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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  1. Blossoms of Fire
    Results at times seem as much p.c. travelogue as serious docu inquiry.
  2. Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life
    Both evocative and faithful in its depiction of the famed French singer's lascivious life, "Gainsbourg (vie heroique)" offers up a feast of memorable chansons and an almost endless parade of drop-dead-gorgeous muses.
  3. I Declare War
    The concept is thought-provoking but the execution is flat-footed.
  4. ...And They Lived Happily Ever After
    Repetitive and needlessly prolonged tale does build to an inspired final scene, but it's too little, too late.
  5. Danny Collins
    Beneath the sitcom cutesiness and boldfaced sentimentality, the film manages to keep just enough reality coursing through to stay grounded.
  6. Uncle Frank
    Uncle Frank recalls plenty of prior coming-out (and coming-of-age) sagas, but revisits their familiar terrain with a confident and skilled mix of humor and character-dynamic shorthand.
  7. Come Play
    Even though the kid is the hero we should clearly be rooting for, the filmmaker conjures equal amounts of empathy and compassion for the monster. That serves to add complexity to the characterizations, but balancing both sides muddles the poignancy of the climax.
  8. Rise of the Guardians
    Even tots may emerge feeling slightly browbeaten by this colorful, strenuous and hyperactive fantasy, which has moments of charm and beauty but often resembles an exploding toy factory rather than a work of honest enchantment.
  9. Freaked
    Loud and flamboyant, pic takes a few shots at societal sacred cows but more often misses the target. The effort comes off much in the prankish manner of a student film. “Freaked” thumbs its nose at the status quo, but few will find themselves on the filmmakers’ side when the last laughs are counted.
  10. The Midnight Sky
    Some viewers will surely be moved. To me, though, The Midnight Sky just proves that a movie that reaches for the stars can still come up empty-handed.
  11. Snakes on a Plane
    Snakes on a Plane is exactly the sort of tasteless, utterly depraved, no-nonsense sluts-and-guts extravaganza it was meant to be.
  12. L'Attesa (The Wait)
    Benefiting enormously from its evocative Sicilian setting, this widescreen experience makes bewitching use of space, time and sound, creating an almost meditative atmosphere in which patient-minded auds might respond to its themes.
  13. El carro
    Winning, consistently funny comedy, with lively script by veteran Colombian producer/scribe Dago Garcia ("Maximum Penalty"), The Car is driven by unusually sharp helming from newcomer Luis Orjuela, and a dynamite ensemble cast.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    When a Stranger Calls
    More than anything else, When a Stranger Calls resembles a good, old-fashioned grade B thriller.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Lean on Me
    Morgan Freeman's inspired performance as Joe Clark, the New Jersey principal who uses controversial methods to clean up a drug- and crime-ridden high school, makes it easier to forgive John Avildsen's rather glossy and simplistic treatment of a serious dilemma in the public school system.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Blob
    Neither the acting nor direction is particularly creditable.
  17. Hounds
    As its central crisis deepens and darkens, Lazraq’s script keeps teasing a gear-shift into mordant farce to which it never quite commits, leaving both the characters and the drama a bit stymied. Still, this is a notably punchy debut, both visceral and confidently cavalier in its depiction of everyday underworld brutality, with a sharp, streetlit sense of place.
  18. Ferdinand
    In what’s been an underwhelming year for big-studio animation, it’s the best of the bunch: sincere, likable, surprisingly funny, and overall true to its source material.
  19. Easy Virtue
    An effervescent entertainment that marks a welcome return for "Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" director Stephan Elliott after a nine-year absence.
  20. K-19: The Widowmaker
    Obediently follows the verities of the submarine movie and its true story origins but without the imagination needed to refresh the genre.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Hunt for Red October
    The Industrial Light & Magic special visual effects unit does yeoman work in staging the action with cliffhanger intensity.
  22. The Grey Zone
    Staccato, Mamet-style dialogue exchanges, breathless pacing and remarkably healthy, well-fed-looking actors create a cumulative sense of artificiality that seriously undercuts the devastating effect clearly being sought.
  23. Virgil Bliss
    Two superb, nervy and delicately nuanced performances by newcomers Clint Jordan and Kirsten Russell enliven and momentarily elevate writer-director Joe Maggio's Virgil Bliss above the familiar post-prison-drama cliches to which it so strenuously adheres.
  24. Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism
    The film lacks the accompanying media spotlight that boosted the Moore release and therefore appears unlikely to reach beyond a liberal audience with an already vehement aversion to Fox News' partisan coverage.
  25. Small Voices
    Latest pic directed by Gil M. Portes, could be called "To Madam With Love"; vet Filipino helmer is out to open maximum tear ducts with sentimental tale.
  26. 13 Minutes
    What 13 Minutes fails to understand is that it’s a moral imperative to remember, but it’s an ethical minefield to remember in a simplified manner.
  27. Happily
    Aiming for a darkly humorous portrait of marital bliss — and the difficulties of maintaining it — the film comes off as a half-formed “Twilight Zone” joke minus the punchline.
  28. Dean
    Martin stays within his comfort zone as a New York-based illustrator still processing his mother’s death, but the tyro helmer struggles to square his distinct minimalist charm with the second-hand influence of standard-bearers like Woody Allen and Wes Anderson.
  29. Fuck
    The offensive word that provides the title for Steven Anderson's penetrating documentary/social critique has either enriched or infected Western culture to the point that we're either drowning in a "floodtide of filth" or blessed with the best verbal relief valve ever devised by man.
  30. The Prey
    Gallic helmer Eric Valette (“State Affairs”) invests this giddily implausible crime yarn with a propulsive sense of energy.
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