Variety's Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
  1. Lee
    Even at her character’s most vulnerable, the Oscar-winning actor presents Lee with an edge of defensiveness, her guard never fully down, likely tied to a traumatic event in childhood.
  2. Solo: A Star Wars Story
    It has a kicky, kinetic heist movie at its heart, and its action sequences are machine-tooled spectacles of the first order. Its performances, starting with Alden Ehrenreich as the young Han Solo and extending to the film-stealing Donald Glover as his wily frenemy Lando Calrissian, are consistently entertaining.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Two Mules for Sister Sara
    Two Mules for Sister Sara might have worked. But with Clint Eastwood as one of the mules, an American mercenary looking for a fast peso in old French-occupied Mexico, Shirley MacLaine as a scarlet sister disguised in a nun's habit, and Don Siegel's by-the-old-book direction, it doesn't.
  4. The Mask of Zorro
    The return of the legendary swordsman is well served by a grandly mounted production in the classical style.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Arizona Dream
    Impeccably lensed in Alaska, New York and Douglas, Ariz, pic remains stuck in an awkward netherworld between slapstick and pathos.
  6. Iron Man 3
    Iron Man 3 is more perfunctory and workmanlike than its two predecessors, but this solid production still delivers more than enough of what fans expect.
  7. The Sweet East
    The film is intriguingly anthropological in its take on America as a subject, viewed less through the prism of what American might signify as a nation, than how America might feel as an experience — there’s a sense of disintegration and incipient violence seeping through everything, which occasionally explodes to entertaining effect, but there’s clearly deep affection there too.
  8. Alien: Resurrection
    As a series of action set pieces, the movie is frequently gripping and always highly watchable. However, when the movie strays into weirder territory --- where, one feels, Jeunet's heart really lies --- there's a growing feeling of inadequacy.
  9. Hollywoodland
    First-time scripter Paul Bernbaum's framing story, designed to stir up suspicion that George Reeves was a murder victim rather than a suicide, unfortunately proves far less intriguing than does the melancholy tale of a limited actor reaching the end of the line during a transitional period in Hollywood.
  10. Backcountry
    MacDonald has seen enough horror movies of varying kinds to know what audiences expect, and one of the pleasures of Backcountry is how skillfully it toys with those expectations, setting us up for something like a Mumblecore “Straw Dogs” and ending up somewhere closer to a landlocked “Jaws.”
  11. Ma' Rosa
    As in most of the director’s repertoire, he portrays working class family relations with unpretentious warmth. Boasting a simple, coherent plot shot with real-time, handheld verismo, it’s a work of understated confidence.
  12. Executive Decision
    Ultimately, it’s the film’s sly irony that sets it a notch above similar actioners. The Thomas brothers’ script repeatedly draws us down dead-end alleys only to reverse expectations and top white-knuckle situations with thrilling conclusions.
  13. Call Jane
    The female empowerment message comes through loud and clear in “Call Jane,” especially in Banks’ performance. What’s missing from the picture is the threat of discovery, the dangling sword of Damocles that might chasten anyone taking so much responsibility on themselves.
  14. Dogma
    A very vulgar pro-faith comedy rather than a sacrilegious goof, Dogma is an extraordinarily uneven film.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Crocodile Dundee
    Hogan is comfortable enough playing the wry, irreverent, amiable Aussie that seems close to his own persona, and teams well with Kozlowski, who radiates lots of charm, style and spunk.
  16. Set It Off
    Influenced by "Thelma & Louise" and "Waiting to Exhale," F. Gary Gray's "Set It Off" is a well-crafted girls-n-the-hood actioner, with an acute social conscience and plenty of soul. A tale of female bonding and empowerment, this relevant film boasts a terrific cast, headed by Jada Pinkett and Queen Latifah in career-making performances.
  17. Skin
    One of the more bizarre illustrations of racial injustice under apartheid is dramatized in Skin.
  18. 42
    A relentlessly formulaic biopic that succeeds at transforming one of the most compelling sports narratives of the 20th century into a home run of hagiography.
  19. Disturbia
    Squirmingly fun suspenser that brings Alfred Hitchcock's "Rear Window" into the era of vidcams and cell phones, serving up hearty, youth-skewing portions of PG-13 violence and bikini-bait along the way.
  20. California Solo
    A former rock 'n' roller withers on the vine in California Solo, Marshall Lewy's forgettable sophomore effort (after a promising beginning with "Blue State").
  21. Volition
    It’s a film more gritty than stylish, but in any case with all key contributions lashed to the service of a tricky narrative with scant gratuitous fat or flamboyance.
  22. Jackie Brown
    Unquestionably too long, and lacking the snap and audaciousness of the pictures that made him the talk of the town, this narratively faithful but conceptually imaginative adaptation of Elmore Leonard's novel "Rum Punch" nonetheless offers an abundance of pleasures, especially in the realm of characterization and atmosphere.
  23. Kabluey
    Kabluey is short on the cutes and ca-ca jokes. But it's also short on substance, despite a watchable supporting cast and an amiable overall tenor.
  24. Beneath the Harvest Sky
    Beneath the Harvest Sky offers a heartbreakingly authentic, vividly realized account of adolescent frustration and yearning.
  25. When the Sea Rises
    Modest but spot-on co-helming debut by actress Yolande Moreau (the concierge in "Amelie") and Gilles Porte is beguiling in the slightly surreal vein of the best of contempo Belgian cinema but without the typical nasty streak.
  26. Saving Shiloh
    May be naive and narratively simple, but it's prime fare for the always underserved family audience.
  27. Princesa
    A thoughtful, restrained, refreshingly nonjudgmental melodrama that reflects on interesting questions regarding sexuality, identity and self-acceptance.
  28. Piglet's Big Movie
    Fine new chapter in the long-running franchise should score well with family audiences.
  29. Outside Providence
    A disappointingly rote entry in the '70s teen nostalgia sweepstakes.
  30. Reset
    Reset is so gorgeously shot that it almost distracts attention away from the sheer inertia of its material.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »