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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    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Naked Kiss
    Good Samuel Fuller programmer about a prostie trying the straight route, The Naked Kiss is primarily a vehicle for Constance Towers. Hooker angles and sex perversion plot windup are handled with care, alternating with handicapped children 'good works' theme.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Coffy
    Jack Hill, who wrote and directs with an action-atuned hand, inserts plenty of realism in footage in which Pam Grier in title role ably acquits herself.
  3. Spinster
    Andrea Dorfman’s thoughtful little film arrives at a compromise that feels honest and hard-won — helped along by the infectious, defiantly offbeat presence of erstwhile “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” star Chelsea Peretti.
  4. The Way I See It
    The Way I See It mostly feels like a love letter to Obama.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Death Takes a Holiday
    It is the kind of story and picture that beckons the thinker, and for this reason is likely to have greater appeal among the intelligentsia. [27 Feb 1934, p.17]
    • Variety
  6. Judas and the Black Messiah
    The powerful film puts the current moment into fresh historical context and suggests that ambivalence can be its own form of betrayal.
  7. The Bay of Silence
    The film’s pained, ugly revelations finally carry more weight than any amateur detective work leading up to them: a #MeToo reckoning hidden within a glinting, noir-esque hall of mirrors.
  8. Martin Margiela: In His Own Words
    The grandest irony to emerge is that despite its unquestionable sincerity, soft-spoken iconoclast Martin Margiela’s insistent non-image may yet turn out to be fashion’s canniest bit of image-making of all.
  9. French Exit
    Yes, French Exit blisters amid the rarefied air of Tom Wolfe or Whit Stillman, but it’s nicely cut with the schadenfreude of “Schitt’s Creek.”
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Cocoanuts
    That's all it has --comedy-- but that's enough. [29 May 1929, p.14]
    • Variety
    • 44 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Raven
    A good horror flicker. Just vaguely 'suggested' by the Edgar Allen Poe classic, the adaptation wanders not a little, but the basic romance is wisely kept to the fore, and Bela Lugosi, as the psycopathic medico to whom Irene Ware is indebted for her life contributes the shocker aspects forcibly.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Remember the Night
    Picture is highlighted in numerous instances by some deft telling in the script and fine piloting by director Mitchell Leisen to lift the yarn from commonplace and trite category. Stanwyck turns in a fine performance. MacMurray is impressive as the serious-minded prosecutor, but loosens up for the comedy stretches.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    A Foreign Affair
    While subject is handled for comedy, Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder have managed to underlay the fun with an expose of human frailties and, to some extent, indicate a passive bitterness among the conquered in the occupied areas.
  14. Enola Holmes
    The movie has contemporary issues of gender equality on the mind — and an endearingly radical protagonist in Enola.
  15. Love, Guaranteed
    If likability is a trait you value, Love, Guaranteed delivers the undemanding pleasure of watching two fundamentally decent people tumble into fondness and then love.
  16. Desert One
    You emerge from Desert One knowing certain aspects of the Iran-hostage crisis better than you did before. That makes it a worthy film, and an absorbing one.
  17. The August Virgin
    So many movies seek to distract, whereas this one creates a space — like Eva, left behind in a near-empty city — to reflect and reevaluate.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Lassie Come Home
    From the novel of Eric Knight, and with Fred M. Wilcox directing his first feature picture, Lassie emerges as nice entertainment enhanced by color photography and good scenic shots.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Charlotte's Web
    Heartwarming entertainment.
  20. The Boys in the Band
    What holds the movie together, apart from Quinto’s dreamy geek mystique and delectable delivery of every line, is the tormented passion that Jim Parsons brings to it.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Life with Father
    Irene Dunne and William Powell have captured to a considerable extent the charm of the play by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse [based on the book by Clarence Day Jr]. The major humor of the story, based on Father's eccentric characteristics and Mother's continual mollifying of his tantrums, is still evident in the pic.
  22. 12 Hour Shift
    Grant’s screenplay builds a Rube Goldbergian narrative of escalating, piled-up crises, from which she also engineers a just-credible-enough exit strategy.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Wind and the Lion
    Generally literate and very commercial period action drama, well written and better directed by John Milius.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Honeymoon in Vegas
    Writer-director Andrew Bergman has a rare talent for intelligently conceived farce, and he has plenty of fun with the premise of "Honeymoon in Vegas," an adult twist on Damon Runyon's "Little Miss Marker." Sarah Jessica Parker is the saucy, sympathetic prize in a poker game between her divorce-detective fiance Nicolas Cage and sharkish Vegas gambler James Caan. The Columbia release is a bit rough around the edges but should make merry at the B.O.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    To Each His Own
    Charles Brackett, who wrote and produced, injected a human quality in the script, and Mitchell Leisen makes full use of it in his direction.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Road to Singapore
    Initial teaming of Bing Crosby and Bob Hope in Road to Singapore provides foundation for continuous round of good substantial comedy of rapid-fire order, swinging along at a zippy pace.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Z
    Z is a punchy political pic [from the novel by Vassilis Vassilikos] that mixes action, violence, and conspiracy on a robust, lavish scale.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Lady on a Train
    Lady on a Train is a mystery comedy containing plenty of fun for both whodunnit and laugh fans. Melodramatic elements in the Leslie Charteris original are flippantly treated without minimizing suspense, and the dialog contains a number of choice quips that are good for hefty laughs.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Lover Come Back
    This is a funny, most-of-the-time engaging, smartly produced show. Farce has Rock Hudson as would-be conqueror of Doris Day, who as the victim of a who's-who deception plays brinkmanship with surrender.
  30. Buoyancy
    In doing justice to the stories of thousands, Rathjen has somewhat undersold the personal story of its single protagonist.
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