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. Jimmy P.
    Jimmy P. is never better than when its two leads share the screen, a relationship all the more resonant and moving for Desplechin’s refusal to make it cutesy or contrived.
  2. Knives and Skin
    The positive qualities lie in the surrealistic film’s bold cinematography, distinctive use of music, and diversity of cast, though that’s not enough to redeem this tedious viewing experience.
  3. Jumanji: The Next Level
    More often than not, effects-driven blockbusters get dumber as the series goes along, but Jumanji: The Next Level invents some fun ideas to keep things fresh.
  4. Moana 2
    Moana 2 is an okay movie, an above-average kiddie roller-coaster, and a piece of pure product in a way that the first “Moana,” at its best, transcended.
  5. Mean Girls
    You can rest assured that Mean Girls, the movie musical, sticks close to the spirit and to the letter of the movie that updated and mythologized the culture of gossip and backstabbing for a new generation. The new movie nudges the material into our own era in a handful of ways.
  6. Roving Mars
    Helmer George Butler correctly gauges his film's strengths, with the search for life in the universe becoming a heartfelt tribute to a couple of robots.
  7. Tortilla Soup
    A warm-blooded winner with equal emphasis placed on taste buds and heartstrings.
  8. ZigZag
    Evidencing savvy visual flair and compelling storytelling skill, Goyer infuses heart and vigor into material that could have come off as overly familiar at best, sappily improbable at worst.
  9. Francis Ford Coppola Presents: The Legend of Suriyothai
    The frequently confusing story does eventually pull together; but there's still a lack of any strong emotional center, and the character gallery remains over-populated.
  10. The Legend of 1900
    The material is at heart an intimate allegorical fairy tale about rarefied philosophical concerns.
  11. Risk/Reward
    Lacking the overall drama of "Startup.com" or "e-Dreams," pic more than compensates with skillful presentation and the fascinating power of its subjects, femme movers and shakers who perform high-wire juggling acts between their personal and professional lives every day.
  12. I Am Chris Farley
    Worth watching for its trove of emotional testimonies from family and friends — including an atypically forthcoming Lorne Michaels and Adam Sandler — the pic is somewhat defanged by its surface-level approach and standard-issue filmmaking style.
  13. Ask the Dust
    Highlighted by a strong and sensual performance from Salma Hayek as the doomed heroine, elegant pic's muted quality and the central character's vexingly contrary behavior will keep auds from connecting with characters who themselves have trouble establishing bonds.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Licence to Kill
    The James Bond production team has found its second wind with Licence to Kill, a cocktail of high-octane action, spectacle and drama...The thrills-and-spills chases are superbly orchestrated as pic spins at breakneck speed through its South Florida and Central American locations.
  15. Lost in Beijing
    Money (and maybe a little bit of love) makes the world go around in Lost in Beijing, an involving, highly accessible portrait of an emotional menage a quatre in the modern-day Chinese capital.
  16. First Snow
    Engages but underwhelms.
  17. Somebody Up There Likes Me
    If nonchalance were an Olympic sport, Max would be a gold medalist, and watching Somebody Up There Likes Me is about as much fun as being a spectator at that event might sound.
  18. Ramen Heads
    Ramen Heads may be a tad lacking in visual excitement, but it succeeds in imparting the ineffable appeal of Japan’s national dish.
  19. The Cat Rescuers
    While the production package is merely workman-like, the commitment, honesty and heart of the main interviewees makes the material compelling.
  20. The Equalizer 3
    Beyond the righteous action and visceral violence, it’s Washington’s swagger and charisma that compels.
  21. Hope Gap
    Slow and stuffy, like a filmed play, but also considerably more nuanced and mature than your typical relationship drama.
  22. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
    Jackson and his team seem compelled to flesh out the world of their earlier trilogy in scenes that would be better left to extended-edition DVDs (or omitted entirely), all but failing to set up a compelling reason for fans to return for the second installment.
  23. Memories of My Father
    Trueba keeps things moving within and between eras in a graceful, affectionate, assured way that’s always enjoyable, even if the film overall seems a bit frivolous given its larger themes.
  24. Southbound
    This entertaining-enough quartet of loosely interwoven terror tales falls right into the middle ground of horror omnibuses, with no outright duds but no truly memorable (or scary) segments either.
  25. Shrek the Third
    After a buoyantly funny first half-hour, stylish animated comedy takes a breather before ramping it up again for a rambunctious, girrrl-power finale that provides a convenient springboard for further adventures to come.
  26. The Finest Hours
    Perhaps the worst one could say about Craig Gillespie’s film is that, rather than their finest hours, the whole cast and crew all put in a solid shift at the office making the movie, producing a perfectly entertaining, sometimes quite well-crafted disaster drama that nonetheless retreats from the memory almost as soon as the credits roll.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Rough Cut
    Rough Cut emerges as an undistinctive, frothy romantic comedy that will charm a few and probably miss the eye of many.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Three Faces of Eve
    It is frequently an intriguing, provocative motion picture, but director Nunnally Johnson's treatment of the subject matter makes the film neither fish nor foul. Johnson shifts back and forth - striving for comedy at one point and presenting a documentary case history at another.
  29. Aurora Borealis
    Alternately breezy and profound, pic hits enough emotional chords to connect with audiences, which will be charmed by a newly mature Joshua Jackson, a deeply aged Donald Sutherland and a friskily romantic Juliette Lewis.
  30. The Trust
    Cage supplies a stream of tension-defusing laughs while the script steadily applies the screws, but this disposable exercise in comic nihilism offers only a modest payoff at best.
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