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. Downhill
    The story worked brilliantly before. In Downhill, it works…well enough. The new movie is a teasing trifle with something real on its mind.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Silent Partner
    The Silent Partner is one of the films that run the gamut from intrigue to violence.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Malice
    The immaculately crafted Malice is a virtual scrapbook of elements borrowed from other suspense pix, but no less enjoyable for being so familiar.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Kentucky Fried Movie
    The Kentucky Fried Movie boasts excellent production values and some genuine wit, though a few of the sketches are tasteless.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Wiz
    Director Sidney Lumet has created what amounts to a love letter to the city of New York, which he equates with Oz.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Futureworld
    Futureworld is a strong sequel to Westworld in which the rebuilt pleasure dome aims at world conquest by extending the robot technology to duplicating business and political figures.
  7. Happy Happy Joy Joy: The Ren & Stimpy Story
    A very entertaining recap that grows more disturbing as it wades into the dysfunctional behavior that doomed the show.
  8. The Social Dilemma
    Densely packed yet lively and entertaining documentary, whose accessibility is heightened by some narrative play-acting.
  9. Acasă, My Home
    Balance and objectivity are laudable instincts, but they can put the film at a slightly frustrating remove.
  10. Corpus Christi
    All of this makes for compelling dramatic conflict, and it’s satisfying to watch an impostor shake up the status quo. But there’s also a soap opera-like dimension to Corpus Christi that threatens the more thoughtful aspects of the script.
  11. Respect
    Though Respect can feel a little soft in the drama department, it delivers the added pleasure of hearing Hudson re-create Franklin’s key songs, from the early jazz standards she covered for Columbia to her reinvention of the Otis Redding single that lends the film its name.
  12. The Wave
    This fever dream feels more derivative than distinctive, entertaining and eventful as it is. Still, it’s a well-cast, well-crafted stab at something offbeat.
  13. Stargirl
    While it suffers from a rocky beginning with burdensome amounts of kook and quirk, the unfolding spell it subtly casts holds profundity and wisdom.
  14. Bloodshot
    Bloodshot is a trash compactor of a comic-book film, but it’s smart trash, an action matrix that’s fun to plug into.
  15. Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway
    This superior sequel serves as both a meta-commentary on his humbling past antics and a pivotal point for the eponymous protagonist. It’s an astute, entertaining, light-hearted mix of slapstick and self-reflexive humor commingling with enlightened, sharp sentiments about individualism and commercialism (the latter of which Potter herself wrestled with, and eventually pioneered).
  16. The Photograph
    It’s a looser, warmer, and more meditative romance, one that takes its time by giving its actors room to breathe.
  17. Miss Americana
    Watching the movie, you know you’re getting a controlled and sanded-off confection of pop-diva image management, one that’s going to leave anything too dark or messy or random on the cutting-room floor. Yet what matters is that the things we do see ring true. In “Miss Americana,” the vision Taylor Swift presents of herself is just chancy and sincere enough to draw us in.
  18. José
    Cheng delivers a mood that is unquestionably human and, at times, unexpectedly hallowed (as when Jose stares down the worn face in a Mayan ruin). José brings to light the promise of a director as compassionate as he is observant.
  19. The Booksellers
    The Booksellers is a documentary for anyone who can still look at a book and see a dream, a magic teleportation device, an object that contains the world.
  20. Candyman
    The new Candyman references the plot of the original as a sinister fanfare of shadow puppets, as if to say, “That was mythology. This is reality.” It’s less a “slasher film” than a drama with a slasher in the middle of it.
  21. The Forever Purge
    As a satirical demagogic action movie, The Forever Purge is blatant, bare-bones, and entertainingly brutal.
  22. Black Bear
    This adventurous seriocomedy has enough surprising elements and off-kilter humor to keep one intrigued, even if the payoff is debatable.
  23. Premature
    While Premature may seem less professional than your average Sundance movie (much less entry-level studio fare), that doesn’t diminish what’s fresh, vulnerable and true about the film.
  24. The Forty-Year-Old Version
    Better late than never, this film is Blank’s shot, and by staying so true to her voice, her aim hits home.
  25. Boys State
    Ultimately, Boys State works because the “characters” are so compelling.
  26. Us Kids
    If it seems more of a flashback than a flashpoint — particularly as impeachment proceedings seem to crowd out discussion of anything else — Us Kids nonetheless reminds that this issue too often comes down to children, and whether our society places enough value on that supposedly most-precious-resource to meaningfully protect them.
  27. The Australian Dream
    Gordon uses blockbuster tools — pairing bold visuals with the kind of thundering sound design that makes your joints rattle — to turn his well-organized sociology lesson into a more visceral cinematic experience. More than just a compelling TED Talk, it’s an urgent and engaging call to action.
  28. Relic
    Not everyone will appreciate the ambiguity of a climax that can be read as either an uplifting act of pure and selfless love or a depressing capitulation to the malign forces of inevitable decline, but either way, “art-house horror” has its 2020 tidemark set high.
  29. The Fight
    America is so punch-drunk that The Fight often feels like it’s whacking old bruises. But that is the national psyche’s problem more than the filmmakers’. For their part, they have made a worthwhile record of the civil rights advocates combating the country’s backslide into stripping away rights for voters, immigrants, pregnant women and the LGBTQ community.
  30. Mucho Mucho Amor
    The doc gives Mercado’s story back to Mercado. Better, it shows that Mercado is still the same spiritualistic, highfalutin’ fashion-plate as a retiree eating breakfast at home as he was on TV. The film’s biggest revelation is that Mercado’s mystical, magnificent, big-hearted shtick was no fraud — he was always the real deal.
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