Variety's Scores

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For 17,805 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: 9,148 out of 17805
  2. Mixed: 7,020 out of 17805
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17805
17805 movie reviews
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  1. Project X
    This game-changing instant classic will doubtless inspire imitators, onscreen and in backyards everywhere, en route to redefining what a new generation expects of its mice-will-play movies.
  2. Dr. Seuss' The Lorax
    The key to Seuss' tales, as with all good fables, is not only their cleverness but their surpassing elegance and simplicity, qualities that this busy, over-cluttered contraption of a movie seems entirely uninterested in replicating.
  3. The Raid: Redemption
    Taking the genre to a higher level of intensity, the Welsh-born Evans continues what he started in previous Indonesia-set actioner "Merantau," but this picture will seal his cult status.
  4. Let the Bullets Fly
    A rollicking, violent, Western-cum-comedy that serves many masters, but adds up to an entertaining hot pot of wry political commentary and general mischief.
  5. Better Than Something: Jay Reatard
    What elevates the picture above the norm is a series of remarkably candid and eerily prescient interviews.
  6. The Salt of Life
    Di Gregorio's dialogue and performers are once again marked by a spontaneity and ease; who else working today treats so-called "middle age" with such jocular honesty?
  7. This Is Not a Film
    Standing at his balcony, filming the revelry with his iPhone, he seems to be saying that directing is more defiant an act than lighting a firecracker or two. Truth be told, Panahi's poignant "Film" is infinitely more explosive.
  8. Being Flynn
    The film surrounds its leads with a cast whose faces capture the ragtag dignity Flynn described in his book -- no overacting required, no emotional panhandling allowed.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Tomorrow, When the War Began
    Parochial paranoia dovetails with adolescent angst in the glossy sci-fi coming-of-ager Tomorrow When the War Began.
  10. Last Days Here
    A surprise back-from-the-brink redemption proves reliably engaging in rock-doc Last Days Here, tracking three years in the life of cult musician Bobby Liebling, whose band Pentagram never capitalized on its early promise.
  11. The Assault
    The tense buildup to a blazing, if generic, rescue is the most satisfying part of The Assault, a stylized combo of action and drama from Julien Leclercq.
  12. The Snowtown Murders
    The result is a movie that can be admired in many respects from a distance but is progressively less emotionally engaging.
  13. Black Butterflies
    The uncompromising power of Ingrid Jonker's poetry runs like a pulsing vein through Black Butterflies.
  14. Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie
    Recycles characters and plotlines from their show, along with badly made commercials and faux PSAs about inane subjects, a gambit that dates back to such comedy compilations as "Kentucky Fried Movie" or even "Laugh-In." What Tim & Eric has that those others lacked are the many sexually outre, scatological and degrading moments that seem intended to shock -- and perhaps will, if you're really young or really old.
  15. Gone
    A low-pulse thriller that evaporates from memory with the last credit.
  16. Good Deeds
    Good Deeds is relentlessly unsurprising in its plotting and borderline comical in its melodramatic flourishes.
  17. Act of Valor
    A mechanically efficient yet soulless dramatization of the U.S. Navy SEALs in action, Act of Valor ultimately misses its target: The hearts and minds of American audiences.
  18. Wanderlust
    Despite some amusing moments, everyone simply works too hard at providing rambunctious zaniness, until one grows painfully aware the inevitable outtakes reel will be superior to the movie.
  19. The Fairy
    In The Fairy, Abel, Gordon and Romy have all of Le Havre as their playground. And now that the they've established the ideal format for their brand of comicbook-style humor, one can't help but wish they show the good sense to keep it at this level going forward.
  20. Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance
    The picture is still much too rickety, slapdash and surprisingly dull to qualify as a good barrel-bottom pleasure.
  21. Jess and Moss
    Jeter's film takes on the quality of a sustained dream, as if the theatrical conceits of Jean Genet were married to a children's story retold via William Faulker's Southern brand of stream of consciousness.
  22. Cirkus Columbia
    Though burdened by major problems of tone, Tanovic's fourth feature succeeds in making clear the incredulity with which most people regarded the thought of war and dissolution of Yugoslavia, as well as the machinations of various opportunistic groups.
  23. The Forgotten Space
    Sekula's overwritten narration, with its fair share of whoppers, does his argument no favors, overwhelming genuinely interesting statistics.
  24. Putin's Kiss
    The picture still tells a riveting story about contempo Russia's darkest side.
  25. Michael
    Illustrating the banality of evil in an impressively controlled and sometimes darkly humorous fashion, Michael takes a coolly nonjudgmental, non-psychological approach to a disturbing topic.
  26. Undefeated
    Enjoyably upbeat and intelligently inspiring.
  27. Bullhead
    Though the story is told and edited in a way that too often obscures rather than enhances its central tragedy, much is compensated by a career-defining, powerfully physical lead perf by Matthias Schoenaerts and ace lensing by local widescreen wiz Nicolas Karakatsanis.
  28. Hell and Back Again
    Similar in its battlefield passages to last year's Danish-made "Armadillo," Dennis' film scores a layered perspective that follows Marine Sgt. Nathan Harris into combat and back home.
  29. Bombay Beach
    In an inspired twist, Har'el brings surreal levity to the potentially downer subject by interrupting her elegiac regional portraiture with a series of amateur dance numbers. Still, without dramatic momentum, this fringe-appeal snapshot feels less like a film than a coffee-table photo project come to life.
  30. The Swell Season
    Swell never really gathers momentum, remaining a collection of moments, some more privileged than others.
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