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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    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Look Back in Anger
    Richardson's is a technical triumph, but somewhere along the line he has lost the heart and the throb that made the play an adventure. The film simultaneously impresses and depresses.
  2. Tom & Jerry
    No, Tom & Jerry won’t be winning any Oscars, even if Hanna-Barbera shorts in which they starred racked up seven during the series’ 1940-58 run. But it’s good enough to go down easy.
  3. Selfie Dad
    A pleasantly predictable faith-based dramedy.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Entertainer
    Tony Richardson, the director, makes several mistakes. But he has a sharp perception of camera angles, stimulates some good performances and, particularly, whips up an excellent atmosphere of a smallish British seaside resort.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Without Love
    Competent trouping and topflight production make Without Love a click. But there’s no gainsaying the general obviousness of it all, along with a somewhat static plot basis [from a play by Philip Barry].
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Follow That Bird
    Simple premise has the slightly goofy yellow, eight-foot fowl Big Bird taken away from Sesame Street by the officious Miss Finch so he can grow up among his own kind, a bird family named the Dodos, in Oceanview, Ill.
  7. Summer of 85
    The movie has dug a hole for itself with the disingenuous framing device, and the last act feels like a cheat, revealing Alex’s “crime” to be anything but. While the midsection of the film proves to be the most charming — a kind of extended montage in which the young men tentatively test the limits of their relationship — it’s the final stretch that situates Summer of 85 squarely within Ozon’s oeuvre.
  8. The Hater
    Unlike “Corpus Christi,” which was loosely based on factual events, The Hater parts ways with plausibility early on — and yet, it’s relevant enough to prey on our anxieties.
  9. Sputnik
    Abramenko maintains the film’s finite appeal throughout, mostly thanks to a familiar aura and a charismatic lead performance by Oksana Akinshina, a fine surrogate for the tough-as-nails heroine Ellen Ripley.
  10. Now and Then
    The adults do little more than provide marquee allure in brief bookending scenes that add little to rest of the pic. For the most part, Now and Then is a showcase for four fine actresses in their early teens.
  11. Above Suspicion
    Chris Gerolmo’s script isn’t at great pains to find the human factor here, and Phillip Noyce’s direction coats the whole unhappy affair in cold blue steel.
  12. All Together Now
    All Together Now has enough of Haley’s signature humanism to elevate it above the average teen melodrama, but only just.
  13. Stage Mother
    There’s much about Stage Mother that’s slightly stale, but like yesterday’s donut, the icing on top makes it both look inviting and go down easily enough.
  14. I Used to Go Here
    Likable enough, but a little too tame to make much of an impact.
  15. The Cuban
    The real learning here ought to be that if you cast two such charismatic performers as Louis Gossett Jr. and Shohreh Aghdashloo in your movie, it would be better to clear all the Life Lesson clutter away and just let them get on with it.
  16. Nell
    A cocoon of somber self-seriousness envelopes some fine performances and intelligent craftsmanship in Nell.
  17. Rebuilding Paradise
    Rebuilding Paradise is a movie that shows us a great deal without necessarily exploring what it shows.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Liquid Sky
    Liquid Sky is an odd, yet generally pleasing mixture of punk rock, science fiction, and black humor.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Death of a Gunfighter
    Widmark elicits certain sympathy for his actions in his hardboiled interpretation.
  20. Black Water: Abyss
    Given its tight dark spaces, opaque water and lunging menace, this movie has plenty of natural nightmare material that it deftly turns toward more atmospheric than rote jump-scare uses.
  21. You Cannot Kill David Arquette
    Is Arquette a has-been actor trumping up his biggest failure so that he can exploit it? Or is he a lionhearted wrestler who finds triumph by going the distance? The weird thing is that there’s no difference.
  22. The 24th
    Buoyed by a charismatic performance from star and co-screenwriter Trai Byers, The 24th can at times be cumbersomely didactic and formulaic, but it finds plenty of contemporary relevance in a story that should be far more widely known than it is.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Promise
    Kathleen Quinlan is pretty convincing as the painter/photographer and a new, very handsome, young leading man is added to the Hollywood scene with Stephen Collins as the architect.
  24. Lingua Franca
    Lingua Franca is notable not just for the deftness of its overall assembly and performances, but for its approaching hot-button issues of the moment (the status/rights of both transpersons and undocumented workers) in ways that are insightful without being heavy-handed.
  25. Pearl
    A few abrupt narrative transitions indicate that some scenes, for whatever reason, must have been discarded during the editing process. But what remains on screen is enough to hold attention and generate rooting interest, especially if you’re amused by inside-baseball allusions to the film and TV industry.
  26. The Secrets We Keep
    This “Death and the Maiden”-like suspense drama is neither fully convincing nor particularly original, its narrative running a course that feels somewhat predictable from the outset. But it’s still strong enough to be effective.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Front Page
    The Front Page, with a featured spot by Carol Burnett, sure looks good on paper. But that's about the only place it looks good. The production has the slick, machine-tooled look of certain assembly line automobiles that never quite seem to work smoothly.
  28. Infidel
    Although Caviezel’s character is meant to stand in for all Americans unjustly imprisoned by Iran, it would be irresponsible to take the film’s “inspired by true events” claim too seriously. That doesn’t mean it’s not satisfying to watch Liz and several co-conspirators raid the facility in an attempt to liberate Doug and all those unjustly detained political prisoners. In this fantasy telling, at least, God is on his side.
  29. Words on Bathroom Walls
    There are pockets of truth, grace and pain in this portrait of troubled adolescence, and its talented young stars know where to find them; like many a nervous teen, however, the film itself is caught between standing out and fitting in.
  30. Emperor
    A striking discovery, Dayo Okeniyi will be unfamiliar to most in the lead role. He played a small part as District 11 tribute Thresh in “The Hunger Games,” and appears opposite Jennifer Lopez in “Shades of Blue,” but Emperor is effectively his breakout, which makes him feel as much a revelation to audiences as Green’s story will be.
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