Variety's Scores

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For 17,794 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 2.4 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: 9,142 out of 17794
  2. Mixed: 7,015 out of 17794
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17794
17794 movie reviews
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  1. Craigslist Joe
    He's a nondescript protagonist, his benefactors, and he's never truly in need; as is made clear at the start, he has a comfortable life to return to whenever he chooses. So the picture becomes simply the moderately diverting record of an offbeat vacation.
  2. The Campaign
    Roach, who also counts such lowbrow laffers as "Austin Powers" and "Meet the Fockers" on his resume, manages to keep things broad without sacrificing smarts.
  3. Chicken with Plums
    The same winning balance of seriousness and humor that made "Persepolis" such a hit works equally well in Chicken With Plums.
  4. ParaNorman
    Few movies so taken with death have felt so rudely alive as ParaNorman, the latest handcrafted marvel from the stop-motion artists at Laika ("Coraline").
  5. Assassin's Bullet
    Much of this makes little sense, but it's hard to care.
  6. Dreams of a Life
    A riveting tale of a onetime vivacious personality, described by those who knew her as "stunning," "lovely," and "very well liked," but who nevertheless died alone, friendless and seemingly missed by nobody.
  7. Mosquita y Mari
    First-time writer-director Aurora Guerrero beautifully captures the fluctuating dynamics of friendship between 15-year-old girls in Mosquita y Mari.
  8. The Babymakers
    Yet another attempt to mix raunchy excess and romantic-comedy sweetness in an anything-goes raucous farce, The Babymakers offers a few big laughs between ho-hum stretches of frenetic vamping.
  9. You've Been Trumped
    Collectivist in spirit, this mostly entertaining film lacks an official host or voiceover narration, which first works swimmingly but eventually becomes too diffuse.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days
    Formulaic in adhering to the sitcom-style tone of the first two films, picture finds the chronically underappreciated Greg facing a summer break replete with parental expectations and anxiety over his first crush.
  11. Total Recall (2012)
    Crazy new gadgets, vigorous action sequences and a thorough production-design makeover aren't enough to keep Total Recall from feeling like a near-total redundancy.
  12. Rites of Spring
    Helmer-writer Padraig Reynolds creates a dizzying pastiche of genre conventions, and he has a terrific actress in Anessa Ramsey, who's that rare thing in horror, a thoroughly convincing victim.
  13. Hope Springs
    Hope Springs is an altogether pleasant surprise: a mainstream dramedy that frankly and intelligently addresses the challenges facing a couple after 31 years of marriage.
  14. Celeste and Jesse Forever
    Celeste & Jesse Forever earns points for bucking formula, but its fusion of snark and sincerity has a calculated slickness that rings increasingly hollow.
  15. Burning Man
    Grief doesn't rate high among emotional states suited to high-octane presentation; hence the disconnect between excessive style and sober content in Burning Man, a feature-length montage posing as a serious drama about loss and anger.
  16. Goats
    This monotonously deadpan coming-of-age comedy has little to recommend it beyond some beautiful widescreen cinematography and the momentary kick of seeing David Duchovny looking like a stoned Jesus as Goat Man.
  17. The Watch
    What's onscreen feels as half-assed and juvenile as it was probably always envisioned to be, suggesting an umpteenth retelling of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" by way of "The Hangover," or perhaps a far less inspired version of "Attack the Block" transplanted to small-town Ohio.
  18. Big Boys Gone Bananas!*
    A David-and Goliath story that delves into corporate scare tactics, legal effrontery, brand protection, media manipulation, online propagandizing and craven behavior.
  19. Step Up Revolution
    Step Up Revolution, the fourth entry in the venerable dance franchise, is a narrative failure but a triumph of sheer spectacle.
  20. Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry
    The film is a good start, but such an important artist deserves a more rigorous portrait.
  21. Sacrifice
    Sacrifice is practically a chamber piece, and duly draws its strength from its performances, especially those of Ge and Wang.
  22. 2 Days in New York
    The French are smelly, vulgar, racist and oversexed, or so it would seem based on 2 Days in New York, a scattershot culture-clash comedy that goes down like yesterday's foie gras.
  23. Red Hook Summer
    For those expecting Mookie's mid-career encore to signify a return to Spike Lee's roots, Red Hook Summer instead surprises -- and to some extent delights -- as yet another radically unique entry in the director's iconoclastic oeuvre.
  24. 360
    With a multilingual cast of mostly unfamiliar faces, plus a few stars, 360 feels too abstract, orchestrating break-ups and hook-ups in a passionless vacuum.
  25. 30 Beats
    The jazz-scored picture relies heavily on quirkiness to round out shaky characterizations and inject interest into otherwise forgettable pairings.
  26. Killer Joe
    The family that slays together pays together in Killer Joe, a nasty little Texas noir that transfers Tracy Letts' 1993 play from page to screen with generally gripping results before devolving into an over-the-top splatterfest.
  27. Shut Up and Play the Hits
    Much like the band's self-conscious synth-pop itself, "Shut Up" is initially satiric but ultimately disarming in its emotional resonance.
  28. Wagner's Dream
    Tension flows organically from every phase of this dangerous endeavor, making for a highly entertaining outing for operaphiles and operaphobes alike.
  29. The Well Digger's Daughter
    The humanist spirit of Gallic novelist-director Marcel Pagnol is alive and well in the old-fashionedly sincere The Well-Digger's Daughter, a competent remake of Pagnol's eponymous 1940 melodrama about a working-class girl impregnated by a young pilot who's sent off to war.
  30. The Dark Knight Rises
    While The Dark Knight Rises raises the dramatic stakes considerably, at least in terms of its potential body count, it doesn't have its predecessor's breathless sense of menace or its demonic showmanship, and with the exception of one audacious sleight-of-hand twist, the story can at times seem more complicated than intricate.
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