Variety's Scores

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For 17,839 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 17839
  2. Mixed: 7,035 out of 17839
  3. Negative: 1,638 out of 17839
17839 movie reviews
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    • 59 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Lie
    Thinly amusing tale with not-especially-appealing characters.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    A Star Is Born
    The new A Star Is Born has the rare distinction of being a superlative remake. Barbra Streisand's performance as the rising star is her finest screen work to date, while Kris Kristofferson's magnificent portrayal of her failing benefactor realizes all the promise first shown five years earlier in Cisko Pike.
  3. Good Madam
    A quiet, tightly wound horror film, Bass’ fourth and most briskly accomplished feature might flirt with the supernatural, but finds terror aplenty in social dynamics that, to many a South African, are perfectly ordinary.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Mission: Impossible
    All Mission Impossible had to do was not self-destruct. Mission accomplished. Does it ignite? Not really, but Tom Cruise's first adventure as a producer has just enough hightech firepower, old-fashioned star power and a director who knows how to harness it all.
  5. Independence Day
    The cutting-edge perfection of effects in Cameron and Spielberg films is replaced here by work that looks more homemade, particularly toward the end in some faintly cheesy composite shots.
  6. Sliding Doors
    A frothy, lightweight romantic comedy that strives to seem richer and more complex than it really is.
  7. Confidence
    Stylish, compelling crime caper full of smoothly navigated plot twists.
  8. Bonjour Monsieur Shlomi
    Sweet if slight Israeli comedy.
  9. The Nothing Factory
    Though the intentions are pure, the combination of social-realist austerity and cinematic exuberance never coheres.
  10. The Boys & Girl from County Clare
    Given a lift by its folksy soundtrack of toe-tapping Ceili dance tunes, the film is handsomely produced and engaging enough, but never more than that due to a weak dramatic arc and soft conflicts in Nicholas Adams' script and to John Irvin's functional direction.
  11. Jakob's Wife
    Despite Crampton and Fessenden’s game playing, and a few nicely icky practical effects, “Jakob’s Wife” feels strangely anemic, which, as we all know is more fatal to the already iron-deficient movie vampire than garlic, holy water and sunshine combined.
  12. Wish Dragon
    Wish Dragon delivers a whole new world, a new fantastic point of view, and that’s plenty.
  13. The Drama
    You’ve got to say this much for Kristoffer Borgli: In The Drama he’s an original, like the bastard stepchild of Dogme 95 and “Wedding Crashers.”
  14. Dawn of the Dead
    More palatable than "Texas," Dawn also seems even less necessary, given how effectively the original was reworked last year in Danny Boyle's "28 Days Later."
  15. Noriko's Dinner Table
    Although told through a cascade of flashes forward and back, the puzzle doesn't quite form a complete picture by the end, which may leave genre fans frustrated but the arthouse crowd intrigued.
  16. Two in the Wave
    The demoralizing slide of the relationship between Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard, from artistic comrades-in-arms during the thrilling creation of the nouvelle vague to name-calling enemies from the early '70s onward, is charted in overly academic and constricted fashion in Two in the Wave.
  17. Ip Man
    Ip Man will be manna for those who like their kung fu straight and wireless, their villains Japanese and their heroes unconflicted Chinese patriots.
  18. Surviving Progress
    Progress does a remarkable job weaving together these and many other big ideas in a crisp, coherent, easy-to-take fashion that somehow never becomes an informational overload.
  19. Who Bombed Judi Bari?
    The film, produced by Cherney, makes a clear and cogent case (later upheld by a court verdict) that police and FBI falsified evidence in order to discredit Bari's cause.
  20. A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery
    A major disappointment from a major filmmaker, Diaz’s latest super-sized tapestry of historical fact, folklore and cine-poetry is typically ambitious in its expressionism — but sees the helmer venturing into the kind of declamatory, didactic rhetoric that his recent stunners “Norte, the End of History” and “From What Is Before” so elegantly avoided.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Hand
    It’s not a pretty sight.
  22. Lost in America
    While listening to the kids, Rainwater makes sure we see the humanity and future potential in each and every one, treating his subjects with the respect they deserve.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Cherry 2000
    A tongue-in-cheek sci-fi action pic which owes a considerable debt to the Mad Max movies, Cherry 2000's greatest asset is topbilled Melanie Griffith, who lifts the material whenever she's on screen.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer
    Chuckles get heartier and heartier as adult Grant plays at being a juvenile at basketball games, school picnics, etc. It’s done with slapstick touch that pays off.
  25. My Zoe
    Her (Delpy) risk-taking is admirable, and given the excellent craft, never less than engaging to watch, but it does not always pay off.
  26. Women Is Losers
    It’s a rewarding experience to watch Izzo thread a tricky line with ease here, emitting both a child-like innocence and gradual steeliness that slowly yet convincingly sharpens and matures. If only the film could deserve her level of commitment.
  27. The Forgiven
    McDonagh’s characters are more complex than the initial caricatures make them out to be — perhaps, in the end, even pitiful — leaving audiences to decide how they feel about their ultimate fates.
  28. Moonlight
    Menacing atmosphere created by Dutch helmer Paula van der Oest ("Zus & Zo") does not make up for the weak script's multiple improbabilities, flat dialogue or the discomfort of watching children, the handicapped and even animals being abused onscreen.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Murder by Death
    A very good silly-funny Neil Simon satirical comedy, with a super all-star cast.
  30. Nobody 2
    For a while, the movie is like “National Lampoon’s Vacation” if Clark Griswold had secretly been Steven Seagal. Is it remotely “believable”? No. But “Nobody 2,” like “Nobody” before it, unfolds in its own weirdly grounded action-fantasy universe. Odenkirk has the ability to make behaving glumly fretful seem like a form of slyness; he’s really creating a conspiracy with the audience.
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