Variety's Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
  1. On the Line: The Richard Williams Story
    In “On the Line,” Williams has his say. Unsurprisingly, he’s frank, occasionally funny, but also vulnerable, not least because he’s growing frail, having suffered from health issues.
  2. Smile
    Smile will likely be a hit, because it’s a horror film that delivers without making you feel cheated. At 90 minutes, though, with less repetition, it might have been a more ingenious movie.
  3. The Story Won't Die
    Braiding the reflections of nine variously affected individuals on the subject, David Henry Gerson’s film successfully keeps the big picture and the smaller canvas in conscientious balance, disrupting overwhelming tragedy with more hopeful flashes of invention and inspiration.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    This Is Elvis
    A real curiosity item, This Is Elvis is a fast-paced gloss on Presley's life and career packed with enough fine music and unusual footage to satisfy anyone with an Interest in the late singing idol.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer
    Chuckles get heartier and heartier as adult Grant plays at being a juvenile at basketball games, school picnics, etc. It’s done with slapstick touch that pays off.
  6. Tigers
    It’s a compelling tale, well cast and directed with vivid intensity by Ronnie Sandahl. Still, the somewhat frustratingly limited insight we get into our hero’s addled head may affect export prospects for a film that is more about psychology than athletics.
  7. Wedding Season
    It’s a processed confection that has come off the streaming assembly line. Yet if the comedy here is mostly routine, the romance is another thing. It really does work, because the actors don’t just phone in the love story — they dance with it, commit to it, and own it.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Run Silent Run Deep
    Run Silent, Run Deep is a taut, exciting drama of submarine warfare in the Pacific during the Second World War.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Fly
    One strong factor of the picture is its unusual believability. It is told as a mystery suspense story, so that it has a compelling interest aside from its macabre effects. There is an appealing and poignant romance between Owens and Hedison, which adds to the reality of the story, although the flashback technique purposely robs the picture of any doubt about the outcome.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Jason and the Argonauts
    The $3 million film has a workable scenario and has been directed resourcefully and spiritedly by Don Chaffey, under whose leadership a colorful cast performs with zeal.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
    Voyage is a crescendo of mounting jeopardy, an effervescent adventure in an anything-but-Pacific Ocean.
  12. Rogue Agent
    As a revenge spy thriller of sorts (the kind that seems tailor-made for a TV miniseries these days), “Rogue Agent” is an engaging affair. Much of it is due to Arterton, whose steely performance firmly anchors the film even during its most improbable twists and turns — especially as it careens toward its inevitable conclusion and its all too pat final image.
  13. We Met in Virtual Reality
    We Met in Virtual Reality is a warmhearted, often humorous look at the sociology of such spaces. It can’t really be described as vérité — more fly-on-the-virtual-wall filmmaking.
  14. Railway Children
    Effectively piling nostalgia upon nostalgia upon nostalgia into a triple-layered Victorian sponge of particularly English sweetness, this good-natured, resolutely old-fashioned film will likely make any adults who grew up on Jeffries’ original a little misty-eyed.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Pollyanna
    In Walt Disney's Pollyanna Hayley Mills' work more than compensates for the film's lack of tautness and, at certain points, what seems to be an uncertain sense of direction.
  16. 2 Days in the Valley
    2 Days in the Valley will rank high on any list of films containing the greatest number of scenes in which people are threatened at gunpoint. Marked by a wearying amount of hostile and antisocial behavior by its criminal and civilian characters alike, writer-director John Herzfeld's debut outing features a measure of unexpected humor and some good character work by the ensemble cast.
  17. Pearl
    Its distinctive look and oddly appealing antihero (picture Norman Bates as Shelley Duvall might have played him) could actually make this the more popular of the two films.
  18. Captain America: Brave New World
    It’s superhero meatloaf and potatoes served with just enough competence and dash not to feel like reheated leftovers.
  19. Medieval
    Medieval succeeds as a lively, handsome chunk of history (however freely imagined), with nary a dull moment between densely-packed intrigues, chases and battles.
  20. Joyride
    Joyride needs some deft actors driving it, and it has lucked out: An up-for-anything Olivia Colman and scrappy newcomer Charlie Reid make for an unlikely but appealing buddy duo.
  21. Free Chol Soo Lee
    It’s a well-crafted enterprise that leaves its human subject a bit of an enigma, albeit one we empathize with enough to feel sorely disappointed that his tumultuous life never arrived at a place of security or peace.
  22. Burial
    Not-quite-horror despite its macabre theme and mood, this sophomore directorial feature for Ben Parker is a handsomely produced period thriller that delivers in terms of action and atmospherics, even if his somewhat convoluted story doesn’t maximally pay off.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Testament of Orpheus
    [Cocteau] still has a flair for provoking strange moods in ordinary landscapes, as well as utilizing simple trick effects effectively and judiciously. He ribs himself at times but is quite clear in his summation that a poet is rarely recognized in his time.
  24. Blue Island
    While there is no shortage of frontline footage of arrests and protestors clashing with police, most of the running time is dedicated to placing recent events in historical and deeply personal contexts.
  25. The Blue Caftan
    The Blue Caftan dares to imagine a world where there’s room for both appreciation of the old ways and room to evolve.
  26. Goodnight Mommy
    Watts, a veteran of the genre despite never quite being a scream queen, is delightfully disturbing in a role that requires her to mask her character’s true nature as well as her face.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Out of the Past
    Out of the Past is a hardboiled melodrama [from the novel by Geoffrey Homes] strong on characterization. Direction by Jacques Tourneur pays close attention to mood development, achieving realistic flavor that is further emphasized by real life settings and topnotch lensing by Nicholas Musuraca.
  28. Late August, Early September
    A kaleidoscopic but engrossing study of the shifting sands of friendship among a group of Parisians, "Late August, Early September" reps a major advance by writer-director Olivier Assayas in warmth and maturity of observation.
  29. Alex's War
    So how could this be a responsible movie? In the following way. “Alex’s War” is not a piece of pro-Jones propaganda. It’s closer to a piece of media-age vérité that assumes we know what the facts are, and that we don’t need to have our hands held as Jones spews forth his red-pill view of reality.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Substitute
    Though the setup is largely preposterous, the filmmakers go whole-hog for the idea and provide a kinetic entertainment.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »