Variety's Scores

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For 17,835 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 17835
  2. Mixed: 7,032 out of 17835
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17835
17835 movie reviews
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  1. The First Monday in May
    Detailing the eight-month build-up to the show’s debut, First Monday in May is most compelling when simply taking up residence alongside Bolton, Wintour and Wong as they oversee the myriad aspects of their production.
  2. 13 Cameras
    Zarcoff does a good job building tension.
  3. In a Valley of Violence
    We never get more than a glimmer of personality within these well-worn character types, and West never digs beneath them to offer any sort of commentary or criticism.
  4. Thank You for Playing
    Even the flaws of Thank You for Playing have the effect of underscoring its humanity; the movie may immortalize a creative endeavor, but it never loses sight of the fact that it’s also honoring a life.
  5. Lights Out
    Very obviously a first feature, Lights Out is full of camp (most of it clearly intentional, some perhaps not), and its underlying mythology is confused and often ridiculous. But there’s an invigorating leanness — and a giddy, almost innocent energy — to the filmmaking.
  6. I Went Down
    Though McDonald and Gleeson pair off well as the unlikely fellow travelers, and have some funny moments of physical shtick, the picture mostly springs to life when either Caffrey, as Grogan, or the excellent Doyle, as French, are onscreen.
  7. Café Society
    The movie, watchable as it is, never quite overcomes the sense that it’s a lavish diagram working hard to come off as a real movie.
  8. Our Kind of Traitor
    The shattering of one’s noble ideals is a delicate thing to capture on film, and White plays the moment of rupture with a banality that threatens to undermine our faith in her as storyteller more than in the system itself.
  9. Cloro
    A well-crafted if incompletely satisfying drama whose character study intrigues but ultimately feels somewhat frustratingly underdeveloped.
  10. Chongqing Hot Pot
    “Hot Pot” loses focus with sloppy sentimentality and heavy-duty violence that dilutes the story’s early charm. The end result is entertaining enough if not particularly memorable.
  11. Mad Tiger
    This aptly colorful documentary doesn’t provide all that much insight into the act’s history, and the human conflicts aren’t fully illuminated, either. But it’s fun entering these performers’ universe even with a less than all-access pass.
  12. Sworn Virgin
    [A] sensitive, deliberate debut feature.
  13. The Take
    It’s Watkins’ lean, keen instinct for choreographing and cutting action set pieces that keeps Bastille Day afloat.
  14. L'Attesa (The Wait)
    Benefiting enormously from its evocative Sicilian setting, this widescreen experience makes bewitching use of space, time and sound, creating an almost meditative atmosphere in which patient-minded auds might respond to its themes.
  15. Fassbinder: To Love Without Demands
    Students of the astonishing body of films won’t find much that enhances their understanding, yet Thomsen’s footage offers more than mere scraps from a great career, and deserves inclusion in the corpus.
  16. Paterson
    Paterson, Jarmusch’s wee dramatic curio starring Adam Driver as a New Jersey bus driver – his name is Paterson, and he lives in Paterson — is a movie that’s all too aware of how much it diverges from contemporary tempo. That’s because the entire film is a self-conscious anachronism.
  17. Personal Shopper
    This reunion between Kristen Stewart and the director who gave her one of her best-ever roles in 2014’s “Clouds of Sils Maria” is a broken, but never boring mix of spine-tingling horror story, dreary workplace drama and elliptical identity search, likely to go down as one of the most divisive films of Stewart’s career.
  18. Blood Father
    Blood Father is trash, but it does capture what an accomplished and winning actor Mel Gibson can be. Just because he lost his bearings, and his career, doesn’t mean that he lost his talent.
  19. Incarnate
    Offers a relatively fresh take on standard-issue exorcism-melodrama tropes, along with a performance by Aaron Eckhart that is more than persuasive enough to encourage the investment of a rooting interest.
  20. Rules Don't Apply
    Beatty tries hard to re-create the look and feel of late-’50s Hollywood as it existed both on-screen and off, aided by DP Caleb Deschanel and terrific costume and set contributions. And yet, it actually comes off too conservative for its own time, with stiff performances from Collins and Ehrenreich.
  21. Mimosas
    Those familiar with the ethnographic works of Ben Rivers (who gets a thanks in the closing credits) and the films of Argentine director Lisandro Alonso (“Jauja”) will find much to admire in the movie’s combination of spiritual musings and stunning landscapes.
  22. The Blackout Experiments
    The result is interesting enough, but feels a bit overextended at feature length considering the limited insight afforded.
  23. As I AM: The Life and Times of DJ AM
    The docu’s hyperactive editing and visuals eventually grow a tad monotonous, undercutting some of this life story’s poignancy.
  24. Len and Company
    Amid the film’s narrative lulls and lapses, it’s the actors who hold our attention.
  25. Seoul Searching
    Lee’s movie at once examines and embodies the complicated riddle of cultural identity: Beneath its boozy antics and largely predictable narrative developments, it offers warmly perceptive insights into how difficult it can be for so many first- and second-generation Asian immigrants to define themselves.
  26. The Dog Lover
    It’s a prosaic piece of muckraking, shot in a functional flat visual style, but it grazes a nerve.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Sugarland Express
    Unfortunately, the film degenerates in final reels to heavy-handed social polemic and sound-and-fury shootout.
  28. The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble
    The movie, despite enthralling moments, is so self-intoxicated by its blissed-out vision of global healing that it’s a little soft.
  29. 'Til Madness Do Us Part
    As the hours roll slowly past, it’s hard not to feel that this epic achievement in monotonous misery might have retained its impact at a fraction of the length, and that even our grimmest truth-tellers might well find themselves capable of saying more with less.
  30. Phantom Boy
    Though Felicioli and Gagnol’s visuals suggest colorful kidlit illustrations come to life, their labor-intensive style isn’t for everyone.
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