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. Room 314
    Pic feels like a cross between an anthology of ambiguous short stories and a string of acting-class exercises. Thesping is first-rate across the board.
  2. The Midnight Swim
    For much of the running time, The Midnight Swim is effectively ambiguous, but Smith’s decision to play coy with the sisters’ backstories eventually frustrates.
  3. Hard Labor
    Hard Labor teeters uncertainly between horror and social commentary. It feels as if the helmers tried to imagine what Bunuel would have done if he had made a horror film.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Volunteers
    Volunteers is a very broad and mostly flat comedy [from a story by Keith Critchlow] about hijinx in the Peace Corps, circa 1962. Toplined Tom Hanks gets in a few good zingers as an upperclass snob doing time in Thailand, but promising premise and opening shortly descend into unduly protracted tedium.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Pink Panther
    Quite apart from the general air of bubbling elegance, the pic is intensely funny. The yocks are almost entirely the responsibility of Peter Sellers, who is perfectly suited as a clumsy cop who can hardly move a foot without smashing a vase or open a door without hitting himself on the head.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Not as a Stranger
    Though some scenes come off fairly well, Mitchum is poker-faced from start to finish.
  7. After Midnight
    It’s not enough just to be offbeat. Defy whatever rules it might, a movie has to find its own beat, and After Midnight still seems to be weighing its options when the final credits roll.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    On the Beach
    On the Beach is a solid film of considerable emotional, as well as cerebral, content. But the fact remains that the final impact is as heavy as a leaden shroud. The spectator is left with the sick feeling that he's had a preview of Armageddon, in which all contestants lost.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Crossroads
    Seneca acquits himself very nicely, while director Walter Hill pulls of the expected professional mob, but he pushes so hard for pace that he skates right over the opportunities for thought that the subject calls for.
  10. 3 Days with Dad
    Ultimately, however, this tonally untidy yet incrementally affecting dramedy scores a cumulative impact by credibly and astutely depicting eruptions, disruptions and reconciliations during the long goodbye to a dying paterfamilias.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Last Hard Men
    The Last Hard Men is a fairly good actioner with handsome production values and some thoughtful overtones. Charlton Heston and James Coburn are both fine as a retired lawman and his half-Indian nemesis matching their wits in 1909 Arizona along the way to one last bloody confrontation.
  12. Blood
    Brad Anderson’s film steers a middle course between dysfunctional domestic drama and supernatural horror. That balance doesn’t completely work. But solid performances and some strong, occasionally unpleasant content make this an involving if not entirely satisfying watch.
  13. Godard Mon Amour
    A lightly audacious and fascinating movie (if not exactly one to warm your heart).
  14. The Missing
    Ron Howard has never before made a picture this raw and alive. At the same time, this tale of the desperate pursuit of the kidnappers of young women makes for a fundamentally grim and unpleasant experience.
  15. Romance & Cigarettes
    Chockfull of ideas and with an irreverence that irresistibly recalls late '60s American cinema, thesp John Turturro's third outing in the helmer's chair, Romance & Cigarettes, alternately shines and sputters.
  16. Liberal Arts
    This makes the film feel perilously close to widescreen sitcom, as do montages of New York set to Beethoven's Sixth Symphony.
  17. The Good Liar
    The pleasure of The Good Liar, and it’s a major one, is the chance to watch Mirren and McKellen act together in a cat-and-mouse duet that turns into an elegant waltz of affection and deception.
  18. Hours
    An ingeniously simple setup is cunningly exploited for maximum suspense in Hours, a slow-building, consistently engrossing drama.
  19. Everyday
    As the years go by and the kids grow — perhaps the only real benefit of Winterbottom’s approach — time begins to run together, making it all too easy for the mind to wander.
  20. The Last Samurai
    As rich in period and historical background as it is deficient in fresh dramatic and thematic ideas.
  21. Baby Mama
    Fey is a delight to watch throughout.
  22. Hostel
    Hostel may become something of a classic among Fangoria magazine's readership, acolytes of George Romero and audiences who thought "Saw II" was for babies.
  23. Anesthesia
    The ensemble labors sincerely to bring Nelson’s dense, frequently didactic writing to life, though it can be a hard task.
  24. Song to Song
    Song to Song finds the maestro in broken-record mode, rehashing more or less the same themes against the backdrop of the Austin music scene — merely the latest borderline-awful Malick movie that risks to undermine the genius and mystery of his best work.
  25. Noise
    Amusing but marginal diatribe against aural assault in Manhattan.
  26. The Mind's Eye
    The film has the visceral kick of brainiacs willing each other into bloody oblivion, but struggles to justify its own stock mayhem, much less plumb Cronenbergian depths.
  27. Consequences
    Ultimately, Stante’s raw energy and sure hand with actors are more encouraging than the screenplay’s lack of depth is bothersome.
  28. The New Romantic
    The film only feigns at analysis. It’s as naïve about love as Blake herself, who skips through the world like a temperamental child.
  29. The Eyes of Tammy Faye
    Chastain and Garfield give performances that are brashly entertaining but also canny and layered, as the characters get caught up in something far bigger than themselves. The Bakkers were hucksters of a grand order, and the film uses their spectacular greedhead soap opera to tell the larger American story of how Christianity got turned into showbiz.
  30. Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths
    So why is “Bardo,” for all its skill, reach-for-the-stars aspiration, and majestic sweep, such a windy, confounding, and — okay, I’ll just say it — monotonous experience? The movie is full of good things, but it’s three hours long and mostly it’s full of itself.
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