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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    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Twins of Evil
    John Hough has given Tudor Gates’ script [based on a characters created by J. Sheridan Le Fanu] a good pace and directed so that audiences can take it as straight horror or as a slight send-up.
  2. Dual
    Dual is in fact a fairly astute comedy. The laughs come not from jokes so much as sharp jabs of truth — wince-inducing insights into the subjects most movies won’t touch, like our fear of death, intimacy and being forgotten.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes
    On a production level, film is a marvel, as fabulous Cameroon locations have been seamlessly blended with studio recreations of jungle settings.
  4. Godzilla
    Edwards seems to have miscalculated our investment in his cast...simultaneously underestimating how satisfying some good old-fashioned monster-on-MUTO action can be.
  5. Love for Sale
    Film has major assets in Walter Carvalho's stunning landscapes and livewire young lead Hermila Guedes, but overall, it's too uninvolving.
  6. Jesus Camp
    May shock many viewers, especially political liberals.
  7. The Discoverers
    Schwarz lacks the writing chops to adequately embed the character’s predictable learning curve into a richer narrative fabric, but Dunne’s perf is pitch-perfect.
  8. Wristcutters: A Love Story
    Though its absurdist inventions occasionally border on twee, this affectionate slow-blooming romance mines an understated vein of comic melancholy that the actors' wistful performances perfectly capture.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Jacob's Ladder
    Jacob's Ladder means to be a harrowing thriller about a Vietnam vet (Tim Robbins) bedeviled by strange visions, but the $40 million production is dull, unimaginative and pretentious.
  10. Cherry Blossoms
    A successful novelist whose films bear the expansive plotting and telling character detail of the page, Doerrie never seems in any particular hurry to tell her tales, preferring the journey to the destination.
  11. Willow Creek
    In angling for suspense, this low-budget stunt relies a bit too heavily on our suspension of disbelief.
  12. Killer Joe
    The family that slays together pays together in Killer Joe, a nasty little Texas noir that transfers Tracy Letts' 1993 play from page to screen with generally gripping results before devolving into an over-the-top splatterfest.
  13. The Summer Book
    Charlie McDowell makes an equally respectful and respectable stab at the task, capturing some of the wistful, soft-sun warmth of Jansson’s writing — though not quite matching its unassuming poetic depths.
  14. Lord of War
    Brimming with cinematic confidence, cynicism, chutzpah plus dramatic bungles, Andrew Niccol's ambitious Lord of War views today's international arms trade through its anti-hero.
  15. The Assessment
    Even when The Assessment goes beyond its smaller scale, it has a lot on its mind throughout and Fortuné ably balances the cerebral with the emotional.
  16. Prelude to a Kiss
    Thanks to a magnetic cast and intelligent adaptation, "Prelude to a Kiss" has made a solid transfer from stage to screen. Back in the 1930s or '40s, this sort of sophisticated, literary-oriented treatment of a simple romantic idea would have been the norm.
  17. Dead Man
    Like his previous efforts, Jarmusch's sidelong take on Western conventions relies upon quirky tone, hipsterish performances and a highly refined visual style to put it over.
  18. Grabbers
    A polished, watchable genre entertainment that nonetheless lacks the inspired dialogue and situations needed to make a memorable impression.
  19. Ava
    Mysius’ startlingly assured, exquisitely shot “Ava” is a film that doesn’t simply explore the textural possibilities of 35mm film for the hell of it, it makes thematic use of them, to stunning, evocative effect.
  20. Bitter Moon
    Four years after Frantic, Roman Polanski approaches rock bottom with Bitter Moon, a phony slice of huis clos drama between two couples aboard a Euro ocean liner. Strong playing by topliner Peter Coyote can't compensate for a script that's all over the map and a tone that veers from outre comedy to erotic game-playing.
  21. Kon-Tiki
    This is filmmaking of great ambition and ability, though it’s not always conducive to solid storytelling.
  22. Loving Vincent
    Loving Vincent may exist as a showcase for its technique, but it’s the sensitivity the film shows toward its subject that ultimately distinguishes this particular oeuvre from the countless bad copies that already litter the world’s flea markets.
  23. CHAOS: The Manson Murders
    “CHAOS” ends up suggesting that the Manson murders were a grand plot, orchestrated from on high (by the CIA? the Deep State? Nixon?) to turn America against the counterculture. I don’t believe that theory for a second, but there’s one way I think it stays true to the spirit of Charles Manson: It’s pure madness.
  24. The German Doctor
    As horror scenarios go, Puenzo’s setup takes the most heavy-handed approach possible.
  25. A Jazzman's Blues
    A Jazzman’s Blues overflows with melodrama, yet it isn’t staged broadly. It’s closer to Perry’s version of a Douglas Sirk film, one that takes a romance and heightens it until the complications are growing and twisting around it like vines.
  26. Young Woman and the Sea
    Throughout Rønning’s sophisticated film and alongside Ridley’s stunning performance — a career highlight for her — we all hold our collective breath and swim with Trudy. Talk about the kind of film they hardly ever make anymore.
  27. American Dharma
    What you see in American Dharma isn’t investigative filmmaking — it’s a toothless bromance.
  28. Black Sheep
    Endearingly amusing horror pic.
  29. American Folk
    Heinz, demonstrating considerable assurance in his feature directorial bow, makes good use of the chemistry between the two musicians.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    White Fang
    Disney’s workmanlike remake of Jack London’s adventure White Fang boasts enough nature footage and a strong central performance by Ethan Hawke to win over small fry.
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