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. You've Been Trumped
    Collectivist in spirit, this mostly entertaining film lacks an official host or voiceover narration, which first works swimmingly but eventually becomes too diffuse.
  2. Deconstructing Dad: The Music, Machines and Mystery of Raymond Scott
    Though the picture meanders somewhat in the absence of a clear throughline, the focus on Scott's music and electronic experimentation remains strong throughout, thanks to an eclectic roster of musicians and scholars and a generous sampling of his compositions.
  3. Need For Speed
    Paul plays the part with the flinty, tightly wound charisma of a small man who makes up in moxie what he lacks in stature. There’s something of the young James Cagney in him, and he’s by far the best thing Need for Speed has going for it.
  4. The Man with the Iron Fists
    As endearing as it is exhausting, The Man With the Iron Fists bears strong resemblance to a hyperactive puppy: sloppy, scatterbrained, manic and migraine-inducing, but possessing an earnest sense of excitement.
  5. Big Boys Gone Bananas!*
    A David-and Goliath story that delves into corporate scare tactics, legal effrontery, brand protection, media manipulation, online propagandizing and craven behavior.
  6. The Internship
    This big-hearted underdog comedy from director Shawn Levy is, much like its two leads, exceedingly affable and good-natured despite being undeniably long in the tooth.
  7. Craigslist Joe
    He's a nondescript protagonist, his benefactors, and he's never truly in need; as is made clear at the start, he has a comfortable life to return to whenever he chooses. So the picture becomes simply the moderately diverting record of an offbeat vacation.
  8. Kick-Ass 2
    As diverting as this action-packed caper often is, it feels not just weightless but emotionally and morally stunted whenever it veers into grown-up dramatic territory.
  9. Rio 2
    This hyperactive toon extravaganza has color, flair and energy to burn. But it’s the sort of relentless juggling act that finally proves more exhausting than exhilarating.
  10. Girl Model
    While Girl Model falls a bit short in the delivery of hard facts and incriminating evidence, it more than makes up for that with its knotty psychological profile of Arbaugh.
  11. Home
    Unimaginative and downright predictable by grownup standards, but bursting with elements sure to appeal to younger auds.
  12. 17 Girls
    Impressively, the rookie scribe-helmers' sense of equilibrium is unerring and also surprisingly subtle.
  13. Fred Won't Move Out
    Irregularly spiked with some droll sitcom-style humor, this thoughtful but exceedingly modest miniature will be best nursed within the festival circuit.
  14. Snitch
    It's nice to have actors of Sarandon and Pepper's caliber onboard for the office-bound wheeler-dealer scenes, but mostly, it's the prospect of witnessing Johnson at the helm of an 18-wheeler as he rams his way through machine-gun fire that excites.
  15. In Our Nature
    Writer-director Brian Savelson drags four characters all the way out to the woods to orchestrate the sort of politely confrontational chamber piece best suited to an Off Off Broadway stage in In Our Nature, an eloquent but overly rehearsed drama.
  16. Dark Skies
    In the end, a pretty good buildup to OK payoff without any real surprises en route makes Dark Skies feel just enough above average to make one wish it had one memorable spark of conceptual inspiration up its sleeve.
  17. Smurfs: The Lost Village
    It’s not a rousing animated comedy that parents will cherish along with their kids. It’s more like a colorful and diverting pacifier.
  18. My Life as Abraham Lincoln
    Luft grounds the film with an insistently believable performance, while other thesps float in and out of cliche.
  19. My Father and The Man In Black
    Holiff Sr.’s extensive audio diaries and taped phone conversations with Cash give authentic voice to the film’s otherwise stodgy re-creations of this true odd couple’s stormy relationship.
  20. A Whisper to a Roar
    A Whisper to a Roar traces a too-familiar step-by-step political pattern: the transformation of a liberator into a despot, his subsequent reign of tyranny and the popular uprising against it.
  21. Split: A Deeper Divide
    None of this will be news to informed viewers, and the documentary's broad theme necessitates quick, superficial treatment of myriad underlying causes. But it's a solid, fairly even-handed spur for discussion that will be particularly welcome in classroom settings.
  22. Question One
    Of particular interest to gay-rights activists and their adversaries, this "War Room"-like but extremely civil documentary seems best suited to community venues and the smallscreen.
  23. Orchestra of Exiles
    Despite lively commentaries by a pantheon of master musicians and magnificently performed classical pieces, "Exiles" only distantly echoes Huberman's visionary adventure.
  24. La Rafle (The Round Up)
    Turning one of the darkest moments in modern French history into syrupy historical drama, writer-director Rose Bosch's The Round Up is a polished, pathos-driven re-creation of the Vichy regime's mass imprisonment and disposal of 13,000 Parisian Jews in summer 1942.
  25. Price Check
    After a strong start, the picture itself has trouble checking out, but it provides a terrific showcase for indie princess Posey, leading a topnotch cast.
  26. 56 Up
    Certain moments in the film resemble nothing so much as attending a school reunion, being buttonholed by an old acquaintance and shown snapshots of the grandkids. A complacently conservative acceptance sometimes seems to blanket all of 56 Up, as if maturity entails a serene blessing of the status quo.
  27. Wagner & Me
    For Fry, the music's complexity, ambiguity, innovation and humanity far surpass Wagner's personal limitations. He may not convince his viewers of the rightness of his conclusions, but he certainly makes a fervent case for the triumph of art over biography.
  28. A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III
    Swan is more of a doodle than a fully formed idea, though not necessarily less enjoyable for it, since it was clearly intended to be an undisciplined, anything-goes kinda story.
  29. Trashed
    Presented and narrated with warmth and welcome moments of humor by thesp Jeremy Irons, often seen wearing a hat that looks salvaged from a recycling bin, the picture delivers a judicious mix of human interest and useful statistics that will make it accessible to middle-class audiences.
  30. Welcome to the Punch
    A proficient but personality-free policer that demands little of either its audience or its enviable best-of-British cast, this simplistic urban morality tale miscasts the appealing James McAvoy as one good cop whose dogged pursuit of Mark Strong’s alpha criminal only uncovers the rot within police ranks.
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