Variety's Scores

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For 17,779 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 2.4 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: 9,134 out of 17779
  2. Mixed: 7,009 out of 17779
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17779
17779 movie reviews
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  1. Under the Skin
    Glazer has always been longer on atmosphere and uncanny moods than on narrative, but the fatal flaw of Under the Skin isn’t that not much happens; it’s that what does happen isn’t all that interesting.
  2. Red Army
    The strength of Red Army lies in its deep appreciation for the many ironies of the situation, the bone-deep complexities of national identity, and the fact that, on some level, home will always be home.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Miracle Worker
    Where the picture really excels, outside of its inherent story values, is in the realm of photographic technique. It is here that director Penn and cameraman Ernest Caparros have teamed to create artful, indelible strokes of visual storytelling and mood-molding.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Have You Got It Yet? The Story of Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd
    It’s not just the thoroughness but the intimacy of the interviews that gives this film its definitiveness.
  5. Porco Rosso
    Not only does this rank among Miyazaki’s finest achievements, it reflects his personal love of aviation, his political concerns and his fullest expression to date of a non-fantasy world resembling our own.
  6. The Post
    The Pentagon Papers marked an iconic moment in American history: the press claiming its own freedom to call out the excesses of power. The Post celebrates what that means, tapping into an enlightened nostalgia for the glory days of newspapers, but the film also takes you back to a time when the outcome was precarious, and the freedoms we thought we took for granted hung in the balance. Just as they do today.
  7. Cunningham
    Kovgan’s ode to choreography master Merce Cunningham is sensational in every sense of the word. Renewing one’s appreciation of the many wonders of the human body and the space in which it fills and drifts, Cunningham celebrates all the things our joints and flexed muscles are capable of, as seen through the mind and poetic dances of an iconic creator.
  8. Fireworks
    This contemplative drama about a tough ex-cop tying up the loose ends of his life and taking his terminally ill wife on a farewell journey is pure poetry.
  9. Blind
    For all the obvious pleasure Vogt takes in bending and splintering the surface reality of the film, all his formal strategies issue directly from Inrgid and her fragile, profoundly human psyche.
  10. The Magdalene Sisters
    Mullan's increased maturity as a director is evident in his skill at manipulating light and dark dramatic tones, and shifting between moods of anger and plaintive melancholy.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Superman II
    Superman II emerges as a solid, classy, cannily constructed piece of entertainment which gets down to action almost immediately.
  12. Tyson
    By getting Tyson to open up as he has, Toback has succeeded in illuminating one of the most polarizing, complex and -- the film almost forces one to admit -- misunderstood figures of our time.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    101 Dalmatians
    While not as indelibly enchanting or inspired as some of the studio’s most unforgettable animated endeavors, this is nonetheless a painstaking creative effort.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Henry V
    Henry V is a stirring, gritty and enjoyable pic which offers a plethora of fine performances from some of the U.K.'s brightest talents.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Day the Earth Stood Still
    Cast, although secondary to the story, works well.
  16. The Sting
    The Sting has all the signs of a blockbuster. Paul Newman and Robert Redford are superbly reteamed, this time as a pair of con artists in Chicago of the ’30s, out to fleece a bigtime racketeer brilliantly cast with and played by Robert Shaw. George Roy Hill’s outstanding direction of David S. Ward’s finely-crafted story of multiple deception and surprise ending will delight both mass and class audiences. Extremely handsome production values and a great supporting cast round out the virtues.
  17. Eastern Promises
    A superbly wrought yarn set in the milieu of first-generation Russian mobsters in London that is simultaneously tough-minded and compassionate about the human condition, Eastern Promises instantly takes its place among David Cronenberg's very best films.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Shanghai Express
    Josef von Sternberg, the director, has made this effort interesting through a definite command of the lens. As to plot structure and dialog, Shanghai Express runs much too close to old meller and serial themes to command real attention. The finished product is an example of what can be done with a personality and photogenic face such as Marlene Dietrich possesses to circumvent a trashy story.
  19. Footnote
    Footnote is a decidedly male-centric film. Structurally, the picture is divided into named chapters that make for cute markers but give it the not-entirely satisfying feel of a jaunty satire.
  20. Being 17
    This vibrant portrait feels like something of a revelation, which is remarkable, really, considering how many more films have tackled coming-of-age than the relatively niche experience of coming out.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The White Diamond
    Herzog's eye for the weird sometimes makes the docu feel strained, but engaging characters imbue the pic with depth and emotional appeal.
  22. Luther: Never Too Much
    "Never Too Much” shows just how hard Luther Vandross worked to make his natural and irresistible talent seem effortless. That it took longer than he’d wanted to achieve certain results, not because of his shortcomings but the prevailing cultural forces of the time, is just one of many takeaways.
  23. Free Solo
    For those who love the thrill of high-adrenaline adventure docs, National Geographic’s Free Solo will be a hard experience to top.
  24. Trouble the Water
    Though tinged with the sheer gumption and personal resolve of amateur vidmaker and would-be rapper Kimberly Roberts, this is ultimately a minor doc contribution to the bulging library of Katrina-related films and TV reports.
  25. Saint Maud
    Skirting easy cynicism to view fire, brimstone and occasional grace through Maud’s awestruck eyes, this is finally as much a sympathetic character study, a mental heath mind-map, as it is any kind of chiller. Whatever the case, it’s one hell of a debut for Rose Glass.
  26. Misericordia
    Instead it’s a slippery, changeable parable about a particularly amoral cuckoo looking to feather a new nest.
  27. Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger
    A movingly sincere valentine from a filmmaker now due his own equivalent tributes, shortening the distance between youthful discovery and senior nostalgia.
  28. Mustang
    the director proves especially skilled with her cast of newcomers (of the thesps playing the sisters, only young Iscan, from “My Only Sunshine,” is a veteran), whose powerful individualism as well as their vibrant bond together are perfect vessels for the script’s message.
  29. Breaking Point: The War for Democracy in Ukraine
    One emerges from Breaking Point stunned and moved, with the realization that the Ukrainians are fighting for themselves, as they have for centuries, but also that they’re now fighting for all of us.
  30. Palm Springs
    It’s an irreverent take on a form where earlier iterations were obliged to take themselves seriously. And somehow that liberates what felt like a slick but ironic riff on a tired genre to do something sincere.
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