Variety's Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
  1. La Dosis
    It’s all more involving than it is frustrating. That’s thanks in large part to the nuanced performances of the leads, whose work ensures that at least the first half of the term “psychological thriller” feels well-realized here.
  2. Ithaka
    Laura Poitras’s 2017 documentary “Risk” was a close-up portrait of Assange, shot during his early years of infamy and as fascinating, in a squirmy way, as Assange himself. “Ithaka” is less about the man than the cause — how the continued prosecution of Assange fits into the issue of free speech. It’s a more morally clean-cut watch. But it’s a lot less dramatic.
  3. The Spy Who Loved Me
    Triple X posed an ideal opportunity for the series to rectify its dismissive treatment of women until this point, putting a lady on equal footing with Bond. To its credit, the film does feature a bit of screwball badinage between the two (a clunky bit about female drivers, unfortunately), but it has yet to introduce a single female character who doesn’t want to sleep with our hero.
  4. The Bride!
    It’s a scrappy punk feminist tragicomedy of l’amour fou, a renegade take-off on the “Frankenstein” myth. And while the movie doesn’t quite work — it lumbers along and blows fuses; it has lots of flesh and blood but not enough storytelling spine — there’s a spark of audacity to it.
  5. The Bank
    Will connect with anyone who ever had a bad experience with a bank or finance company, and provides a satisfyingly loathsome character in Anthony LaPaglia's engaging protrayal of a corporate shark.
  6. Kal Ho Naa Ho
    Another slam-dunk from vet producer Yash Johar.
  7. Old School
    This year's kinder, gentler "Animal House."
  8. City of Angels
    The endlessly resourceful Nicolas Cage, as a celestial angel, and a terrifically engaging Meg Ryan, as a pragmatic surgeon, create such blissful chemistry that they elevate the drama to a poetic level seldom reached in a mainstream movie.
  9. Standing by Yourself
    In the post-Columbine era, Koury's film has its finger on something particularly potent.
  10. Diminished Capacity
    A God's little acre's worth of premeditated eccentricity runs through Diminished Capacity, a triumphant losers-in-Cornville comedy starring Matthew Broderick in a role he might have phoned in, and Alan Alda as a combination Jed Clampett and Raymond Babbitt.
  11. Fat Kid Rules the World
    Affecting performances and effective storytelling are the hallmarks of Fat Kid Rules the World.
  12. Body Bags
    Scary moments are scattered throughout the teleplays by Billy Brown and Dan Angel, with a few jittery jolts to grab attention (particularly during the first episode), but the writing and stories are pedestrian.
  13. The Men Who Stare at Goats
    A superbly written loony-tunes satire, played by a tony cast at the top of its game.
  14. Don't Make Me Go
    The movie’s ending is misguided to the point of being perplexing rather than upsetting, recasting everything that came before it in a less favorable light. That’s a shame, as this father-daughter drama starring John Cho has more than its fair share of touching moments before hitting the roadblock that is its questionable third act.
  15. Passion
    Clearly, Passion means to be a hoot, a wet-dream thriller for cinephiles. But by the time it reaches its overwrought final act, the picture has generated neither the tension of its forebears nor the audacity that would allow it to transcend its silliness.
  16. Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead
    Armed with “Mad Max”-like design elements and a good sense of humor, this energetically executed bloodbath marks a promising feature bow for Australian brothers Kiah and Tristan Roache-Turner.
  17. Dunston Checks In
    Director Ken Kwapis displays a deft touch, balancing realistic elements and outsize characterizations. Pic’s unflagging pace and the unexpectedly witty script by John Hopkins and Bruce Graham complement the simplicity of this comedy construct.
  18. Mansfield 66/67
    There’s value in examining the myth of Mansfield and its impact, but here poor Jayne herself is lost.
  19. Savage House
    Performed with gusto by Richard E. Grant and Claire Foy, as a couple of Georgian grotesques sacrificing everything to host the aspirational dinner party of their dreams, it derives an odd poignancy from the smallness of its stakes, and the severity of its consequences.
  20. Magic in the Moonlight
    Whenever Firth and Stone are onscreen together, the movie sings; the rest of the time it’s never less than a breezy divertissement.
  21. Hulk
    This impeccably crafted piece of megabuck fantasy storytelling aims to pull off the tricky feat of significantly reworking the superhero format while still providing the expected tentpole-type entertainment thrills for the international masses.
  22. Don't Move
    There’s something so schematic about Iris’ situation, it feels like an insult to those who deal with actual thoughts of self-harm. That doesn’t mean it’s not compelling to watch at times, as Iris does her best to overcome her immobility, but nothing about it feels believable.
  23. Goodbye June
    There’s a lot of acting here, little of it peak-form for the talent involved, though the ensemble lifts and colors Anders’ sometimes heavy-handed dialogue.
  24. Take Your Pills
    The kinds of connections that Take Your Pills makes, between the culture of information overload and a radically tightened job market and heightened personal performance and the chemical itch that fuels this whole late-stage capitalist dynamic, may strike some as too speculative for comfort. Yet it’s precisely by making connections like these that a documentary can fire up your perceptions enough to burn through the cumulative effects of advertising.
  25. The Ranger
    Diehard gorehounds may be disappointed by its relatively infrequent reliance on graphic and grisly mayhem (relative to this particular subgenre’s standards, that is), but Wexler’s discretion in this area turns out to be one of her film’s few distinguishing characteristics.
  26. Ride the Eagle
    The movie’s seriocomic consideration of how messy familial, sexual and professional relationships can be should have a well-nigh universal resonance.
  27. The Reluctant Fundamentalist
    Mira Nair’s latest immigrant saga saddles itself with a laborious narrative structure and half-baked thriller elements in a misguided attempt to open up what should be an intimate, introspective story.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Psycho II
    Psycho II is an impressive, 23-years-after followup to Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 suspense classic. Director Richard Franklin deftly keeps the suspense and tension on high while dolling out dozens of shock-of-recognitions shots drawn from the audience’s familiarity with Psycho.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Brubaker
    Even with a sharp cast topped by the star power of Robert Redford, it’s hard to imagine a broad audience wanting to share the two hours of agony in this one, all the way to a downbeat ending with Redford the loser in his righteous battle.
  30. Assassination Nation
    Levinson’s battling more villains than any script can take on, and by the end, his sharp jabs bleed into a gory finale that settles for cathartic cheers.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »