Variety's Scores

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:
17807 movie reviews
  1. Waiting for Super to deliver the funny is an experience as long as the film itself.
  2. Neither scary, funny, nor anywhere near as clever as it seems to think it is, picture offers audiences few reasons to want to see it beyond its one-joke premise.
  3. Like Sebastian Silva's "The Maid," Queen posits a radically different approach to class and gender empowerment.
  4. However didactic the film's final scenes, there's no denying the sheer dramatic intensity Bier achieves.
  5. A possession thriller less terrifying than fun.
  6. Very kid-friendly, the wordless pic could strike some as an overly-intellectualized attempt to fetishize remnant semi-pagan traditions in a picturesque corner of Italy's Calabria province.
  7. A strange and strangely beautiful movie.
  8. Like Quentin Tarantino, Snyder is unapologetic about his influences -- the trashier the better -- though he's far less skilled in the art of pastiche.
  9. Mia and the Migoo boasts a handsome, folkloric look that is often undermined by a ham-handed script.
  10. Chalk suffers overall from a lack of subtlety, as problems abruptly get thrust into the foreground with little buildup or internal consistency.
  11. In the lead, Gordon has the wide-eyed appeal of a young Matthew Broderick: He looks nothing like Kinney's crudely rendered cartoon character.
  12. Though never intended to match "The Road" for gruesome veracity or Michael Haneke's "Time of the Wolf" for full-on mysterious dread, this Irish production doesn't cut much of its own niche in an overworked genre.
  13. A prolonged stay in a Belgian immigration detention center causes more than a few chinks in the armor of a strong-willed Russian femme in Illegal, Olivier Masset-Depasse's fascinating study of perseverance in the face of subhuman treatment.
  14. Utterly unpretentious and deeply touching.
  15. Brit thesp Paddy Considine makes a strong writing-helming feature debut with Tyrannosaur, recycling the same cast, characters and setup he used for his 2008 award-winning short "Dog Altogether."
  16. The emotional life of a Canuck bowling-alley handyman slowly turns to slush in Curling, the latest slice of arthouse misery from Quebecois director Denis Cote.
  17. A captivating and vaguely disturbing experience.
  18. This curious blend of documentary and narrative, held together less by any plot device than by a rigorous aesthetic, proves all the more effective for being in service of casual naturalism.
  19. Schnabel's signature blend of splintered storytelling and sobering humanism feels misapplied to this sweeping multigenerational saga.
  20. A modestly engaging domestic drama that earns few points for originality but rewards aud attention with persuasive performances, outbursts of robust humor and a vivid yet understated evocation of time and place.
  21. Eight years after the crowd-pleasing "8 Women" and a mostly impressive run of small-scale arthouse films, Francois Ozon effortlessly moves back to the mainstream with another sparkling, occasionally side-splitting adaptation of a French boulevard-theater play.
  22. So lame that it barely gets a rise out of permanent erection jokes.
  23. Lacks focus, stumbling from one emotionally fraught stopping place to another but arousing less and less curiosity along the way.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Script weaknesses overwhelm ethnographic interest, historical tragedy and some solid performances in period drama "The Gift to Stalin."
  24. This spectacular orchestration of visual elements seems wasted on a threadbare, inanely repetitive plotline.
  25. The novel premise and otherwise nuanced performances are enough to hold attention.
  26. Numbingly repetitive in its routines, and seeming to take a bow from the moment it begins, Lord of the Dance 3D makes crystal-clear the sometimes muddied distinctions between a live performance and the filmed alternative.
  27. Solid execution and some provocative ideas can't save Source Code from a fatal hubris, as it thinks itself far more clever than it actually is and assumes it's earned emotions at which it's only hinted.
  28. Rarely has anyone embodied contradictions as happily and harmoniously as octogenarian New York Times photographer Bill Cunningham.
  29. Despite the fine thesping seen in this innocuous piece of fluff, the whole amounts to less than the sum of its parts.

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