Variety's Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
  1. Better Than Chocolate
    A terrifically entertaining romantic comedy, Better Than Chocolate tackles the age-old theme of the universal need for love with exuberance and gusto.
  2. Advantageous
    Advantageous presents an offbeat, intimate dystopian vision that is strongly intriguing for a while. But just when it should shift from a focus on ideas to emotional involvement, the pic instead grows slower and less engaging.
  3. Lemon
    Lemon is a comedy of miserablism that keeps poking you in the ribs — and, quite often, fails to hit the rib it’s aiming for. Yet it’s a watchable curio, because beneath it all the director, the Panamanian-born Janicza Bravo, has a more conventional sensibility than she lets on.
  4. I Smile Back
    What propels the film forcefully along is Silverman, who pulls us down so deeply inside Laney’s sickness that everything else seems to fade away (much as it does in the character’s own life).
  5. Little Monsters
    The paradox of "Little Monsters" is that it’s so guileless in its story and execution, it could have been made for kids, except for the disembowelings. Still, Nyong’o not only survives the film with her dignity intact, the audience might exit admiring her more.
  6. Tower Heist
    During the heist itself, the suspense is palpable, if only because Christophe Beck's funky score blares its horns so insistently, one can't help but feel anxious. But the laughs don't follow.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Untamed Heart
    Appealing lead performances elevate this modestly scaled romantic tearjerker, from a first script by Tom Sierchio.
  8. Sarah's Key
    Working in a classical style and genre that rep a far cry from his previous work ("Pretty Things," "Gomez and Tavares, "UV"), Pacquet-Brenner's direction is always respectful if never entirely subtle.
  9. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
    If none of the Hobbit films resonate with "Rings'" mythic grandeur, it’s hard not to marvel at Jackson’s facility with these characters and this world, which he seems to know as well as John Ford knew his Monument Valley, and to which he here bids an elegiac adieu.
  10. Blueback
    The film adopts a somewhat more grownup, realistic, less parabolic tenor, though its ecology-minded narrative remains a bit sketchy for feature treatment — resulting in a pleasant, very handsome-looking movie rather short on dramatic impact.
  11. The Silent Twins
    Layering one wild formal flourish over another — from macabre stop-motion animation to elaborately choreographed musical fantasies — to channel the inner lives of two young women who communicated only with each other, keeping the rest of the world outside their circle, it’s a swing for the fences that sometimes, almost by design, spins out of control.
  12. Between Two Ferns: The Movie
    Between Two Ferns: The Movie has some laughs, but it’s essentially the tossed-together version of a hangout movie. It’s a roast served at room temperature.
  13. Don't Move
    In his second outing as a director, top thesp Sergio Castellitto (also playing the surgeon) takes the viewer on an emotion-filled ride and brings a violently masculine perspective to the story. However, it is Penelope Cruz who gives the film's knockout performance.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Army of Darkness
    Blending almost nonstop violence with humorous parody, Sam Raimi's latest excursion into horror-kitsch seems more like an irreverent "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court."
  15. All Is True
    The result is a revisionist fiasco, too dense with Shakespeare allusions for casual moviegoers, and too fast and loose with the facts for those who know a thing or two about the man. In short, All Is True takes the English language’s most gifted dramatist and reduces his sunset years to a sloppy soap opera.
  16. Winter Solstice
    Story of a still-grieving widower and his two troubled teenage sons is distinguished by its emotional integrity, sustained mood of aching melancholy and superbly understated performances.
  17. Sleep Dealer
    Despite some clever virtual-reality concepts and projections about the next frontier of globalization, Alex Rivera's ambitious directing debut lacks the vision, or the budget, to pull off its fusion of sci-fi and aspirational saga.
  18. Anywhere But Here
    With half a dozen roles to her credit, Portman is a natural performer who brings rough edges to any role she plays -- the movie is inconceivable without her.
  19. The First Wives Club
    The familiar setup sparkles a little brighter here thanks to the ensemble and their deft delivery of the bitchy dialogue in Robert Harling's adaptation of the Olivia Goldsmith novel.
  20. The Child I Never Was
    Though Pieck is to be admired for the rigorousness in telling this chilling story (on what looks like a near zero budget), the film itself remains resolutely unlikable.
  21. The Short Life of José Antonio Gutierrez
    Sensitively and methodically tells the story of the first U.S. soldier killed in the 2003 Iraq invasion.
  22. 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.
  23. Magic Magic
    Meticulously acted, gorgeously shot and hilariously insightful about the strange, inarticulable ways people can get on one another’s nerves, this psychological thriller takes its premise to surprising, darkly comic extremes.
  24. Champs
    Director Bert Marcus’ Champs is the moviegoing opposite of a prize fight, a slick but not particularly stylish documentary that actually becomes more focused and energized in the late rounds.
  25. Amnesia
    There are a lot of compelling ideas afloat in “Amnesia” that never fully congeal, but the undeniable sincerity and personal commitment of Schroeder’s vision help to carry the film over its rough patches.
  26. Crooked House
    With such an enticing cast, it’s tougher than one might think trying to divine which of these eccentrics might be responsible for the crime, and “Crooked House” keeps you guessing, right up to its shocking conclusion.
  27. Dragon Ball Super: Broly
    If you’re among the heretofore uninitiated drawn to this new Dragon Ball extravaganza, which has been dubbed into English and booked into 1,440 North American theaters, you may often find yourself experiencing similar frustration as you struggle to make sense of a patchwork plot that seems derived from various strands of the ongoing mythos, and is filled with apparently major characters whose backstories are only fuzzily defined.
  28. Jirga
    As interesting as all this is, and as challenging and perilous it must have been to capture these images, Jirga’s elliptical approach to plot and selective use of subtitles does the finished product no favors.
  29. Judy & Punch
    The core narrative is rather simple, and the political metaphor not especially subtle. But the overall concept, from Foulkes and her trio of story collaborators, has a bracingly original air, from the film’s period anachronisms to its impressive design elements.
  30. Dads
    It’s mostly a vanilla documentary with no real destination, but one with plenty of cuteness to go around.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »