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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  1. Cloud
    An offbeat internet-age drama that devolves into a vengeance actioner so deconstructed it’s almost existentially abstract: Beckett giving it both barrels.
  2. The Assessment
    Even when The Assessment goes beyond its smaller scale, it has a lot on its mind throughout and Fortuné ably balances the cerebral with the emotional.
  3. The Deb
    Screenplay credit goes to Hannah Reilly, who wrote the stage musical from which “The Deb” was adapted with Meg Washington. While their lyrics are clever and contemporary, this project is every bit Wilson’s jam. Her sensibility is grounded in sincerity but relies on bawdy, off-color jokes to deflect from empowerment messaging that might otherwise seem square. And it works.
  4. Ick
    This full-frontal assault on the senses is bound to get on some viewers’ nerves, but Kahn has always strived to touch them in one way or another.
  5. Apocalypse in the Tropics
    The film backs away from the overtly personal narration of its predecessor, in pursuit of a bigger picture.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    After the Thin Man
    It has the same stars, William Powell and Myrna Loy; the same style of breezy direction by W.S. Van Dyke; almost as many sparkling lines of dialog and amusing situations; but it hasn't, and probably couldn't have, the same freshness and originality of its predecessor.
  7. Better Man
    [Gracey's] angle is frustratingly familiar, though the execution is downright astonishing — we’re talking Wachowski-level ingenuity as Gracey fashions sophisticated montages where you can’t even spot the cuts.
  8. Superboys of Malegaon
    Although the film, which is based on real events, often tries to cover too much ground, it continually circles back to the idea that people must see themselves reflected in art, not just out of want, but out of deep desire stemming from need, in order to live with dignity.
  9. My Favourite Cake
    What it lacks in edge, the film certainly makes up for in the quality of its performances and watching Farhadpour and Mehrabi mutually glow off each other is a pleasure that it feels almost cruel to have so abruptly denied.
  10. Sinners
    Sinners works more than it doesn’t, even if it doesn’t always gel, but it’s a commanding demonstration of how lavishly spirited and “serious” a popcorn movie can be.
  11. Young Werther
    The biggest single factor in making “Young Werther” an antic, pleasing gambit overall is English actor Booth. He channels a bit of the early Val Kilmer from “Top Secret!” and “Real Genius” in conjuring a hero who’s so nimble and amusing in his peacocking, we forgive him being his own biggest admirer.
  12. Serpent's Path
    Kiyoshi Kurosawa, not unlike Hitchcock, is the kind of tireless genre craftsman who seems to approach every feature as a test of his own proficiency: Serpent’s Path, a brisk, harsh and, yes, clinically professional update of his own 1998 thriller of the same title, passes said test without a moment’s strain.
  13. Flow
    The trouble with Flow is that it already looks dated — commendable to be sure, yet rudimentary at the same time. It’s as if Zilbalodis decided to dump an ocean’s worth of water in the Uncanny Valley. Still, animal-loving viewers will bond almost instantly with the cat and its motley companions.
  14. Monster Summer
    It’s a fun movie that lands on the right side of “innocuous,” being pleasantly formulaic rather than simply bland.
  15. Music by John Williams
    It is not a documentary so much as a fan-friendly tribute, designed to celebrate Williams’ legacy without getting too personal or technical in the process.
  16. The Visitor
    So, is it all just high-concept pornography? Well, yes and no. The majority of the runtime consists of sex scenes, but they are punctuated with slogans which flash onscreen during and after the action, almost like demonstration placards at a march in support of sexual and political liberation.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed
    The film is a good-enough example of its low-key type, with artwork rather better than usual (less obvious backcloths, etc.), a minimum of artless dialog, good lensing by Arthur Grant and a solid all round cast.
  18. The Teacher
    What the characters can or cannot do in response, and the catharsis they’re prevented from attaining, are both key parts of their story, and of life in the West Bank at large — a reality Nabulsi conveys in stark, realistic hues, despite her first-feature growing pains.
  19. Martha
    It’s a movie that captures how Martha Stewart’s penetration into American culture seems, in hindsight, as inevitable as it was unlikely.
  20. Ash
    The movie’s razor-sharp visuals leave scratch marks on the back of your eyeballs, liable to burst back into your consciousness in subsequent dreams.
  21. Lake George
    This is a story with numerous stinging ironies, albeit one told in a refreshingly nuanced, non-hyperbolic fashion that pays off very nicely indeed.
  22. Triumph
    Original and outlandish if only fitfully funny, the film rests considerably on the deadpan comic stylings of Oscar-nominated star (and producer) Maria Bakalova.
  23. How to Train Your Dragon
    At first, DeBlois’ involvement felt like a way of protecting “Dragon” from some other director coming along and destroying it. But by the end, his vision serves to bring the whole fantastical story one step closer to reality.
  24. Sabbath Queen
    This fast-paced, well-shot doc does place its finger on the quickening pulse of an ever-wider gap between liberalizing Western social values and the Orthodox sphere that believes they are antithetical to Judaism. It’s a painful divide, but one that Sabbath Queen helps keep at least partly in the realm of civil argument.
  25. The Bad Guys 2
    If you let yourself get on that wavelength of frisky innocence, The Bad Guys 2 exerts a wholesome and slightly mischievous appeal.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Crossing Delancey
    In an unexpectedly enjoyable way, Crossing Delancey addresses one of the great societal issues of our day - the dilemma of how the 30-ish, attractive, successful, intelligent and unmarried female finds a mate she can be happy with.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Marked Woman
    Marked Woman has no romance to sell. This is a hard-hitting yarn of five girls working for a vice king.
  28. Homestead
    The lead characters are well-cast across the board, with Chase and McDonough especially effective as complex, unpredictable characters whose sporadic conflicts go a long way toward developing a rooting interest in both men.
  29. The Gorge
    It’s an audacious feat to combine multiple genres into one compelling feature, but The Gorge does just that.
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