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. Wasp Network
    It leaves viewers gratified by the filmmaking bravura and the sheer pleasure of watching this superb cast in top form, but also feeling shortchanged.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Hello, Dolly!
    An expensive, expansive, sometimes exaggerated, sentimental, nostalgic, wholesome, pictorially opulent $20 million filmusical [from the 1964 Broadway production, music and lyrics by Jerry Herman] with the charisma of Barbra Streisand in the title role.
  3. Kingdom
    A dose of 21st century attitude mixes nicely with other winning ingredients in Kingdom, a thoroughly entertaining adaptation of Yasuhisa Hara’s hugely popular manga set in China, 245 B.C.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Citizens Band
    The CB dialog exemplifies the good-natured horsing around that marks those channels, at the same time the serious emergency traffic that often saves lives.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    *batteries not included
    Batteries Not Included could have used more imaginative juices to distinguish it from other, more enchanting Spielbergian pics where lovable mechanical things solve earthly human dilemmas. Still, it’s suitable entertainment for kids.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Alligator
    Alligator is bloody and boisterous, featuring the only man-eating monster in memory named Ramone.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Stunt Man
    O’Toole is excellent in his best, cleanest performance in years. He smashingly delineates an omnipotent, godlike type whose total control over those around him makes him seem almost unreal.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Someone to Watch Over Me
    Someone to Watch Over Me is a stylish and romantic police thriller which manages, through the sleek direction of Ridley Scott and persuasive ensemble performances, to triumph over several hard-to-swallow plot developments.
  9. Haunt
    It offers nothing particularly new, yet it fulfills the only requirement that really matters for this kind of movie — it’s scary.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Eating Raoul
    The appeal of Paul Bartel’s tongue-in-cheek approach is that he manages to take his story to such a ridiculous extreme, remain genuinely funny and successfully tell his perverse story.
  11. Low Low
    While the narrative occasionally falters, the visceral way in which the writer-director captures his subjects’ triumphs and travails provides an unflinching portrait of modern teens on the fringes of society.
  12. Running with the Devil
    The result isn’t exactly a docudrama indictment like “Traffic,” a thriller a la “Sicario,” a plea for innocent victims, or a Tarantino-esque bloody crime comedy. Rather, Running With the Devil is all the above, confidently blending together many narrative and tonal elements into a surprisingly cohesive whole.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Professionals
    Exciting explosive sequences, good overall pacing and acting overcome a sometimes thin script.
  14. Jim Allison: Breakthrough
    Prosaically straightforward but consistently interesting portrait of the maverick research scientist who was awarded a 2018 Nobel Prize in medicine.
  15. ZZ Top: That Little Ol' Band from Texas
    Though it’s far from the last word on ZZ Top, “That Little Ol’ Band From Texas” fills in the nuts and bolts, giving you enough of a glimpse of how it all happened to make it seem like a down-home rock ‘n’ roll mirage come true.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Bunny Lake Is Missing
    What Preminger has achieved is an entertaining, fast-paced exercise in the exploration of a sick mind.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Freshman
    Pic’s weakest element is the recurring satire of film studies. Although Benedict is droll as an academic poseur, the mocking of film analysis is puerile and obvious.
  18. To All the Boys: Always and Forever
    Incidentally, the big payoff of this film isn’t what becomes of Lara Jean and Peter’s fates, but getting to see the supporting cast blossom around her.
  19. The Blonde One
    It’s a modest, touching dram
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Play It Again, Sam
    The placid direction of Herbert Ross keeps Allen in the spotlight for some good laughs, several chuckles and many smiles.
  21. Everybody's Talking About Jamie
    The songs are nearly all bouncy, look-at-me numbers intended for Jamie and his inner circle . . . . But there’s one new addition that makes all the difference: an original number called “This Was Me,” a terrific ’80s-style anthem (performed by Grant and Frankie Goes to Hollywood lead singer Holly Johnson) that provides younger audiences with some much-needed queer history.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Naked Prey
    Told with virtually no dialog, the story embodies a wide range of human emotion, depicted in actual on-scene photography which effects realism via semi-documentary feel.
  23. American Skin
    It’s a good movie: tense, bold, angry, empathetic, provocative, observant, morally engaged. And also, to be honest, a trifle gimmicky.
  24. The Vigil
    Like many such movies, The Vigil leans heavily on jump scares, and is arguably more effective during its tense buildup than in the climactic events.
  25. The King
    Too many movies set in this period end up as action films in medieval drag. The excitement of “The King” is that Michôd lays out the consequences of combat with gruesome precision, demythologizing the battle.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Frogs
    Cast is generally firstclass and Milland’s presence, though comparatively brief, is always commanding.
  27. Marona's Fantastic Tale
    Provides pleasures for all ages, but especially for dog lovers.
  28. The Dead Center
    There’s a lot of excellent atmospherics here that are more unsettling than the actual violence, which in turn is all the more effective for largely being kept just off-screen.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The V.I.P.s
    This has suspense, conflict, romance, comedy and drama. Its main fault is that some of the characters and the by-plots are not developed enough. But that is a risk inevitable in any film in which a number of strangers are flung together, each with problems and linked by a single circumstance.
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