Variety's Scores

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For 17,807 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 17807
  2. Mixed: 7,022 out of 17807
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17807
17807 movie reviews
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  1. Buck
    Warmly engaging Buck is a portrait of Buck Brannaman, a trainer whose remarkable way with equines provided a model for "The Horse Whisperer" in both novel and movie forms.
  2. Battle for Brooklyn
    "It's un-American," Goldstein says about the abuses of power at the heart of the film, before correcting himself: "No -- you know what? It is American." That's precisely the message that Battle for Brooklyn doesn't sufficiently explore.
  3. Green Lantern
    An attempt to infuse an earnest piece of comicbook lore with an irreverent, tongue-in-cheek sensibility yields decidedly mixed results in Green Lantern.
  4. R
    More pathetic than sympathetic, the young protags are not romanticized or made heroic. While this suits the style of the picture, which never conforms to the melodramatic conventions and stock characters of the prison genre, it also works against audience identification.
  5. The Art of Getting By
    Facile, formulaic and utterly charm-free.
  6. My Afternoons with Margueritte
    French feel-good filmmaking to the max. Yet a heaping pile of cliches doesn't prevent this touchingly simplistic tale -- from exuding a strong and universal emotional appeal.
  7. Kidnapped
    A technically proficient and aggressively unpleasant suspenser about sadistic home invaders.
  8. Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times
    This efficiently assembled primer hardly counts as a revelatory dispatch from the old-vs.-new-media frontlines, but its ideas will engross anyone for whom the viability of traditional newsgathering remains a matter of pressing significance.
  9. Reindeerspotting: Escape from Santaland
    With an obvious nod to "Trainspotting," Joonas Neuvonen's junkie documentary Reindeerspotting combines the greasy immediacy of that Danny Boyle parable, the naked candor of Larry Clark's "Tulsa" and the laconic poetry of William S. Burroughs' "Junkie."
  10. Queen of the Sun: What Are the Bees Telling Us?
    A creative exploration of the global honeybee crisis replete with remarkable nature cinematography, some eccentric characters and yet another powerful argument for organic, sustainable agriculture in balance with nature.
  11. The Trip
    Michael Winterbottom's The Trip is about 20 minutes too long, but the other 90 are among the funniest in recent memory.
  12. Just Like Us
    Funny, thoughtful and, with its quasi-travelogue voiceover by helmer-comedian Ahmed Ahmed, best suited for a cable outlet that won't cut the vulgarity upon which so much depends.
  13. One Lucky Elephant
    A bittersweet story of man, beast and a very real relationship that makes helmer Lisa Leeman's documentary the thinking person's "Dumbo" -- and, coincidentally, one of the better kids' movies.
  14. Trollhunter
    Enormously entertaining chiller.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Super 8
    A relatively standard monster movie.
  16. Turkey Bowl
    This ongoing improvisation, along with the completed passes and resulting chest-bumping celebrations or recriminations, serves to define these otherwise "ordinary" ciphers and lend shape and momentum to an otherwise plotless movie.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer
    Picture comes off as an exaggerated slapstick romp rather than the breezy, affecting tale of an 8-year-old tomboy it might have been.
  18. !Women Art Revolution
    Anyone seeking a dialectic, of course, can look elsewhere, but Hershman Leeson's film is a valuable resource on a movement whose issues remain relevant.
  19. Mr. Nice
    Mildly amusing but overly discursive.
  20. YellowBrickRoad
    Underwhelming finish explains zilch, but good performances, atmospherics and use of backwoods locations make Yellowbrickroad an intriguing cipher.
  21. X-Men: First Class
    After undergoing some unfortunate mutations in recent years, a beleaguered Marvel movie property gets the smart, stylish prequel it deserves in X-Men: First Class.
  22. Beautiful Boy
    Although it's very much a contemporary yarn, there's a distinctly '70s feel to much of Beautiful Boy.
  23. Beginners
    Rarely do you find such self-plunging material beyond the realm of documentary or far-fringe museum fare, and despite his background in that arena, Mills sheds all preciosity in service of genuinely revealing introspection.
  24. Love, Wedding, Marriage
    Performances range from wooden to hysterical, and it's largely due to Mulroney's inexperience behind the camera.
  25. Rejoice and Shout
    An overview of African-American gospel sounds whose dazzling talent-display should exhilarate viewers regardless of religious leanings.
  26. Submarine
    Rises above the genre's tired, cookie-cutter competition, presenting familiar elements, such as preternaturally articulate teens preoccupied with virginity, through fresh eyes.
  27. The Abduction of Zack Butterfield
    Woefully amateurish psychological thriller.
  28. We Are the Night
    "Night" trades politics for acrobatics, the film's kinetically edited action sequences filling the void left by sketchy character development.
  29. Cost of a Soul
    As is, the emotional elements explored by Cost of a Soul, and the devices it employs, seem trite and occasionally shoplifted from better-told tales.
  30. Tuesday, After Christmas
    Again, Muntean and his script collaborators offer exceptionally naturalistic dialogue.
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