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. Ya lyublyu tebya
    Clumsily drawn, poorly acted love triangle.
  2. Jersey Boys
    As handsome as his compositions are, Eastwood’s filmmaking simply doesn’t have the snap or the feel for rhythm that the script’s rapid-fire theatrical patter requires, and the relative dearth of prominent musical performances turns what could have been a dancing-in-the-aisles romp into a bit of a slog.
  3. SiREN
    Siren is lively if occasionally rough around the edges, packing a satisfying amount of action and a couple of amusingly nasty surprises into its short running time.
  4. Kinetta
    Lanthimos’ point seems to be that everyone has their own private weaknesses, but after a Lynchian first act in this strange world, he avoids any mainstream dramatic or satiric elements.
  5. Sheep in the Box
    Kore-eda’s attitude toward what he’s showing us is so lackluster and noncommittal that it’s hard to know how to react to any of it.
  6. Effie Gray
    This admirable, watercolor-delicate tale of individual feminist emancipation never quite blooms into living color, hampered by spotty casting and Richard Laxton’s overly deliberate direction.
  7. Memoirs of a Geisha
    From a filmmaking point of view, this is a work that the old Hollywood moguls themselves would have been proud to present.
  8. Battle for Terra
    As original and convincing a feature as the better Japanese animes of recent years --"Tekkonkinkreet" comes to mind, along with the slightly older "Metropolis."
  9. Shuang long hui
    Ticket buyers get two Jackie Chans for the price of one in Twin Dragons, but the pic itself is no great bargain.
  10. Hidalgo
    Tells an old-fashioned boys' adventure yarn in an equally old-fashioned way.
  11. Batman Forever
    Yet while Schumacher has largely accomplished the goal of delivering a cinematic comic book, he's also left the movie hollow at its core -- a distinction that may not trouble Saturday-night audiences but that nonetheless dulls the film's impact beyond its sheer and unrelenting visual grandeur.
  12. Cooper and Hemingway: The True Gen
    Once Mulholland has established that both men hark back to a bygone, Teddy Roosevelt-fostered image of laconic masculinity, his peculiar vantage point generates little insight into the psychology and accomplishments of either man, as “The True Gen” abandons biographical logic in favor of a catalogue of arbitrary differences and similarities.
  13. 12-12-12
    An impressive yet drama-less concoction that can’t totally disguise its slightly stale aftertaste.
  14. Going Away
    Garcia, co-scenarist Jacques Fieschi and the excellent cast (including a welcome Dominique Sanda as Baptiste’s regal mother) bring a sense of depth and shared history to even those figures we meet just briefly.
  15. Juggernaut
    Even if the ending falls something short of memorable, Juggernaut still holds attention as a strong, well-acted effort that effectively walks the line between dysfunctional family drama and revenge thriller.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    F.I.S.T.
    In its superb telling of how a humble but idealistic young man escalates to the corrupt heights of unbridled power, F.I.S.T. is to the labor movement in the United States what All the King's Men was to an era in American politics.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Fritz the Cat
    Excellent animation and montage shore up a plot which has a few howls, several chuckles and many smiles.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Alice in Wonderland
    On the screen it is vividly realized in all its fantastic angles. The humor is genuine and the treatment satisfying on its literary side. But an hour and a quarter of it is overpoweringly sedative. [26 Dec 1933, p.10]
    • Variety
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Evil of Frankenstein
    In this one Peter Cushing plays the baron with his usual seriousness, avoiding tongue-in-the-cheek, and he is the main prop in the proceedings.
  20. The Brady Bunch Movie
    Part homage, part spoof, the deft balancing act is a clever adaptation -- albeit culled from less than pedigreed source material.
  21. All Is Bright
    This engaging if somewhat underwhelming tale of unlikely redemption builds a funny-sad web of intersecting interactions around its strong central perfs.
  22. Pontypool
    A zombie flick sans bite.
  23. The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim
    It may please the faithful, but it’s not quite epic enough to give less devoted viewers the same thrill they once felt from the live-action movies.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Trespass
    Throw together The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and Rio Bravo, bring in the Ice crew, inject a noxious dose of racial hatred and stir in some sharp action direction and you've got Trespass.
  25. Art School Confidential
    Despite a soulful leading performance from Max Minghella, pic feels insubstantial, echoing without equaling both the coolly ironic edge and heart of "Ghost World" and the incisive art-world outsider portrait of the director's docu feature, "Crumb."
  26. Ricki and the Flash
    This is a shaggy, easily distractible film that consistently defies expectations to both charming and baffling effect.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Life Stinks
    Mel Brooks' Life Stinks is a fitfully funny vaudeville caricature about life on Skid Row. Premise of a rich man who chooses to live among the poor for a spell feels sorely undeveloped, and suffers from the usual gross effects and exaggerations.
  28. So I Married an Axe Murderer
    So I Married an Axe Murderer may have to dodge some angry Scotsmen but otherwise should click with those looking for slightly upscale humor that’s not averse to a few well-placed cheap shots. It’s a delightful and unexpected surprise.
  29. Save the Date
    The film features a lead performance by Lizzy Caplan, who might be mistaken here for a graduate of the Zooey Deschanel School of Dramatic Arts.
  30. Sparkle
    Sparkle deals in such well-worn rise-and-fall music-bio tropes that it's hard to blame it for simply coasting on narrative shorthand at times. But the lackadaisical storytelling can inch toward outright laziness.
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