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. Yarn
    It’s less than the sum of its attractive parts, with scant overall insight or weight. Like an old handmade sweater, this is a movie that might unravel too easily if you gave any single element a hard tug.
  2. This Is Everything: Gigi Gorgeous
    This glossy doc uncovers very little conflict or depth in a personality more colorful than it is interesting, at least as presented here.
  3. Braven
    To put it simply and gratefully: Braven is the sort of unpretentious yet thoroughly professional popcorn entertainment that brings out the best in everybody involved.
  4. The Gardener
    Chabot’s film is not “The Garden,” but The Gardener and as a portrait of the man behind Quatre Vents, unlike the gorgeous flora, it never blossoms.
  5. This Is Our Land
    The film is so calculated in its plotting that it loses some of its chill.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Boxcar Bertha
    Performances are dull. Whatever sociological, political or dramatic motivations may once have existed in the story have been ruthlessly stripped from the plot, leaving all characters bereft of empathy or sympathy. There’s hardly a pretense toward justifying the carnage
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    August 32nd on Earth
    An appealing though ultimately slight drama about a young woman who is thrown into an emotional tizzy after surviving a bad car crash.
  8. The Year of Spectacular Men
    With the right script, this trio could make a fantastic flick. Forget these “spectacular” men. These flawed women are plenty.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Longest Yard
    The Longest Yard is an outstanding action drama, combining the brutish excitement of football competition with the brutalities of contemporary prison life. Burt Reynolds asserts his genuine star power, here as a former football pro forced to field a team under blackmail of warden Eddie Albert.
  10. All the Bright Places
    All The Bright Places would be nowhere without Haley’s vision and deft ability to deliver all of the feels. He finds places to let his bright intellect shine, perfectly crafting heartrending melodrama through tonal pacing that’s never cloying nor disgustingly saccharine.
    • 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.
  12. 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.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Day of the Locust
    Magnificent production, combined with excellent casting and direction, make The Day of the Locust as fine a film (in a professional sense) as the basic material lets it be. Nathanael West's novel about losers on the Hollywood fringe has lost little of its verisimilitude in adaptation.
  14. Evolution
    So heavy until now, the movie ends on a soaring note of optimism.
  15. The Year Between
    The result is a useful mix of the pseudo-random and finely honed that refuses to hand-wring over Clem’s travails, yet simultaneously makes an upbeat case for her emerging from them intact — even if she’ll never exactly be Miss Congeniality.
  16. We Bury the Dead
    Its strengths also ensure that no matter how rote “We Bury the Dead” becomes, it remains at least watchable for most of its runtime, even as it ignores its most fascinating ideas in favor of safe, familiar ones.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Isle of the Dead
    Isle of the Dead is a slow conversation piece about plagues and vampires on an eerie Greek island. It's better handled and directed than most though thriller fans will still find its lack of action a drag. Even Boris Karloff fans will note the tired way he rambles through it all.
  18. Jim Queen
    As satire, it’s more loosely irreverent than devastatingly pointed, but alongside the satisfying potshots at the far right, Nguyen and Athané’s script also takes welcome aim at body fascism and other forms of discrimination within the gay community.
  19. Margaret
    This unwieldy drama of conscience in the wake of tragedy is hyperarticulate but rarely eloquent, full of wrenchingly acted scenes that lack credible motivation or devolve into shrill hectoring.
  20. Grand Piano
    [An] appealingly absurd thriller.
  21. Copshop
    Copshop is a processed slice of genre meatloaf with the gravy occasionally dribbled in ornate patterns. It’s junky and synthetic, but it fills you up.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Vice Versa
    It is really Savage, best known for his role as the little boy in The Princess Bride, who is particularly winsome as the smart-alecky Dad stuck in his kid’s pint-size body.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Kindergarten Cop
    The polished comic vision that gave Twins, Arnold Schwarzenegger's comedy breakthrough, a storybook shine completely eludes director Ivan Reitman here. Result is a mish-mash of violence, psycho-drama and lukewarm kiddie comedy.
  24. A Boy Called Christmas
    “Christmas” is a cut above the usual holiday dross.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    First Blood
    Director Ted Kotcheff has all sorts of trouble with this mess, aside from credibility. Supposedly, the real villain here is society itself, which invented a debacle like Vietnam and must now deal with its lingering tragedies. But First Blood cops out completely on that one, not even trying to find a solution to Stallone's problems.
  26. Vajra Sky Over Tibet
    An illuminating meditation on that deepest of Buddhist philosophical concerns -- impermanence. Study of a threatened culture and people is beautifully shot inside Tibet's most sacred sites and arrives with the blessing of the Dalai Lama.
  27. Ice Age
    An entertaining story that, while not terribly original, is sufficiently arresting and often laugh-out-loud funny.
  28. The Boxtrolls
    The meticulously crafted world is stunning to behold, imagined to the minutest detail and photographed with the sort of dramatic lighting and dynamic camera movement rarely seen in stop-motion. Trouble is, it’s not a place most folks would care to spend any time.
  29. Rosaline
    There’s something fresh about the story’s unwillingness to pit a woman’s romantic quests against her career goals.
  30. Roadie
    Roadie features some wonderfully evocative music out of its characters' collective past (local legends the Good Rats, for instance) but like Jimmy himself, it takes a bit of a push to get the picture going, which it gets, both emotionally and dramatically, thanks largely to its ensemble.
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