle that demands full attention, even as the flavorless characters and largely so-so performances risk audience indifference.
  19. What Erica Rivinoja, John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein’s script lacks in lingering nutritional value, it compensates for with amusing food puns. If nothing else, the pic’s zany tone and manic pace are good for a quick-hit sugar high.
  20. There’s precious little glory — and not even that much cage fighting — in Chavez: Cage of Glory.
  21. The Square is journalism, but Noujaim’s agenda is greater than mere reportage.
  22. Bittersweet, charming yet often very thorny.
  23. There’s little in the way of drama, character depth or mise-en-scene to distract from Tiger Chen’s technically dazzling display of human combat in Keanu Reeves’ helming debut.
  24. Von Stuerler’s debut showcases nature, but its real theme is its subjects’ engagement with their work.
  25. A scrappy portrait of half a dozen renegade gold-diggers.
  26. Ultimately, the enigmatic surface conflict — in which a man must contend with his own carbon copy as rival — proves to be the film’s own worst enemy, for its dark, David Lynchian allure proves almost too compelling, obscuring the material’s deeper themes.
  27. Sal
    While Sal means to honor its subject, it’s too clunky and amateurish to really illuminate him.
  28. Affectionately captures the tail end of a culture in which specialized dice, character sheets and hand-painted figurines were the gateway to elaborate flights of imagination.
  29. Sophisticated cutting brings out the story’s complex emotional undercurrents, though “Breakdown’s” less convincingly scripted second half sputters more often than it shines.

Top Trailers