Variety's Scores

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For 17,847 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: 9,172 out of 17847
  2. Mixed: 7,036 out of 17847
  3. Negative: 1,639 out of 17847
17847 movie reviews
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  1. Jackpot
    A candidate for quiet cult status.
  2. Loitering with Intent
    Loitering With Intent is essentially a 75-minute hangout movie, which would work better if the characters were worth hanging out with.
  3. Supergirl
    Supergirl plods along, poised between sodden spectacle and snark.
  4. Shadows
    Overlong, ponderous and occasional risible.
  5. Out to Sea
    For the most part, Lemmon, like Matthau, recycles shtick from earlier, better pictures. But then again, their roles call for little else, and Out to Sea actually benefits from their stock turns. [30 June 1997, p.65]
    • Variety
  6. Helena from the Wedding
    Pacing is brisk, and performances and writing sharp enough to engage throughout.
  7. Jane's Journey
    A worshipful tribute to the life and work of Jane Goodall.
  8. The Sacrament
    It’s a film that purists might insist isn’t horror in the strictest sense, though this slow-burning investigation of unseemly goings-on at a rural Christian commune is frightening in any genre language.
  9. Don't Look Up
    Don’t Look Up plays like the leftie answer to “Armageddon” — which is to say, it ditches the Bruckheimer approach of assembling a bunch of blue-collar heroes to rocket out to space and nuke the approaching comet, opting instead to spotlight the apathy, incompetence and financial self-interest of all involved.
  10. Beauty Remains
    An unappealing, stiff melodrama.
  11. Body
    The polished, bland low-budget presentation doesn’t raise much tension, and the script springs no real surprises
  12. Al Franken: God Spoke
    Despite these flashbacks, however, God Spoke never really delves into the reasons and/or motivations behind Franken's transformation from monologist and sketch-comedy performer to political pundit and liberal activist. Indeed, even during intimate moments, Franken rarely comes across as someone given to explaining himself.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Valley of the Dolls
    Parkins and Tate, the latter particularly good, suffer from under-emphasis in early reels, and corny plot resolution.
  14. Just Like Us
    Funny, thoughtful and, with its quasi-travelogue voiceover by helmer-comedian Ahmed Ahmed, best suited for a cable outlet that won't cut the vulgarity upon which so much depends.
  15. Raymond & Ray
    Raymond & Ray is curiously alienating despite the two A-listers in the driver seat, some decent chuckles to spare and a handsome, cinematic finish courtesy of DP Igor Jadue-Lillo.
  16. One Direction: This Is Us
    The film’s central fivesome prove charming pallbearers throughout the film, which alternates between inspired and insipid as it hits its hagiographic marks.
  17. Gang Related
    A good, complex story unravels in disappointingly over-the-top fashion in "Gang Related." Premise, about two homicide cops caught in a trap of their own making, is a grabber that sustains interest for quite a while, and pic's exploration of the gray area where law enforcement and criminality overlap is intriguingly developed.
  18. Set Fire to the Stars
    Its appreciation of Thomas’ work remains superficial, while the polished filmmaking never quite finds its own poetry.
  19. Queens
    A lively, well-packaged but meaningless amusement.
  20. What Men Want
    But the thoughts she overhears don’t, for the most part, have the snap of comic surprise. They just fill in the walking alpha blanks we already know.
  21. TRON: Legacy
    While 21st-century effects and a cutting-edge dance score make this a stunning virtual ride, the underlying concept feels as far-fetched as ever.
  22. Auggie Rose
    Unspectacular but quietly absorbing.
  23. Sidewalks of New York
    Not just instantly forgettable, but beginning to fade from memory even as its images still play across the screen.
  24. The 6th Day
    A mostly standard-issue latter-day Arnold Schwarzenegger actioner spiked with a creepily plausible cloning angle.
  25. Tycoon: A New Russian
    A savvy, fast-paced political thriller dealing with the meteoric rise and fall of a new Russian businessman.
  26. Nicotina
    Yields up plenty of opportunities for heated confrontations, wild and woolly dialogue and startling violence, which prove diverting in a shallow way.
  27. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
    As computer game-derived features go, it sure beats "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider."
  28. The Thing
    Far less chilling than versions from 1951 and 1982, Universal's latest take on The Thing at least has a strong lead thesp in Mary Elizabeth Winstead, recruited for the studio's bid to turn a tale of ice-cold macho paranoia into a beauty-vs.-beast shocker a la "Alien."
  29. The High Cost of Living
    Although there are moments when lead thesps Zach Braff ("Scrubs", "Garden State") and Isabelle Blais just about pull off the implausible conceit, the picture still suffers from major problems of tone as well as stilted camerawork and editing.
  30. The Fifth Estate
    Both the kindest and most damning thing you can say about The Fifth Estate is that it primarily hobbles itself by trying to cram in more context-needy material than any single drama should have to bear.
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