Variety's Scores

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For 17,835 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: 9,166 out of 17835
  2. Mixed: 7,032 out of 17835
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17835
17835 movie reviews
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  1. Blow the Man Down
    “Blow the Man Down” has a few contrivances ... Yet Morgan Saylor and Sophie Lowe invest the embattled but loyal Connolly sisters with a desperate resonance, and the movie is clever enough to hold you, even when you wish it had taken the extra step and gone full Patricia Highsmith.
  2. Burning Cane
    It’s a movie of minor fascinations and seductions; it exerts the pull of a natural-born filmmaker’s eye.
  3. The Kill Team
    Those familiar with this story won’t find any novel twists here, but Krauss astutely conveys the literal and moral quagmires produced by such military situations.
  4. Low Tide
    In addition to establishing a tangible sense of place, McMullin impresses by putting together such a strong ensemble and eliciting from them the performances he does. He’s a very visual director, jump-starting scenes with an unexpected extreme-closeup of some kind before allowing audiences to get their bearings — a strategy that subconsciously reinforces the notion that we can never get too comfortable in this otherwise familiar genre.
  5. The Place of No Words
    While occasionally wearisome in its fragmented structure ... Webber’s film navigates the vast notion of grief gently and with seriousness.
  6. Skin
    Less dynamic than “American History X,” and less lurid than some treatments of similarly themed stories, “Skin” is a compelling character study whose narrative momentum flags somewhat around the three-quarter point. Still, it never loses interest.
  7. Swallow
    A bold and unconventional thriller made real by the evolution of lead actress Haley Bennett ... Is it exploitative? Yes, to an extent that’s true. ... But, as in such Alfred Hitchcock classics as “Spellbound” and “Marnie,” with their facile psychoanalytic interpretations of compulsive and/or hysterical behavior, the approach can be quite effective in revealing the gender dynamics of the times.
  8. Marilyn
    A little more attention to side characters would have brought increased depth, but the movie still packs a major punch at the end.
  9. Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project
    Matt Wolf directs “Recorder” with a lot of lively skill. He presents the eccentricity of Marion Stokes’ personality with supreme sympathetic understanding, or maybe you could say a bit more romanticism than it deserves.
  10. Savage
    An above-average action thriller.
  11. 5B
    It’s conventional, occasionally maudlin docmaking that nonetheless grips the heart exactly when it needs to.
  12. Good Posture
    [A] roughly drafted feature debut that manages to be just affable enough.
  13. House of Hummingbird
    A touch overlong, “House of Hummingbird” doesn’t leave the most powerful emotional mark. Still, it lands on a poignant aftertaste through Kim’s serene attentiveness to the rhythms and details of everyday life ... with a peaceful style reminiscent of Hirokazu Kore-eda.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!
    Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! is a somewhat sordid, quite sexy and very violent murder-kidnap-theft meller which includes elements of rape, lesbianism and sadism, clothed in faddish leather and boots and equipped with sports cars. Some good performances emerge from a one-note script via very good Russ Meyer direction and his outstanding editing.
  15. Run
    The film, effective on its own unassuming terms, seems to cut out with some distance left to run.
  16. Gay Chorus Deep South
    Rather than simply preaching to you-know-whom, director David Charles Rodrigues ... succeeds in humanizing the individuals on both sides.
  17. A Regular Woman
    Much more accomplished and watchable than Hormann’s previous film about a real-life crime, “3096 Days,” “A Regular Woman” owes much to its fine cast and impeccable technical package.
  18. Daughter of the Wolf
    These filmmakers are eager to explore the delicate facets of a forceful, fully-formed woman, and they do so with imagery that’s both stunning and subtle.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Zulu
    Joseph E. Levine makes an impressive debut in British film production with Zulu, a picture that allows ample scope for his flamboyant approach to showmanship.
  20. In the Aisles
    In the Aisles is unusual in its compassion and respect for its blue-collared characters.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Onion Field
    James Woods as the near-psychotic Powell is chillingly effective, creating a flakiness in the character that exudes the danger of a live wire near a puddle.
  22. Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am
    Mixing archival photos and TV footage with straightforward to-the-camera remembrances, Greenfield-Sanders’ deft structural approach isn’t as daring as those found in Morrison’s own work.
  23. Q Ball
    Within its bounds, Q Ball offers proof that rehabilitative programs like this one offer more than just a chance for prisoners to show athletic excellence; they also provide an opportunity for individual growth.
  24. Shéhérazade
    Shooting in a color-streaked vérité style and coaxing terrific performances from his non-pro cast, Marlin clearly has a promising future ahead. What keeps Shéhérazade from ranking higher in the pantheon of streetwise French crime dramas is the story’s overall familiarity.
  25. We Have Always Lived in the Castle
    Stacie Passon, director of We Have Always Lived in the Castle, sharply channels the author’s atmosphere of dread, paranoia, and isolation, making the past feel prescient.
  26. Matthias & Maxime
    It feels at once younger and older, sweeter and more seasoned, than Dolan’s last few films.... [It's] not out to scout new stylistic territory, but confident in the turf it covers, often gorgeously so.
  27. Sibyl
    Triet’s chic, blackly comic psychodrama piles up bad decisions like so many profiteroles in a croquembouche, admiring the teetering spectacle of its chaos as it goes.
  28. The Whistlers
    As a low-key romp with a twisty, globetrotting plot The Whistlers is an enjoyable affair with just enough of a slant to feel a little offbeat. But Porumboiu aficionados chasing the same weird high he has delivered time and again before — wherein a single moment can transform a ridiculous scheme into a fairy tale, or a silly notion into a grand philosophical quest — are just going to have to whistle for it.
  29. Young Ahmed
    Instantly recognizable as a Dardenne film, Young Ahmed has that same deceptively “rough” quality as the directors’ earlier work, a carryover from their documentary background. And yet, they are astonishingly efficient storytellers, weaving the necessary clues audiences need to evaluate — and at times entirely reconsider — their characters with the expertise of veteran detective novelists.
  30. A Brother's Love
    Beneath the film’s soapier turns, and despite its more strident moments, there is a small dose of bittersweet wisdom here about the dangers inherent in entrusting one person — whomever it might be — with sole custody of your self-worth.
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