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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    • 61 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Norma Rae
    Norma Rae is that rare entity, an intelligent film with heart.
  2. Good Fortune
    Even though it’s fairly obvious where “Good Fortune” is headed, Ansari manages to surprise in how he gets there. Like his character, the writer-director-producer-star seems to be juggling one too many jobs here, and yet, it’s that very connection to overworked, undercompensated Americans that makes his movie so right for this moment.
  3. Aniara
    This tale of a spaceship stuck wandering the cosmos after being forced off course is both impressive in its scope and intimate in its portrait of human nature under long-term duress.
  4. He Named Me Malala
    Where the film falters is in its willingness to settle for canned uplift, reducing the substance of Malala’s global activism to multicultural montages, goosed by Thomas Newman’s emotional cattle prod of a score.
  5. Meet the Robinsons
    A sharp-minded, plenty entertaining toon that will keep children of all ages wide-eyed and on their toes.
  6. Land
    Bless Wright for paring Land down to a beautiful haiku, and for delivering a performance that’s ambiguous and understated in all the right ways.
  7. Stuck
    Ingeniously nasty and often shockingly funny as it incrementally worsens a very bad situation, then provides a potent payoff with the forced feeding of just desserts.
  8. Nina's Tragedies
    An amiable, but cluttered dramedy.
  9. Sunshine Cleaning
    Director Christine Jeffs, who previously helmed "Rain" and "Sylvia," tries to strike a balance between the yarn's dark currents and offbeat comedy, but the result is often uneasy, with the humor receding as things progress.
  10. Private
    Political realities are a powerful bonus to, rather than the only reason for, Private, an emotionally gripping drama.
  11. Headshot
    In terms of sheer, punchy physical vigor, Headshot is a knockout.
  12. Wondrous Oblivion
    Full of charming moments, but swinging hither and thither between mainstream entertainment and an over-cooked anti-racist tract.
  13. Word Wars
    There's a pronounced lack of emotional pay-off that likely will derail any attempts to position Word Wars as an aud-friendly crowd-pleaser with breakout potential comparable to "Spellbound."
  14. The Polar Express
    This visually impressive yet emotional frigid fable could perhaps more accurately be tagged "The Bipolar Express."
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    La Cage aux Folles
    Though predictable, the film has one solid trump in Michel Serrault who makes the more feminine member of the happy couple a very shrewd limning of outsize campy gay attributes that avoid tastelessness.
  16. Edmond
    Despite agreeably short running time and committed performances, Edmond is rendered inert by its stagy atmosphere and failure to fully mine the depths of its protagonist's complex psyche.
  17. Two Lovers and a Bear
    Somehow, in the final stretch, Nguyen has transformed what felt like a relatively generic, un-special indie love story into something totally unpredictable, taking full advantage of the gorgeous widescreen lensing to convey the atmosphere and magic of his locations.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Natural
    The Natural is an impeccably made, but quite strange, fable about success and failure in America. Redford is perfectly cast as the wary, guarded Hobbs.
    • Variety
    • 61 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Eyewitness
    Weaver plays her part very well, but simply can’t justify the character’s actions, which ripple through the murder plot in several directions. Consequently, the story gets more and more strained before it’s resolved.
  20. Worlds Apart
    It isn’t bad, but it’s kind of a trifle. Though it treats its themes with reasonable honesty, it can’t help but come off as a bit diagrammed.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Eiger Sanction
    Eastwood, who also directs and according to studio did his own mountain climbing without doubles, manages fine suspense. His direction displays a knowledge that permits rugged action.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Kill Me Again
    The tale of a down-and-out detective and a seamy femme fatale is a thoroughly professional little entertainment.
  23. White Fang
    The rewards here are ones of fine, subtle sensory detail, be it the shimmering visualization of falling snow on a forest floor, the convincing, characterful nature of the animal sound effects, and the grand, graceful design and movement of the wolfdogs themselves — as expressive and adorable as any Disney critter.
  24. The Wackness
    The Amerindie annals are over-full of withdrawn male loners hoping to quirk or cathart themselves out of teenage purgatory. But like "Donnie Darko," "Thumbsucker" and a few others, The Wackness treads this familiar terrain with assurance and distinction.
  25. Best Worst Movie
    Strangely moving, insightful and entertaining documentary.
  26. Horse Girl
    The transgressiveness of Baena and Brie’s strange and sorrowful Horse Girl, is in how it turns the simplistic, inauthentic tweeness of the generic, quirky indie comedy in on itself to produce a rare and piercingly compassionate exploration of the sorts of madness that come from intense loneliness, and the intense loneliness that comes from being regarded as mad.
    • 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.
  28. Screen Door Jesus
    Winner of the Golden Starfish fiction competition at the Hamptons fest, pic's gutsy, madly ambiguous unleashing of a mixed bag of religious reactions attests to a genuine sense of regionalism.
  29. The People vs. Fritz Bauer
    Though relatively conservative in its approach, Lars Kraume’s teleplay-style treatment of a still-touchy subject has the nerve to name names.
  30. Enemy
    Ultimately, the enigmatic surface conflict — in which a man must contend with his own carbon copy as rival — proves to be the film’s own worst enemy, for its dark, David Lynchian allure proves almost too compelling, obscuring the material’s deeper themes.
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