Variety's Scores

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For 17,777 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:
  1. Positive: 9,133 out of 17777
  2. Mixed: 7,008 out of 17777
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17777
17777 movie reviews
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    • 84 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Valentino's Ghost
    The burning topic of Muslim (mis)representation in U.S. media is not well served by Michael Singh’s amateurish and ill-defined docu Valentino’s Ghost.
  2. The Plains
    Skilfully creating an engaging and likable protagonist without fully showing his face until the three-hour running time has all but elapsed, David Easteal’s first feature is a thematically rich and quietly compelling portrait of a man at the crossroads.
  3. Paranoid Park
    Through immaculate use of picture, sound and time, the director adds another panel to his series of pictures about disaffected, disconnected youth.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Giant
    It is also, for the most part, an excellent film which registers strongly on all levels, whether it's in its breathtaking panoramic shots of the dusty Texas plains; the personal, dramatic impact of the story itself, or the resounding message it has to impart.
  5. Out of Sight
    Reveals Soderbergh in peak form, as he endows Leonard’s postmodern yarn with a meticulously detailed mise en scene that helps each member of his terrific ensemble soar.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Brazil
    Chillingly hilarious.
  7. In the Shadow of the Moon
    The excitement, majesty and extraordinary human accomplishment of the American lunar program of the '60s and early '70s is rousingly captured in In the Shadow of the Moon.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Get on the Bus
    A vital regeneration of a filmmaker's talent as well as a bracing and often very funny dramatization of urgent sociopolitical themes, Get on the Bus represents Spike Lee's most satisfying work since Do the Right Thing.
  9. 76 Days
    That it’s so artfully and elegantly observed, and packs such a candid wallop of feeling, atop its frontline urgency is testament to the grace and sensitivity of its directorial team, not just their timely savvy.
  10. Shin Ultraman
    Tongue-in-cheek but never campy, Shin Ultraman is an object lesson in how to reboot a superhero franchise for modern times.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Last Waltz
    An outstanding rock documentary.
  12. Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret
    This adaptation, written and directed by Kelly Fremon Craig (“The Edge of Seventeen”), seems uneasy putting funny, flawed and all-too-realistic Margaret on screen exactly as she is.
  13. The Truffle Hunters
    It’s a complex picture that Dweck and Kershaw navigate with respect, curiosity and a sense of awe, managing to excavate the essence of a tight-knit, lovably atypical commune out of it.
  14. Children of Men
    Picture more than delivers on the action front -- not in bang-for-your-buck spectacle but in the kind of gritty, doculike sequences that haul viewers out of their seats and alongside the main protags.
  15. Judas and the Black Messiah
    The powerful film puts the current moment into fresh historical context and suggests that ambivalence can be its own form of betrayal.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Broadcast News
    Enormously entertaining, Broadcast News is an inside look at the personal and professional lives of three TV journlists.
  17. Revanche
    In what's essentially a six-hander, the casting is aces. All actors turn in fine, naturalistic perfs, but it would be remiss not to remark on 83-year-old Thanheiser's profoundly moving turn as the grandfather.
  18. The Man Without a Past
    Enormously satisfying, superbly crafted.
  19. Husbands and Wives
    This is definitely his edgiest, rawest work in a good while. Acting is of a very high caliber across the board, but Judy Davis, in a very meaty part compared to her previous walk-on for Allen in “Alice,” is incandescent, revealing a whole new side to her personality that has never surfaced onscreen before.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    King & Country
    The story of Private Hamp, a deserter from the battle front in World War I, has already been told on radio, television and the stage, but undeterred by this exposure, director Joseph Losey has attacked the subject with confidence and vigor, and the result is a highly sensitive and emotional drama, enlivened by sterling performances and a sincere screenplay.
  21. Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood
    DiCaprio and Pitt fill out their roles with such rawhide movie-star conviction that we’re happy to settle back and watch Tarantino unfurl this tale in any direction he wants.
  22. After the Storm
    Such is the finesse of Kore-eda’s script that it builds to neither the vehement confrontation nor the comforting reconciliation that melodrama decrees. Instead, it imparts those rare, liberating moments when characters revert to their most honest selves and pluck up the courage to express their deepest, albeit unattainable wishes.
  23. Moonrise Kingdom
    Moonrise Kingdom represents a sort of non-magical Neverland -- that momentous instant when the world can seem so small and a naive crush can feel all-consuming.
  24. The President's Cake
    While The President’s Cake mostly plays like a genial fairy tale, with superbly balanced humor and drama, Hadi's still unsparing about the ills of patriarchal society.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Through a Glass Darkly
    Not a pleasant film, it is a great one.
  26. Calle 54
    Looks and sounds wonderful, and while more information about these giants of African-Latin music might have been welcome, the music's the thing.
  27. Horse Money
    Working about as far as possible from the commercial mainstream of the movie business, Costa has again made a singular docu-fiction hybrid that defies classification as readily as it reimagines the possibilities of cinema for the post-spectacle, post-theatrical era.
  28. Up the Yangtze
    A gloriously cinematic documentay of epic, poetic sadness.
  29. Farewell My Concubine
    A seductively lensed but emotionally uninvolving drama about two male Peking Opera stars and the ex-prostie who comes between them, Chen Kaige's fourth feature, Farewell to My Concubine, reps a stylistic U-turn compared with his earlier abstract parables like Life on a String and Yellow Earth.
  30. Sinners
    Sinners works more than it doesn’t, even if it doesn’t always gel, but it’s a commanding demonstration of how lavishly spirited and “serious” a popcorn movie can be.
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