Variety's Scores

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:
17839 movie reviews
  1. The latest from the culty maker of “Suicide Club,” “Love Exposure” and last year’s TIFF Midnight Madness audience-award winner, “Why Don’t You Play in Hell?,” is so insistently over-the-top from the start that the results are just fairly amusing when they ought to be exhilarating.
  2. First-time writer-director (and also star) Michelle Morgan brings just enough specificity, and a surprisingly sharp eye, to make the film an interesting calling card for future work.
  3. Much nastier and less genteel than his best-known Stephen King adaptations ("The Shawshank Redemption," "The Green Mile"), Frank Darabont's screw-loose doomsday thriller works better as a gross-out B-movie than as a psychological portrait of mankind under siege, marred by one-note characterizations and a tone that veers wildly between snarky and hysterical.
  4. Neither reinvents the wheel nor even attempts to redesign it all that much, but at least it gets where it wants to go, thanks in no small part to the work of Allison Janney, Viola Davis, and young actor Mckenna Grace.
  5. The brisk, brief feature appears more atmospheric than terrifying, but its bare-bones tale gets under the skin.
  6. Considering that F9 is Lin’s fifth “F and F” film and his first one in eight years, it goes through the motions with more energy than intoxication.
  7. The result, though it delivers only in fits and starts, is still sharper and more inventive than most comicbook-adapted fare, and eventually gets the job done as far as action buffs are concerned.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The most successful version yet of this familiar premise.
  8. Largely set in two of the least appetizing locations imaginable, a concentration camp and an insane asylum, this is a rigorously made film that does almost nothing to invite the viewer into its world.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Film is dotted with video jargon and ideology which proves more fascinating than distancing. And Cronenberg amplifies the freaky situation with a series of stunning visual effects. (Review of Original Release)
  9. A must for the equine-inclined, and a candid look at fearful ambition.
  10. Part absurdist drama, part personal observational commentary and part hormonal explosion, all seen through the filter of previous war pics, Sam Mendes' third feature has numerous arresting moments but never achieves a confident, consistent or sufficiently audacious tone.
  11. An eerily precise match of filmmaker and material, Cosmopolis probes the soullessness of the 1% with the cinematic equivalent of latex gloves.
  12. An earnest drama that's never quite as raw or moving as it means to be.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Winning performances by Gene Hackman and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio and potent direction by Michael Apted pump life into the sturdy courtroom drama formula once again.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Pace is sometimes reduced during events sandwiched in between actual gunfire sequences of Dillinger’s career, but there can be no criticism of Milius’ ability to keep such action sequences at top-heat.
  13. Paramount's Footloose reboot never quite cuts loose enough to distinguish itself from the original.
  14. This explosive reunion between Damon and director Paul Greengrass further reveals key secrets about Bourne’s origins, bringing its lethal protagonist as close as he’s ever likely to get to total recall.
  15. Todd Louiso's directorial debut emerges at once as compelling and as a bit of a specimen due to the entirely singular nature of the protagonist's behavior.
  16. Distinguished by some unusually fine performances, but the lack of a satisfactory third act diminishes overall result.
  17. For Altman, this is a major statement about American hypocrisy and society’s haves and have-nots, in line with many of his films, but issued in a kind of offhand way that delivers only glancing emotional impact.
  18. Disclosure is polite pulp fiction, a reasonable rendition of potentially risible material. This lavishly appointed screen version of Michael Crichton's page-turner about sexual harassment and corporate power has what it takes to deliver plenty of year-end bounty into Warner Bros.' coffers, although it might have been even more commercial had it been more shamelessly trashy.
  19. Inspiration and entertainment can make corny bedfellows, but Longoria pulls it off, to the extent that a moment of faith when Richard and Judy pray doesn’t feel preachy, but a reflection of their priorities.
  20. Stan Lee is a fan-service documentary released by Disney+ (it drops on June 16), yet it’s very well-made, and watching it you’re confronted with a revelation: that the comic books that Lee began to create in 1961 didn’t just mark a seismic break with the comic books of the past.
  21. Victoria & Abdul is a pleasant enough entertainment, and it will bring the inevitable awards chatter Dench’s way (is her acting ever less than pinpoint? Never). But as prestige period pieces go, it’s far from top-drawer (more like second drawer, or even third), because its cozy lack of enlightenment is echoed in the standard but far from scintillating play of its drama.
  22. The script never quite succeeds in making us care about Allan as a character (despite dubbing its quavering narration into English for the ease of American auds), but it finds an interesting balance for a personality who leaves a trail of disaster in his wake.
  23. A gut punch with a side of anguish.
  24. A distant cousin to “Zodiac,” with splashes of “Seven” mixed into its homages, this thriller falls short of its influences yet carves out a small space of its own. It makes a searing indictment of the sloppy, sexism-laced police work that might’ve resolved the case, and pays tribute to the two women who broke the investigation wide open.
  25. A definitive docu on the elusive Edgar G. Ulmer is a practical impossibility, which is why Michael Palm chooses to highlight questions rather than facts. But Edgar G. Ulmer -- the Man Off-Screen neither fully illuminates the tales nor finely sifts through the evidence to discover the truths behind the myth-making.
  26. Anchored by a charismatic central performance by John Arcilla (“Metro Manila”) and peppered with exciting action sequences, the pic has the all-around energy to overcome the odd moment of bumpy storytelling and prosaic dialogue.

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