Variety's Scores

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For 17,765 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: 9,125 out of 17765
  2. Mixed: 7,004 out of 17765
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17765
17765 movie reviews
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  1. Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead
    Genuinely funny, charming and sincere, it’s a respectful and revelatory update in a world where those are few and far between.
  2. Back to Black
    At its best, Back to Black, the forthright and compelling movie that’s been made of Winehouse’s life, takes that light/dark balance and digs into the drama of it, making it sing.
  3. A Perfect Day for Caribou
    Set over the course of a single day on the fringes of some dead American anytown, this at once quiet and talkative two-hander covers no especially new ground, but strides known territory with a keen eye for lonesome landscapes, and an ear for the eternal communicative impasse felt by men who know each other all too well and not at all.
  4. Housekeeping for Beginners
    Stolevski’s lively, garrulous script may be plot-heavy, but the film isn’t propelled as much by grand narrative turns as it is by the powderkeg reactivity of its characters. Each scrap and squabble and occasional flash of understanding between them activates the film anew, so no interpersonal dynamic here ever feels comfortably settled.
  5. Scoop
    The frustration of Scoop is also its point: It vividly conjures the adrenaline and awe of one hour of dynamite television, but can bring us no closer to complete truth, or complete justice.
  6. The First Omen
    Stevenson’s consistently unsettling and gleefully sacrilegious offering packs its share of legitimate shocks en route to one glaringly obvious “surprise.”
  7. Chicken for Linda!
    Malta and Laudenbach have crafted an entertaining, kid-friendly toon whose power lies less in its plot than the surprising insights into human behavior revealed along the way.
  8. The Show
    Fun if perhaps a little too tongue-in-cheek for its own good, the results will no doubt appeal most to Moore fans who’ll revel in his Byzantine plotting, noirish tropes and other signature elements.
  9. In the Land of Saints and Sinners
    When it comes time to move the story along, Lorenz often betrays his filmmaking’s lax virtues.
  10. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire
    The director, Adam Wingard (who made “Godzilla vs. Kong”), knows how to choreograph a beastie battle so that it does maximum damage in a way that appeals to your inner toy-smashing seven-year-old.
  11. Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person
    “Humanist Vampire” doesn’t want us to think too deeply, and aims mostly to charm. Largely it succeeds, which is its own kind of critique in this post-“Titane” and -“A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night” era, when some viewers might expect provocation or transgression from their horror archetypes.
  12. Mothers' Instinct
    Mothers’ Instinct doesn’t breathe: It hasn’t the grandeur of great melodrama, nor the savoir-faire of great noir. Like its mismatched heroines, it’s constantly, twitchily figuring itself out, as we sit tight, intrigued, tensely waiting for it to trip.
  13. Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2
    There may be a lot more going on “Blood and Honey 2,” but let’s not kid ourselves. It’s mostly a shambles.
  14. Against All Enemies
    A grim diagnosis of a fast-spreading cancer, Against All Enemies may provide much less reassurance than cause for alarm, but its wakeup call is certainly worth heeding.
  15. Transition
    Watching this steadfast person survive in such close quarters with those most unaccepting of his situation offers remarkable insight into issues of gender expression and acceptance, which might well translate to the social strictures back home.
  16. The Black Garden
    The Black Garden is more than just a chronicle of a conflict. With a probing camera conveying images both beautiful and intimate and observational filmmaking that coaxes real emotions, it manages to tell a story of four men who represent their village and people.
  17. Night of Nights
    Night of Nights is documentary filmmaking at its most raw. A journalistic endeavor that’s also concerned with human attitudes, it captures not just the facts but also the experience.
  18. Art Talent Show
    Whether you view this illuminating doc as a portrait of an institution, a snapshot of a generation or a sketch of the dedication and stamina shown by those in the teaching profession, Art Talent Show bears sprightly comparison to the various styles and modes of artistic expression it showcases.
  19. Sleeping Dogs
    Sleeping Dogs, starring Russell Crowe as a retired cop with Alzheimer’s disease, is a half-rusted scrap heap of a detective mystery. It’s patchy, it’s badly lit, it’s glum, it’s overloaded with suspects, and it’s almost proud of its contrivances. Yet in its logy, booby-trapped way, it keeps you watching.
  20. Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World
    Funny and furious, crude and subtle, unkempt and thoroughly disciplined, this deranged movie is also maybe the sanest film of the year: a multifaceted manifesto exposing the absurd internalized fallacy that one must work in order to live, when it’s work — as in, the pitiless daily grind — that will be the death of us all.
  21. Terrestrial Verses
    This is punchy first-person filmmaking, from the point of view of the last person you want to be.
  22. I Don't Understand You
    Things spiral wildly out of control for Dom and Cole, but the foundation feels real.
  23. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
    You might say that “Frozen Empire” has to work even harder to invent a reason for itself to exist. Yet it’s a livelier movie than “Afterlife.”
  24. The Greatest Hits
    “The Greatest Hits” feels like the remainder-bin version of better love stories.
  25. The Idea of You
    This is Hathaway’s movie, and she owns it: independent, desirable and never, ever desperate.
  26. Susie Searches
    Clemons’ strong performance provides enough of a center to propel the story to its conclusion.
  27. Shirley
    In “Shirley,” John Ridley’s sharp and lively inside-political docudrama, Regina King plays Shirley Chisholm with a quiet force you can’t look away from.
  28. Timestalker
    Timestalker may get a lot of mileage out of unrequited affection, but it still gives audiences plenty to love.
  29. Jacqueline (Argentine)
    Gets points for originality but quickly succumbs to terminal self-amusement.
  30. Snack Shack
    Armed with a talented cast, writer-director Adam Rehmeier’s 1991-set feature happily squares itself in a tradition of teenage hedonism and broad learning opportunities, settling into a generic but warm glow.
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