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. Live by Night
    The film is sharply written and crafted, lavishly photographed, impeccably acted, with lots of twists and turns — yet for all that, it somehow lacks zing.
  2. The Beanie Bubble
    Tonally, the movie walks a tricky line between easy-target satire and female-empowering corporate case study, falling into the overcrowded junk-culture nostalgia-porn category so recently represented by “Tetris,” “Air,” “BlackBerry” and “Flamin’ Hot.”
  3. Scary Movie 3
    Results here are just middling funny, with no truly memorable high points and a sum impact that goes poof!
  4. Oldboy
    Lee and Protosevich have made a picture that, although several shades edgier than the average Hollywood thriller, feels content to shadow its predecessor’s every move while falling short of its unhinged, balls-out delirium.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Class Act
    Mixing elements of Trading Places with a Three Stooges short, this latest test for rap duo Kid 'n Play scores low on the SAT spectrum but should connect with a narrow range of older children and younger teens, at whom it's clearly aimed.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Heartburn
    Heartburn is a beautifully crafted film with flawless performances and many splendid moments, yet the overall effect is a bit disappointing. Where the film does excel is in creating the surface and texture of their life.
    • Variety
    • 49 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
    Solid family fare with plenty of yocks...For the most part, helmer Jeremiah Chechik makes an adept debut, injecting plenty of energy and spirit.
  8. Inkheart
    Despite abundant talent on both sides of the camera and a bevy of eye-catching supernatural beasties, this f/x-heavy story of a literature-loving father and daughter battling dark forces unleashed from the pages of a rare tome doesn't conjure much in the way of bigscreen magic.
  9. Return to Never Land
    Represents a passable follow-up to the venerable Peter Pan story and mercifully, at 72 minutes, is exactly half the length of the last attempt at same, Steven Spielberg's lamentable "Hook."
  10. Down and Out with the Dolls
    Unaffectedly hip and affably manic, Down & Out With the Dolls picks up where "Singles" left off.
  11. Rosenstrasse
    A sober, unsensationalized enactment of a Holocaust incident. Von Trotta keeps sentimentality at bay and, as a result, the film isn't as emotionally wrenching as it might have been.
  12. Pitch Black
    Mildly scary but not particularly engaging on any other level.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Pop Star on Ice
    Smartly structured, crisply lensed docu Pop Star on Ice is a fascinating portrait of outspoken Olympian and three-time U.S. figure skating national champion Johnny Weir.
  14. Devil's Pass
    It’s cheesy enough fun while it lasts, but in the Harlin pantheon, it isn’t a patch on “Deep Blue Sea.” Then again, few things are.
  15. Cake
    To be sure, Aniston leads with her scowl here, in the sort of performance that often gets called “brave” but is, in fact, more accurately described as a well-executed change of pace.
  16. The Instigators
    From a filmmaking perspective, it’s no easy feat taking what looks like so much chaos and organizing it into a character-driven comedy, but that’s just what Affleck and co-writer (and “City on a Hill” series creator) Chuck MacLean have accomplished, giving Liman the blueprint to alternate between unpredictable set-pieces and more relaxed examples of male bonding.
  17. Angel-A
    For his (Besson) fans, Angel-A is an achingly sincere but protracted effort to trade mostly action for mostly dialogue.
  18. Run, Fatboy, Run
    David Schwimmer's first bigscreen directing effort reveals something very different: a thoroughly competent mainstream craftsman who imposes no individual character on formulaic material.
  19. Scoop
    After the accomplished smoothness of "Match Point," it's back to more ragged form in Scoop, despite the almost identical posh settings, and the return of Scarlett Johansson as leading lady.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Exorcist III
    Since The Exorcist was one of the most frightening films ever and Exorcist II one of the goofiest, chances favored The Exorcist III to fall somewhere in between, though not nearly far enough up the scale to rival the original.
  21. 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi
    It’s a nail-biter and a head-scratcher rolled into one: The mind may initially race to keep up with logistics, but eventually one acknowledges the futility of trying to make sense of a situation that Bay himself hasn’t managed to clarify.
  22. The Judge
    The Judge pivots on a simple yet inspired stroke of casting, pitting Duvall’s iconic gravitas against Downey’s razor-sharp wit, and then supplying no shortage of opportunities for both men to chew the scenery.
  23. Escape Room: Tournament of Champions
    Part of the problem is that since everything is at so incessant a fever pitch, suspense flattens rather than builds, and we don’t care much about characters who spend nearly all their time yelling instructions at each other.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Gung Ho
    Drawn from real life, the conflict between cultures is good for both a laugh and a sober thought along the way.
  25. A Touch of Spice
    Using the familiar device of cuisine as a metaphor for national identity and personal feelings, bitter-sweet pic about a man torn between his ethnicity (Greek) and the country of his birth (Turkey) makes its points lightly and entertainingly, with only a routine third act letting down the package.
  26. Missionary
    A luridly entertaining thriller that plays like “Fatal Attraction” for extreme religiophobes, or perhaps a very gory episode of “The Brigham Young and the Restless.”
  27. Spiral
    The film simply examines the prejudice that’s standing right in front of it. It’s chilling, but it’s the tip of the iceberg.
  28. Empathy, Inc.
    A clever indie suspense that draws on fantasy-tinged notions of virtual reality and identity exchange to create an ingenious tale more in the realm of an intimately-scaled thriller than sci-fi.
  29. Buffalo Boys
    All in all, this Eastern western is a jovial genre cocktail, but it’ll be more interesting to see if its director can bring greater nuance to whatever his next project turns out to be.
  30. Ardor
    Fendrik seems more interested in the rich jungle surroundings than in the generic human struggle in the foreground, alternating between clunky setpieces (such as the sitting-duck rowboat shootout) and long stretches where the characters say nothing.
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