Variety's Scores

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For 17,837 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 17837
  2. Mixed: 7,034 out of 17837
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17837
17837 movie reviews
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  1. Actor Martinez
    Narrative and reality clash, tussle, and are eventually rendered indistinguishable in a witty, tortured puzzle picture — one in a growing subgenre of hybrid inquiries into the nature and limits of performance, which is not to say there’s anything quite like it out there.
  2. Dave Made a Maze
    The idiosyncrasy and resourcefulness are impressive, even inspiring to a point. But at 80-odd minutes, the self-conscious novelty begins to seem stretched, enough so that you notice this clever conceit is never particularly funny or meaningful — just cute.
  3. Scandalous: The Untold Story of the National Enquirer
    If anyone out there thinks the National Enquirer is merely harmless entertainment, “Scandalous” give them no shortage of alarming reasons to reconsider.
  4. Romy and Michele's High School Reunion
    Desperately uncertain in tone and able to generate only sporadic laughs, pic decks out its meager story of revenge and comeuppance with a vulgar, flashy shimmer that will no doubt attract teenage girls, or the core "Clueless" audience.
  5. Streets of Legend
    Due to digital image manipulation that pushes the picture to the boundary between narrative and avant-garde filmmaking, slightly overlong effort is full of striking, fresh visual interludes showing cars, speed and the sensations surrounding the scene.
  6. Young Rebels
    In striving simultaneously to cover the transplanted rap scene, sample a wide range of groups, and give an unbiased picture of Cuban society, helmers Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, who have hitherto worked in short-form, blur the overall shape of their picture.
  7. Memoirs of My Nervous Illness
    Richly layered picture dramatizes a landmark doctor/patient showdown, chronicles a classic case of transgenderism and reveals how aspects of Schreber's story prefigured Nazism.
  8. Hinterland
    As impressive as Homefront is in the way it envisions a distorted world, its fully-realized digital design is all exterior display, whereas Expressionism at its best transforms disturbed psychological states into a nightmarish reality.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Big Bad Mama
    Big Bad Mama is mostly rehashed Bonnie and Clyde, with a bit more blood and Angie Dickinson taking off her clothes for sex scenes with the crooks in her life.
  10. Sisi & I
    There’s a elastic, enjoyable restlessness to all this behind-closed-court-doors bustle and bitchery, recalling less the sparse, close-up character interrogation of “Corsage” than the snippy gamesmanship of “The Favourite,” buoyed by the itchy friction between Hüller’s anxious, aspirational energy and Wolff’s cool, complacent hauteur.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Gone to Earth
    Primarily a simple yarn about simple people, it is without finesse, polish or sophistication. Dialog just about emerges from the monosyllabical state.
  12. The Do-Deca-Pentathlon
    A delightfully scrappy backburner passion project from Jay and Mark Duplass.
  13. Wolfs
    In Wolfs, Clooney and Pitt revel in the crack timing, in the I-truly-do-not-like-you obscene banter, that makes even the most casual insult take wing.
  14. The Angry Birds Movie 2
    Van Orman, Emmy-nominated creator of the quirky, cult-inspiring kids’ cartoon series “The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack,” brings just the right level of dippy zeal to the project, committing to extended, farcical routines that, at their most immaculately choreographed and paced, channel the pure, physical hilarity of vintage Chaplin or Sellers.
  15. Midwinter Break
    Midwinter Break does nothing earth-shattering (it remains wee), but the movie touchingly colors in how it might be possible for two people to know each other too well and also not well enough.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Daybreak
    One of the most impressive films to come out of Sweden in the past year. Ace acting, powerful direction and engaging storylines.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Meatballs
    Scripters have managed to gloss over the stereotypes and come up with a smooth-running narrative that makes the camp hijinks part of an overall human mosaic. No one is unduly belittled or mocked, and Meatballs is without the usual grossness and cynicism of many contempo comedy pix.
  18. Glorious
    Even at 80 minutes, Glorious feels four times too long for what it is.
  19. American Casino
    The filmmakers' metaphor of the housing market as a casino, with hard-working people's homes used as chips, although apt, may lack the visual and visceral excitement.
  20. Braid
    Braid does look great. But Mitzi Peirone’s debut feature is so void of any substance beyond the pretentiously pictorial that one suspects her real calling is in music videos or advertising.
  21. Sweet Bean
    Just as An itself seems on the verge of flying away, however, Kawase rewards her audience with an unapologetically contrived but effectively eye-moistening surge of feeling.
  22. The Kill Team
    Those familiar with this story won’t find any novel twists here, but Krauss astutely conveys the literal and moral quagmires produced by such military situations.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Juice
    Dickerson and co-writer Gerard Brown exhibit a sharp ear for dialog and have some real finds in their largely unknown cast.
  24. Burn Country
    While Olds and Paul Felten’s screenplay requires some significant credulity leaps, The Fixer is flavorsome, engaging and unpredictable enough that one can give those gaps a pass, at least to an extent.
  25. Trumbo
    Trumbo may be clumsy and overly simplistic at times, but it’s still an important reminder of how democracy can fail (that is, when a fervent majority turns on those with different and potentially threatening values), and the strength of character it takes to fight the system.
  26. The Importance of Being Earnest
    A comedy in the last century and a drama in the new one. At least, that's the dumbfounding impression left by writer-director Oliver Parker's utterly miscalculated film adaptation of Wilde's play.
  27. Together
    The plucky music student who overcomes adversity is a staple subgenre of mainland cinema and, though Chen Kaige directs with greater slickness and more finesse and humor, there's still little to differentiate Together from any other state-studio pic.
  28. Reconstruction
    Valiant attempt to innovate in the well-trod realm of Boy Meets Girl doesn't quite coalesce despite a thoughtful and distinctive visual approach.
  29. The Clearing
    Classy, decorous and well acted, directorial debut by Hollywood producer Pieter Jan BruggePieter Jan Brugge is nicely crafted but too buttoned up to generate more than polite interest, much less the urgent excitement a kidnapping story might be expected to trigger.
  30. Massoud, the Afghan
    This educational and moving film is must-viewing for anyone who craves a glimpse of the best qualities of a country that many have coveted but which has never been colonized.
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