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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    • 84 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Girl Crazy
    The story thread is light, but enough to string together the George and Ira Gershwin songs.
  2. Tainted
    It’s compelling enough in its non-hyperbolic take on familiar genre elements, even if the depth of tragedy aimed for proves as much out of reach as any nerve-wracking suspense.
  3. Nobody Knows I'm Here
    Still best known as Hurley from “Lost,” Garcia quietly electrifies here in a role that feels like a breakout; for all the film’s superior craft and unsettling atmosphere-building, it is his sympathetic soulfulness that delivers the most resonant harmonics.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Naked City
    Throughout, despite its omniscient, stark melodrama, there has been no sight lost of an element of humor. Barry Fitzgerald, as the film’s focal point, in playing the police lieutenant of the homicide squad, strides through the role with tongue in cheek, with Don Taylor as his young detective aide.
  5. Irma Vep
    A slender but appealing divertissement about a has-been auteur attempting to remake the French silent classic "Les Vampires," the film's wry digs at the institution of Gallic art movies and at the anarchic confusion of the filmmaking process should amuse hip fest audiences.
  6. The Rental
    There’s some crafty artistry at work in The Rental, and also some fairly standard pandering, which feels like a violation of the movie’s better instincts. That said, most of it is skillful and engrossing enough to establish Franco as a director to watch.
  7. Retaliation
    Whether you’re skeptical of Bloom’s abilities or have long been a believer, you can’t help but respect what the actor does with Retaliation. And the same might be true whether you’re religious or not, seeing as how the film promises revenge, while leveraging cinema’s most powerful weapon: empathy.
  8. If God Is Willing and da Creek Don't Rise
    It is, frankly, a lot to absorb — and would risk crumbling under the weight of Lee’s ambition were it not for the second gut punch to the region that BP’s horrifying blunder delivered.
  9. Michael Jackson's Journey from Motown to Off the Wall
    This bouncily entertaining doc may boast only a notch more formal ambition than a very well-assembled “Behind the Music” special, but is no less essential than Lee’s first MJ opus, the excellent “Bad 25.”
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Green Pastures
    A simple, enchanting, audience-captivating all-[black] cinematic fable.
  11. The Beach House
    In any case, it’s skillful enough to satisfy most viewers, if not quite sufficiently original in concept or striking in execution to leave a lasting imprint.
  12. Suzi Q
    In some sense, Quatro was Jett before Jett was really Jett — laying down the leather law when no female rocker had yet managed the combination of sex appeal and pure machisma.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Postman Always Rings Twice
    Development of the characters makes Tay Garnett’s direction seem slowly paced during first part of the picture, but this establishment was necessary to give the speed and punch to the uncompromising evil that transpires.
  14. Unsettled: Seeking Refuge in America
    It does provide engrossing studies in human interest, as well as an empathetic look at the particular struggles of U.S. immigration in the new millennium.
  15. The Things We Say, the Things We Do
    For French and art-house audiences, there’s no denying the pleasure of a sapiosexual romance such as this, where the turn-on is to be found in the characters’ intelligence.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Rhapsody in Blue
    Those who knew George Gershwin and the Gershwin saga may wax slightly vociferous at this or that miscue, but as cinematurgy, designed for escapism and entertainment, no matter the season, Rhapsody in Blue can't miss.
  17. Helmut Newton: The Bad and the Beautiful
    An engaging and surprisingly playful documentary about the man who was arguably the most transgressive photographer to emerge from the 1960s and ’70s.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Sabotage
    Competent and experienced hand of the director is apparent throughout this production, which is a smart one and executed in a business-like manner from start to finish.
  19. Calm with Horses (The Shadow of Violence)
    If the overall narrative arc is less than inspired, however, the milieu and personalities depicted do have real character.
  20. The Tobacconist
    In the end, what makes The Tobacconist effective despite its limitations is the way it focuses on the experience of a “typical” Austrian — that is, a citizen without political convictions.
  21. The Card Counter
    Part of the beauty of poker is that it doesn’t represent anything. It’s just a game. The Card Counter is a good game that forgets it’s a game by working so hard to be a statement.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Killing
    This story of a $2 million race track holdup and steps leading up to the robbery, occasionally told in a documentary style which at first tends to be somewhat confusing, soon settles into a tense and suspenseful vein which carries through to an unexpected and ironic windup.
  23. Benjamin
    Benjamin wrings a lot of warmly perceptive, occasionally acidic humor. The film might be termed a romantic comedy, though the will-they-won’t-they dynamic that usually powers the genre feels beside the point here.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Animal Crackers
    First give Paramount extreme credit for reproducing Animal Crackers intact from the stage, without too much of the songs and musical numbers.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Chalk Garden
    On paper, this sounds like a ripe old piece of Victoriana, but curiously it works, largely because of confident, smooth performances by all concerned.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Without Limits
    Robert Towne's Without Limits reps a distinct improvement over Steve James' Prefontaine in the filmmaking department.
  27. Days of the Whale
    For all the peril that darkens its fringes, there’s an indomitable youthful exuberance that thrums through Catalina Arroyave Restrepo’s debut feature “Days of the Whale.”
  28. Babysplitters
    The path to the inevitable but deeply moving conclusion is lively and thoroughly entertaining. Friedlander gets us there by throwing in unexpected yet true-to-life twists and turns that will likely be all too familiar to new parents, who typically don’t have the help of a second couple to share the responsibility.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Flying Leathernecks
    Actual color footage of battle action in the Pacific has been smartly blended with studio shots to strike a note of realism.
  30. Skin: A History of Nudity in the Movies
    Nudity, as “Skin” captures in its lively and disarming way, is the great leveler: the thing that makes us all gawk, no matter what the context.
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