Variety's Scores

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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:
  1. Positive: 9,139 out of 17791
  2. Mixed: 7,015 out of 17791
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17791
17791 movie reviews
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  1. What Richard Did
    In the end, the material feels a bit attenuated, like a short that’s been stretched to feature length, even if the characters are enjoyable, sympathetic enough company for the pic’s 84-minute running time.
  2. 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.
  3. Sun Don't Shine
    Seimetz takes advantage of the eccentric cultural/natural landscape of central Florida to vivid effect, gets impressive if seldom endearing work from her actors, and seems very much in charge of an assertive if not always explicable presentation.
  4. In a World...
    To call Lake Bell a magnetic, intelligent, blithely screwball leading lady in the Carole Lombard tradition might be selling her short. With In a World… , a rollicking laffer about the cutthroat voiceover biz in Los Angeles, she proves herself a comedy screenwriter to be reckoned with.
  5. Lovelace
    Reducing an immensely disturbing, politically byzantine tale to a series of cartoonish vignettes, this celeb-studded biopic squanders a gutsy performance by Amanda Seyfried.
  6. Drinking Buddies
    Relative to the major brands, the intimate, handcrafted approach should yield more flavor. Instead, Drinking Buddies offers mostly froth.
  7. Passion
    Clearly, Passion means to be a hoot, a wet-dream thriller for cinephiles. But by the time it reaches its overwrought final act, the picture has generated neither the tension of its forebears nor the audacity that would allow it to transcend its silliness.
  8. Paradise: Love
    Repulsive and sublimely beautiful, arguably celebratory and damning of its characters, it’s hideous and masterful all at once, “Salo” with sunburn.
  9. Pain & Gain
    Bay can be a master of exuberant chaos, but here the violence mostly lands with a sickening thud, which is fitting, one supposes, but also ultimately numbing.
  10. Computer Chess
    Computer Chess is ultimately too slack and scattershot to work consistently well as a comedy.
  11. Arthur Newman
    Firth and Blunt make a strange couple, and Ariola a musicvideo helmer making his feature debut, should have devoted more time to making the chemistry work than to sustaining the melancholy mood.
  12. Cutie and the Boxer
    Zachary Heinzerling's five-years-in-the-making portrait of Brooklyn-based artists Ushio and Noriko Shinohara is a warts-and-all portrait of love, sacrifice and the creative spirit.
  13. In the House
    More inspired by than adapted from Juan Mayorga’s play “The Boy in the Last Row,” this low-key thriller feels like a return to form for Ozon, whose pictures lost their psychosexual edge after the helmer stopped collaborating with Emmanuele Bernheim (“Swimming Pool”).
  14. This Ain't California
    “Dogtown and Z-Boys” meets “The Lives of Others” in This Ain’t California, a spirited not-quite-documentary portrait of the skateboarding subculture that flourished in East Germany in the early 1980s.
  15. Herman's House
    A portrait of an invisible man, Herman's House is a raised voice in the constitutional debate over solitary confinement.
  16. Laurence Anyways
    The clearest achievement of Dolan’s typically self-indulgent eye-popper comes in equating its gender-bending protagonist’s metamorphoses with those in any relationship that lasts for years.
  17. In Another Country
    Beguilingly simple, relaxed in its mastery and enhanced by Isabelle Huppert’s impeccable poise.
  18. The Hunt
    Mikkelsen impresses here as a warm-hearted man who finds himself caught up in a situation way beyond his control.
  19. Filly Brown
    The resulting film is a trite piece of storytelling, with character development and plot points that feel not so much lived in as borrowed from other movies.
  20. Fists of Legend
    Bloated but energetic, entertaining but interminable, tortured but strangely satisfying, Fists of Legend spends two-and-a-half hours unraveling the knotty saga of three middle-aged fighters, their shared dark past and their rocky road to redemption.
  21. Prince Avalanche
    An unconventional, ultimately rather sweet buddy pic that’s an audiovisual treat.
  22. The Lords of Salem
    The helmer’s narrative dead end here registers not as a lack of nerve so much as a lack of imagination.
  23. Post Tenebras Lux
    The title, signifying “light after darkness,” derives from the Latin translation of the Book of Job, an appropriate source given that a considerable amount of the prophet’s proverbial patience is required. Not that the pic doesn’t have its frequent rewards.
  24. Scary Movie 5
    Audiences not inclined to laugh at the sight of a baby’s head catching fire are encouraged to at least chuckle at the various gags made at the expense of Jody and Dan’s housekeeper (a game Lidia Porto), who satisfies many of the picture’s comedic-target prerequisites by being plus-sized, hysterically religious and Latina.
  25. Shadow Dancer
    Shadow Dancer is admittedly slow to gather force and momentum over its 101-minute running time, though by the third act, the deliberately paced drama has exerted a hypnotic grip.
  26. Pieta
    The final reel packs a genuine emotional wallop, even as it makes auds laugh with the vicious precision of its dramatic irony.
  27. Don Jon
    Gordon-Levitt’s script can be a bit on-the-nose at times, but that’s an indulgence easily forgiven in a debut feature, and this ensemble winningly sells the movie’s tricky tonal mix.
  28. Short Term 12
    This compelling human drama finds fresh energy in the inspirational-teacher genre, constantly revealing new layers to its characters.
  29. Black Rock
    Straining to be a distaff “Deliverance,” indie thriller Black Rock is unable to shock, much less convince.
  30. Oblivion
    A moderately clever dystopian mindbender with a gratifying human pulse, despite some questionable narrative developments along the way.
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