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. Concussion
    Acquitting herself capably in a lead role that strips her bare in more ways than one, Robin Weigert (HBO’s “Deadwood”) proves worthy of a future in features, whereas first-time writer-director Stacie Passon mainly exposes her background in commercials.
  2. Eraser
    Compared with high-powered action specialists like James Cameron, director Charles Russell seems content to accomplish just one thing per shot, getting the essentials on the screen but creating no special dynamic or look.
  3. Escobar: Paradise Lost
    "Escobar” offers an odd mix of action movie, romantic melodrama and cautionary traveler’s tale, which works better than it should thanks to Del Toro’s fascinating performance and Di Stefano’s assured, muscular helming.
  4. Game 6
    Game 6, the first screenplay by one of America's great living novelists, Don DeLillo, is poorly served by Michael Hoffman's flat, soporific direction.
  5. Adrift
    Woodley gives herself over to the physical and spiritual reality of each scene. She knows how to play an ordinary woman who’s wild at heart, and she keeps you captivated, even when the film itself is watchable in a perfectly competent, touching, and standard way.
  6. Hard Luck Love Song
    Instead of persuasive verisimilitude and compelling character development, we get scene after scene of Jesse waiting for something, anything.
  7. Fever Pitch
    The Farrelly brothers are growing up, which in this case isn't a bad thing. With a tacked-on ending made necessary by the Boston Red Sox's improbable World Series run last fall, Fever Pitch proves a charming romantic comedy against "A Beautiful Mind"-type framework.
  8. In the Land of Blood and Honey
    Though sufficiently well made to suggest a viable career behind the camera for debutante writer-director Angelina Jolie, In the Land of Blood and Honey seems to spring less from artistic conviction than from an over-earnest humanitarian impulse.
  9. The Seasons in Quincy: Four Portraits of John Berger
    Swinton’s warm, unassuming direction generates an intimacy that does much to compensate for the overarching project’s wispiness — although even her clear affection for Berger can’t ultimately make “The Seasons in Quincy” more than a for-aficionados-only companion piece to his pre-existing paintings and writing.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Earthquake
    Mark Robson's Earthquake is an excellent dramatic exploitation extravaganza, combining brilliant special effects with a multi-character plot line which is surprisingly above average for this type film. Large cast is headed by Charlton Heston, who comes off better than usual because he is not Superman, instead just one of the gang.
  11. Down a Dark Hall
    This is a decent modern Gothic thriller handled with sufficient style and a straight face by genre ace Cortés. His efforts, and strong performances by the young female leads, make for a movie that’s fairly strong meat by juvenile fantasy standards, if probably a tad wimpy for horror-fan tastes.
  12. Straw
    Straw is too messy to be “good,” exactly — but it has a bitter relevancy, and it works.
  13. Winter Passing
    Family drama appears content to present the situation without going for anything remotely close to the emotional jugular. Result is unsatisfying and even dreary, despite some fine work from Zooey Deschanel and a becalmed Will Ferrell.
  14. Tag
    Tag leaves audiences energized and, dare I say, inspired, having delivered all that outrageousness...in service of what ultimately amounts to a sincere celebration of lasting human connections.
  15. Mary J Blige's My Life
    There’s a valedictory glossiness to the film that sometimes underserves the warts-and-all power of the work in question – as a fan-centric retrospective, it hits plenty of the right notes; but as a chance to more thoroughly explore a complicated, still-influential landmark, it never digs quite deeply enough.
  16. Migration
    At least the backgrounds are eye-catching, as a waddle of mallards crack jokes amid beautiful fall foliage.
  17. Across the Universe
    All you need is love -- for the Beatles, for psychedelic visuals, for ideas about being young in the ‘60s -- to fully enjoy Across the Universe.
  18. Harsh Times
    A psychotic seizure of a performance by Christian Bale dominates Harsh Times, the directorial debut of David Ayer that channels "Taxi Driver."
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Belly of an Architect
    The Belly of an Architect is a visual treat, almost an homage to the style of Rome's architecture, lensed with skill and packed with esoteric nuances, but doubts about the story and the skill of the acting linger.
  20. Jupiter's Moon
    This serious-minded, ambitious oddity shoots for the moon of a far-off planet, but it really only finds the grace it’s looking for in its magnificent supple camerawork.
  21. Jackass 3-D
    A joyous, liberated approach to comedy, a genuine sense of the grotesque and pacing so relentless that even the less-than-uproarious bits don't overstay their welcome.
  22. A Knight's Tale
    Traditionalists and older viewers in general will scoff, while pop culture addicts will no doubt go with the flow.
  23. Human Nature
    Charlie Kaufman's clever screenplay bears many traces of the same brand of originality and eccentric imagination that graced his work on "Being John Malkovich," although even at an hour-and-a-half the conceit is stretched almost too thin for audience sustenance.
  24. How Stella Got Her Groove Back
    Like "Waiting to Exhale" except more so, film jerks from scene to scene with little sense of rhythm, continuity or dramatic shaping.
  25. A Dirty Shame
    Frequently hilarious but ultimately is a protracted one-joke affair that strays into undisciplined chaos.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Two Jakes
    This oft-delayed sequel proves a jumbled, obtuse yet not entirely unsatisfying follow-up to Chinatown, rightly considered one of the best films of the 1970s.
  27. Unscrewed
    An often genuinely funny mockumentary.
  28. Nonnas
    Nonnas repeatedly drives home its point about the unifying force of a homecooked meal as an embodiment of community, and even as it overcrowds its narrative pot with too many unnecessary condiments that get lost in the mix, the result is ultimately palatable.
  29. Waterworld
    A not-bad futuristic actioner with three or four astounding sequences, an unusual hero, a nifty villain and less mythic and romantic resonance than might be desired.
  30. Guilty of Romance
    There are too many twists, insignificant literary references and drawn-out scenes of sex and violence to sustain either the pic’s running time or its ideas, with Sono’s message obscured in the final reels by an ambiguous treatment of his leading ladies.
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