Variety's Scores

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For 17,833 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: 9,165 out of 17833
  2. Mixed: 7,031 out of 17833
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17833
17833 movie reviews
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  1. Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile
    For all the purity of its pedigree, and as agreeable and lightly touching as it sometimes is, I wish that Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile didn’t still seem, at heart, like a likable movie that had come out of the processor.
  2. All My Puny Sorrows
    As a portrait of sisterly trust, obligation and estrangement, and the difficulty of carrying familial dependencies into adulthood and beyond, the film is measured and thoughtful, lifted by performances of characteristic sensitivity by Alison Pill and Sarah Gadon.
  3. Charlotte
    What might have seemed a familiar if sad drama in live-action form benefits from this relative novelty of presentation, which lends a certain universality, as well as heightened viewer access, to Salomon’s story. But the rather pedestrian animation here also makes Charlotte a bit of a disappointment.
  4. A Banquet
    The filmmakers raise some interesting points, but it becomes an exercise in frustration to interpret the calculated connection between disordered eating, the metaphysical, and religious, medieval martyrdom. With nary any tangible scares, or much to truly unnerve or unsettle except from an empathetic humanistic standpoint, this feature-length directorial debut is assured, but far too ambiguous for its own good.
  5. The Wheel
    Pink, a veteran TV director who takes a rather self-important “a film by” credit on what feels like a first feature (it’s his fifth), shows almost no intuition for how to block or shoot a scene, inserting songs where silence would have been more effective. His clumsiness leaves the actors looking slightly amateurish, despite the strong, vulnerable performances they deliver.
  6. Medusa
    The audacity of de Silveira’s concept — in which enrollees at an upscale Christian college indulge in secret, moralizing vigilante mayhem — and her deliberately over-the-top aesthetic render Medusa a compelling mixed bag. It may miss the bull’s-eye, but not for lack of intriguing ideas or style.
  7. The Black Phone
    It’s a horror ride that holds you, and it should have no trouble carving out an audience, but I didn’t find it particularly scary.
  8. Falling for Figaro
    Expect no surprises in Falling for Figaro, a corny, cute-enough carpe diem comedy, in which it’s a lovable ensemble — led by Danielle Macdonald, and spiked by a deliciously imperious Joanna Lumley — that brings the grace notes to a pretty standard-issue script.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Harvey Girls
    A curious blend of Technicolor wild-westernism, frontier town skullduggery and a troupe of Harvey restaurant waitresses who deport themselves in a manner that's a cross between a sorority and a Follies troupe.
  10. Knocking
    Crisply made and gutsily performed as it is, this slender 78-minute film too often feels like pointed social allegory in search of a really good cover story.
  11. Gensan Punch
    "Gensan” lands solid punches for the rights of disabled athletes and excels with its depiction of rigorous training and fierce combat. But we learn very little about the fighter’s life when he’s not wearing gloves.
  12. Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh
    The script is constructed too much like a novel, which slows the pace of the early, establishing sections. Director Bill Condon works too hard to tie all the plot strands into a neat bow.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson
    It appears that the idea here is to expose and debunk the Buffalo Bill legend, revealing it for the promotional distortion which, in some ways, it most certainly has to have been.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Where the Day Takes You
    Attempting a hard-hitting pic on the grimy realities of Hollywood Boulevard street life, and blessed with a cast bursting with up-and-comer names and a technically adept cameraman, Where the Day Takes You inevitably winds up giving the runaway's life the kind of romantic-tragic scope that appeals to troubled teens.
  15. Prey
    As an alien-attack thriller, Prey is competent and well-paced, though with little in the way of surprise. But the journey of Naru lends it a semblance of emotional coherence that most of the “Predator” films have lacked.
  16. Last Shoot Out
    It’s a marked improvement over Feifer’s own “Catch the Bullet,” released just last September — and it features a ferociously nasty turn by Bruce Dern in a role that recalls a character from yet another golden oldie, Walter Brennan’s vicious Old Man Clanton in “My Darling Clementine.”
  17. Munich: The Edge of War
    Immersively crafted but never emotionally involving.
  18. The Bad Guys
    Cheery and diverting as The Bad Guys is, it has all the emotional weight of a few crisp, stolen Benjamins.
  19. Margrete: Queen of the North
    The slower stretches — like the entire first hour — have a tendency to plod, which gives ample opportunity to feast your eyes on Søren Schwarzberg’s grandly gloomy production design and Manon Rasmussen’s superb, elaborate costuming, but also makes the story rather too easy to disengage from.
  20. Bob Spit: We Do Not Like People
    “Bob Spit” is most notable for its formal approach, which intermingles animated interviews of Angeli with a bizarre, at times surreal narrative featuring characters from his comic strips.
  21. The Laureate
    Well-acted, nicely crafted and a handsome period piece within modest means, this isn’t the most novel, memorable or intellectually deep enterprise of its type. But it will satisfy viewers looking for a slightly racier variation on “Downton Abbey” terrain.
  22. When You Finish Saving the World
    To When You’re Finished Saving the World, being good is exhausting and miserable, and aspiring to be good is even worse. Joy exists only to be taken away.
  23. Call Jane
    The female empowerment message comes through loud and clear in “Call Jane,” especially in Banks’ performance. What’s missing from the picture is the threat of discovery, the dangling sword of Damocles that might chasten anyone taking so much responsibility on themselves.
  24. Thirteen Lives
    The movie works, but there has to be a more original way in to the Thai cave rescue story, other than through the main entrance, high-fiving its heroes at every step. For starters, it might have spent a little more time on the “Thirteen Lives” on the line.
  25. Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul.
    Writer-director Adamma Ebo’s indie comedy (produced by sister Adanne) should tickle those who share her skepticism of organized religion — especially the profit-oriented variety — but doesn’t go much deeper than the 15-minute short film on which it’s based.
  26. Luck
    While the new studio’s debut can’t touch “Toy Story,” it’s an auspicious start for a talented group of storytellers.
  27. Superior
    Superior feels like a John Dahl movie given a “Twin Peaks” vibe on a Hal Hartley budget, with just the odd dash of Old Hollywood thrown in for good measure, like the deliberately “Rear Window”-aping, flashbulb-popping finale.
  28. Supercool
    This energetic spin through high school antics redolent of everything since “Ferris Bueller” is colorful and amusing enough to entertain viewers looking for a familiar mix of bad-taste gags in a squeaky-clean suburban setting.
  29. Robe of Gems
    The problem, then, is that too much of this is dispiriting without also being enlightening — the view Gallardo takes is almost that of a bird’s eye, showing much from an emotional remove but revealing little beyond surface-level horrors and characters so numb to it all that we’re left with little choice but to feel the same way.
  30. Olivia Rodrigo: driving home 2 u (a SOUR film)
    A decently baked slice of fan service that still seems like it might be arriving a little too soon.
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