Variety's Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
  1. Solo Mio
    The directing brothers Charles and Daniel Kinnane have worked with James before (“Home Team”) and know what they have in the ridiculously amiable star. They also know there’s more, if not depth, soulfulness to his talents. In the place of pratfalls, they’ve found a kind of sheepish charm and hurt.
  2. Shelter
    None of these elements feel very fresh, least of all in Ward Parry’s formulaic screenplay. But they’re executed with sufficient slick professionalism to make for a passable if unmemorable diversion.
  3. Idiots
    Sure, the case can be made for this contrast between scatological humor and serious insight working as a mirror for how quickly a person’s reality can shift from joy to sorrow, but the overall effect is puzzling.
  4. Carousel
    In short, Carousel is a flawed drama that can be disjointed, but by the end the movie feels worth it: mannered at times, touchingly real at others.
  5. The Weight
    While the pieces for a white-knuckle mission seem to be in place, The Weight has an uneven, lurching quality, where slogging through the picturesque-yet-endless expanse of tall trees (arboraceous Bavaria doubling for Oregon) is punctuated by bursts of excitement.
  6. Paper Tiger
    The movie is engineered to be seen as “powerful.” Right now, though, I’d say that he’s an ace director who’s still being undercut by the holes in his screenplays.
  7. undertone
    Although it eventually leans into traditional genre hallmarks, its introductory musings are novel, taking the form of a one-woman performance showcase that makes ingenious use of visual and auditory negative space.
  8. Giant
    It leaves a lot to the audience to figure out about Hamed beyond what’s publicly known, as it’s clearly more interested in Ingle. While far from being a knockout, the film lands enough solid punches to leave a mark.
  9. Lee Cronin's The Mummy
    Brashly violent, clattery and pleasingly untied to any direct predecessor, the result is more generic than its braggy auteur claims might promise, but there’s a lot here for gorehounds to feast on.
  10. Buddy
    Casper Kelly is a talent to watch. In “Buddy,” he’s essentially reviving an old joke and doing multiple variations on it. But he has a gleefully rich understanding of the inner insanity that can drive pop culture.
  11. Wicker
    The filmmaking pair don’t stray far from Wills-Jones’ intention, using the story’s unspecified time and place to poke fun at superstition, the pressures to conform and the institution of marriage.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Wuthering Heights
    Dramatic episodes are vividly etched, without benefit of lightness. It’s heavy fare throughout.
  13. Rosebush Pruning
    Rosebush Pruning makes its anti-capitalist points tartly enough in such moments, but the twistier things get, the sillier they get too — while any social commentary begins to feel like a thin cover for so much luridly gross, glossy spectacle. Still, there’s pleasure in the film’s excesses, mainly because Aïnouz and his team present them with such febrile, iridescent beauty.
  14. Pizza Movie
    Pizza Movie is disposable, practically by design, but it may have happened upon a comic duo worth reteaming.
  15. Backbeat
    This energetic, dramatically potent look at the band's Hamburg days has quite a bit going for it in the way of cultural and musical history, but lacks a crucial, heightened artistic quality and point of view that would have given it real distinction.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Lady Sings the Blues
    The film serves as a very good screen debut vehicle for Diana Ross, supported strongly by excellent casting, handsome 1930s physical values, and a script which is far better in dialog than structure.
  17. That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime the Movie: Tears of the Azure Sea
    The series’ fourth season is still being rolled out through the summer, making “Azure Sea” play like a long-weekend getaway as opposed to a true feature-length fable. The fans are sure to clock in for its extra nuggets of lore, but there are few reasons for a non-Slimehead to take the plunge.
  18. Gentle Monster
    Gentle Monster is a meticulously plausible depiction of the dissolution of a family under the most trust-annihilating of circumstances, but that is all it is.
  19. The Black Ball
    The Black Ball does not come or go quietly, which is largely its point: If the film wants for subtlety and serenity, there is also something quite poignant about its narrative and stylistic maximalism, honoring any number of queer ancestors who never got to live out loud.
  20. Butterfly Jam
    Balagov, however, remains the star attraction of “Butterfly Jam,” his fluent, adventurous command of sound and image keeping the film interesting even when not much is happening on screen, and tangibly atmospheric when the narrative pendulum swings too far in the other direction.
  21. Cantona
    Enjoyable but mostly surface-level as it recounts the highs or lows (it’s sometimes debatable which is which) of his career while maintaining a respectfully awed distance from his inner life, it’s a film for fans that could mint some new ones — given Cantona’s own still-irresistible presence as a talking head and storyteller.
  22. The Players Club
    Ice Cube continues his evolution from hard-core rapper to multihyphenate filmmaker with "The Players Club," a messy but lively B-movie that recalls the more spirited comedic dramas of the '70s blaxploitation era.
  23. The Mirror Has Two Faces
    The narcissism on display is astonishing to behold, and veteran Barbra watchers will have a field day. Beyond that, pic does deliver a number of laughs, deep-dish luxury on the production side and an engagingly enthusiastic performance from Bridges, who represses his studly side behind a bow tie and a naive, then overly logical, then totally flustered demeanor.
  24. Full Phil
    It’s middle-drawer mishegas — though part of what’s sort of fun about it, and also interesting (even when it gets overdone), is that the director, in this case, is truly coming on like he has something to say.
  25. México 86
    As a study of how the World Cup sausage is made, the film could go deeper and dirtier; as a crowdpleaser about the business of crowdpleasing, it’s more or less on point.
  26. Honeyjoon
    The movie delivers subtext aplenty, overflowing in ways that help overcome its reserved exterior and make for an unobtrusive comedy-drama that, on occasion, comes close to working.
  27. Valentine's Day
    As gooey and lacking in protein as a chocolate holiday bonbon, Valentine's Day plays like a feature-length commercial produced by the Friends of the Valentine Promotional Society.
  28. From Paris with Love
    To his credit, Travolta hams it up with the kind of laissez-faire irony that might have made the film a tongue-in-cheek pleasure, had his attitude extended to the filmmakers.
  29. Dear John
    Ultimately, the story feels as if it's killing time before throwing the next hurdle at the couple.
  30. The Book of Eli
    Some mordant comic touches would have been welcome throughout the picture, which has a somber tone that suffers a bit from lack of modulation and nuance.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »