Variety's Scores

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For 17,837 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 17837
  2. Mixed: 7,034 out of 17837
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17837
17837 movie reviews
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  1. Keyhole
    Maddin's singular humor and fabulous black-and-white mise-en-scene can't sustain this fever dream beyond its initial fascination, making for an intriguing transitional work unlikely to broaden his audience.
  2. Casa de mi Padre
    A likable enough lark that rarely achieves outright hilarity.
  3. Peeples
    Peeples may appropriate its entire premise and plot structure from “Meet the Parents,” but its heart is suffused with French cinema.
  4. Escape Plan
    Mercifully free of tongue-in-cheek meta-humor, Escape Plan is a likably lunkheaded meat-and-potatoes brawler that never pretends to be more sophisticated than it is.
  5. Cirkus Columbia
    Though burdened by major problems of tone, Tanovic's fourth feature succeeds in making clear the incredulity with which most people regarded the thought of war and dissolution of Yugoslavia, as well as the machinations of various opportunistic groups.
  6. Natural Selection
    This filmed-in-Texas road movie finds a smooth groove between self-conscious quirkiness and broadly played farce.
  7. October Baby
    Newcomer Rachel Hendrix grabs attention and sustains sympathy as a lovely yet troubled 19-year-old student determined to unlock the secrets of her past after learning the circumstances of her birth.
  8. Headhunters
    A smooth, intriguing opening and a predictable but emotionally satisfying home stretch bookend helmer Morten Tyldum's otherwise by-the-numbers Norwegian thriller Headhunters.
  9. Payback
    Payback is a rarefied conceptual documentary that will appeal to a limited but highly appreciative audience.
    • 96 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Children of Paradise (1945)
    This ambitious French film turns out to be a strange mixture of the beautiful, the esoteric and the downright dull. Some startling flashes of inspired mimicry and fresh Gallic humor are wedded to the not un-Hollywoodian concept of the femme fatale who, willy-nilly in this instance, leads men to their ruin in an uneven performance of writing and direction.
  11. Convento
    Documentarian Jarred Alterman emphasizes oddball lyricism in the one-of-a-kind Convento, in which a 400-year-old Portuguese monastery provides the canvas for a Dutch family's artistic experimentation.
  12. The Perfect Family
    Watching a consummate pro like Turner navigate an uneven script, veering from farcical determination, her cheeks puffed like those of a demented chipmunk, to utter devastation, can be immensely entertaining, particularly when she's backed by an able cast, as she is here.
  13. Polisse
    Though rough edges are very much part of picture's fabric and charm, the current two-hour-plus edit is too choppy, with many sequences feeling rushed or underdeveloped.
  14. Seven Psychopaths
    Compared to McDonagh's best work for stage ("The Lieutenant of Inishmore") and screen ("In Bruges"), Seven Psychopaths feels like either an older script knocking around the bottom of a drawer or a new one hastily tossed off between more ambitious projects.
  15. People Like Us
    If they never fully sell the situation, the actors nonetheless deliver strong, emotionally accessible work.
  16. Womb
    Its quietly unsettling storytelling, precision visuals and almost mythical isolated setting all feel Hungarian to the core.
  17. The Road
    This low-budget shocker eventually pays off, displaying just enough narrative ingenuity to compensate for a cinematically crude and logistically sketchy deployment of the requisite blood-and-guts mayhem.
  18. How to Grow a Band
    Devotees of folk and bluegrass -- and, of course, diehard Nickel Creek fans -- are the natural audience for this leisurely paced documentary.
  19. 21 and Over
    Promising crude straight-boy humor, but delivering sensitive buddy moments and tons of male nudity, this by-the-numbers gut-buster looks slick, moves fast and packs enough laughs to enliven spring-break receipts and earn its helmers more work.
  20. Quill: The Life of a Guide Dog
    Puppy appeal nudges past some dramatic deficiencies -- if just by a nose.
  21. Madea's Witness Protection
    The interaction among opposites inspires an abundance of predictable race-based jokes, many of which have the saving grace of actually being funny.
  22. Carrie
    Director Kimberly Peirce’s intermittently effective third feature eschews De Palma’s diabolical wit and voluptuous style in favor of a somber, straight-faced retelling, steeped in a now-familiar horror-movie idiom of sharp objects, shuddering sound effects and dark rivulets of blood.
  23. Red Hook Summer
    For those expecting Mookie's mid-career encore to signify a return to Spike Lee's roots, Red Hook Summer instead surprises -- and to some extent delights -- as yet another radically unique entry in the director's iconoclastic oeuvre.
  24. Crazy Eyes
    These two non-lovers have real chemistry, and it's hard not to be intoxicated by the strange cocktail of watching them together, even as the story appears to be going nowhere.
  25. The Perks of Being a Wallflower
    First-time writer-director Stephen Chbosky adapts his young-adult bestseller with far more passion than skill, which suits familiar scenes of adolescent awkwardness aptly enough.
  26. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
    Rather than channeling James Thurber’s satirical tone, Stiller plays it mostly earnest, spinning what feels like a feature-length “Just Do It” ad.
  27. Extraterrestrial
    Results are offbeat and amusing, but also a bit thin as the whole essentially amounts to one long shaggy-dog joke.
  28. Ikland
    Though generally engrossing, Ikland's multiscreen displays and cross-cultural theatrical experiments prove more distracting than effective.
  29. Nate & Margaret
    Moving, engagingly low-key curio.
  30. The Inbetweeners Movie
    Brit sitcom The Inbetweeners, which tracked the travails of four male misfits in their last years at high school, makes a satisfying leap to the bigscreen in summer holiday adventure The Inbetweeners Movie.
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