Variety's Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
  1. Luca
    Luca, set in Italy in the ’50s, is modest to a fault, and at times it feels generic enough to be an animated feature from almost any studio. But it’s a visually beguiling small-town nostalgia trip, as well as a perfectly pleasant fish-out-of-water fable — literally, since it’s about a boy sea monster who longs to go ashore.
  2. Monday
    Monday, shot with a mostly Greek crew, has been made with some liveliness and skill, and the two actors really fuse. . . . But Papadimitropoulos treats most of the film as if he were making “Blue Valentine” or “Head-On”: a study in masculine narcissism.
  3. Critical Thinking
    It’s still, in the end, a bit of a connect-the-inspirational-dots movie, but that doesn’t mean you won’t be inspired.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Midnight Lace
    Director David Miller adds a few pleasant little humorous touches and generally makes the most of an uninspired yarn.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    No Man of Her Own
    It is largely the good cast, direction and some of the comedy arising mostly out of the wisecracks that makes No Man of Her Own acceptable film fare.
  6. I Am Greta
    As a summation of her remarkable achievements to date in public life, Nathan Grossman’s film is reasonably thorough, and sometimes rousing, amply showcasing Thunberg’s candid gifts as a truth-to-power speaker. Yet as a portrait of the girl behind the cause, it’s cautious and rarely illuminating, speckled with moments of domestic intimacy that nonetheless feel carefully vetted.
  7. Padrenostro
    Padrenostro, or Our Father, is a handsomely made “inspired by” drama with a few powerful sequences studded within a less satisfactory screenplay, at its best when it sticks to the tense rapport within a family terrified they’ll be targeted again.
  8. Sun Children
    If one intention of Sun Children is to remind that all kids are created equal, deserving of education and encouragement, Majidi’s young ensemble makes the case loud and clear.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Road to Zanzibar
    Although picture has sufficient comedy situations and dialog between its male stars, it lacks the compactness and spontaneity of its predecessor.
  10. Marry Me
    The bar for rom-coms is not high, and this one, ludicrous as it often is, inches over the bar. But I would no more call it a good movie than I’d pretend fast food is high in nutrients.
  11. Bruised
    Impressive as Berry’s commitment to the role can be, there’s a mirthless predictability to the whole ordeal. This pro-forma sports drama, which clearly means so much to its creator, unfolds pretty much exactly as you’d expect, leaning hard on pathos, when what it really needs is personality.
  12. The Christmas Chronicles 2
    When Christmas movies cease to be special (when they’re all scooped out of the same river of nonstop product), there’s something almost reassuring about a Christmas movie that lifts you up by knowingly dumbing Christmas down.
  13. Somebody Up There Likes Me
    The rocker, while never downplaying the danger of the fire he’s played with throughout his life, has to chuckle as he admits he’s led a largely charmed life. We end up charmed, too, if never really riveted.
  14. Misbehaviour
    Misbehaviour says good riddance to a bad era in the brightest, politest way possible: too politely, perhaps, if you’re seeking a feminist comedy that actually lives up to the raucous promise of its title.
  15. The Life Ahead
    The film, modest and often maudlin on its own storytelling terms, runs on a current of beyond-the-screen devotion that makes it compelling. Without that unquantifiable x-factor presence in the frame, it’s hard to say what reason this Netflix release would really have for being.
  16. Over the Moon
    Sometimes it’s OK for an adventure to be just an adventure, and this one gets in the way of its own assets, while pointing to the potential of future journeys from the Netflix animation team.
    • 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
  18. Deep Water
    This erotic thriller is still sexy and plenty entertaining, mind you, but it’s just not very useful insofar as what it says about real relationships.
  19. Ali G Indahouse
    An extremely silly, grossly scatological but often amusing picture that plays like Dumb & Dumber meets Spike Lee in London.
  20. Holidate
    Briskly directed by John Whitesell, written by Tiffany Paulsen, Holidate won’t change your mind about the tread-worn challenges of romantic comedies, but its leads leverage their charms nicely.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Sands of Iwo Jima
    It's loaded with the commercial ingredients of blazing action, scope and spectacle, but it falls short of greatness because of its sentimental core and its superficial commentary on the war.
  22. The Wolf of Snow Hollow
    The movie does get some zingers in there, and it balances the humor with some nicely atmospheric creepy small town vibes (courtesy of DP Natalie Kingston), but the tone is all over the place and a far cry from the “Fargo”-y Coen brothers feel Cummings seems to be going for.
  23. Books of Blood
    With a certain kind of horror, a laugh’s as good as a scream, and Books of Blood delivers plenty of the former.
  24. Black Adam
    The surprisingly serious-minded (but still plenty pulpy) project deprives Johnson of his greatest superpower — his sense of humor — while giving the now-straight-faced star a chance to play a character with some interesting contradictions.
  25. A Minecraft Movie
    A Minecraft Movie never stops goofing on itself, and that’s appealing.
  26. The 355
    The 355” is a vigorous formula action spy flick with an out-of-the-frying-pan-into-the-fire plot that mostly holds your attention, periodically revs the senses, and gives its actors just enough to work with to put a basic feminine spin on the genre. I make a point of that because the film does too.
  27. Meeting the Beatles in India
    There’s some fan value here, all spiritual quests aside, in seeing how accepting the individual Beatles could be of someone they could have taken as an interloper in their lofty midst. Maybe that’s the revelation, then: Sweet, the Beatles.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Hidden
    The Hidden is a well-constructed thriller, directed with swift assurance by Jack Sholder, brought down by an utterly conventional sci-fi ending.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Company of Wolves
    Admirably attempting an adult approach to traditional fairy tale material, The Company of Wolves nevertheless represents an uneasy marriage between old-fashioned storytelling and contemporary screen explicitness.
  30. Spell
    This is a decently stylish thriller with occult elements that should satisfy viewers’ genre requirements, though few will demand a second watch (or sequel).
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »