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. The God Committee
    While The God Committee routinely resides on the precipice of preachiness, Stark’s script (via St. Germain’s source material) avoids one-note sermonizing and characterizations at most turns, instead maturely investigating the messy intersection of medicine, morality and commerce.
  2. Hypochondriac
    The combination of gay protagonists, mental illness exploration, horror tropes, and surreal elements that gesture toward “Donnie Darko” make for an ambitious mix that holds attention, even if the uneven, somewhat muddled results are ultimately more effortful than insightful.
  3. Gran Turismo
    There’s an innocence to this one, and a surprise authenticity. It’s like a “Fast and Furious” movie made without cynicism, and it gets to you.
  4. Civic Duty
    Unfolding largely within the confines of a single apartment complex, the well-structured scenario is arresting but ill-served by an overly fussy visual treatment from helmer Jeff Renfroe, while Peter Krause's increasingly psychotic performance as an amateur snoop frequently threatens to cross the line between forceful and off-putting.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Elvira's Haunted Hills
    Must-see fare for fans of the bosomy camp horror queen.
  6. Maze
    Morrow displays keen attention to physical detail, but starring both behind and in front of the camera looks to have been a mistake here.
  7. Vertical Limit
    Remains exciting as long as it stays on the mountains.
  8. The Core
    More palatable than most pictures of its ilk due to its keen awareness of its own preposterousness, a self-knowledge exuberantly expressed by a mostly live-wire cast.
  9. The Santa Clause 2
    Festooned with cute, mugging kids; lots of jazzy redos of beloved Christmas tunes on the soundtrack; and enough tug-at-your-heartstrings moments to make an entire theater feel warm on a blustery winter afternoon.
  10. Orange County
    A fine group of comic performers manages to keep the screen worth looking at despite the obsessively one-note nature of this curious matchup between MTV Films and producer Scott Rudin.
  11. The Dust Factory
    A muddled metaphysical allegory that isn't nearly sunny enough to camouflage its darker undercurrents.
  12. Super Troopers
    A fairly sustained barrage of broad undergraduate humor and gross-out gags that should tickle young auds looking for unsophisticated laughs.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Burnt Offerings
    The horror is expressed through sudden murderous impulses felt by Black and Reed, a premise which might have been interesting if director Dan Curtis hadn't relied strictly on formula treatment.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Midway
    The June 1942 sea-air battle off Midway Island was a turning point in World War II. However, the melee of combat was the usual hysterical jumble of noise, explosion and violent death. Midway tries to combine both aspects but succumbs to the confusion.
  15. From Dusk Till Dawn
    A deliriously trashy, exuberantly vulgar, lavishly appointed exploitation picture, this weird combo of road-kill movie and martial-arts vampire gorefest is made to order for the stimulation of teenage boys.
  16. Some Girl(s)
    Each member of the ensemble offers a vividly detailed performance resounding with emotional truth, delivering lengthy swaths of LaBute’s sometimes savagely furious, sometimes shocking funny dialogue with pitch-perfect degrees of intensity.
  17. 300: Rise of an Empire
    Anchored by Eva Green’s fearsome performance as a Persian naval commander whose vengeful bloodlust makes glowering King Xerxes seem a mere poseur, this highly entertaining time-filler lacks the mythic resonances that made “300” feel like an instant classic, but works surprisingly well on its own terms.
  18. Code 8
    Code 8 is better than a mere calling-card film, though one senses a desire to check all the boxes of fan expectation and professional packaging rated higher than the kinds of personal expression that might have lent it a more memorable idiosyncrasy.
  19. Chupa
    The director could use a bit more practice working with kids, who give stiff and slightly unnatural performances here (Ciarra seems the most comfortable on camera), to say nothing of the so-so visual effects, which favor cute over convincing where the CG chimera is concerned.
  20. State Like Sleep
    Aided by Christopher Blauvelt’s sumptuous cinematography, this consistently surprising film slinks along with melancholic dreaminess, matching the fugue state that plagues its grief-stricken protagonist.
  21. Lockout
    Tackles a nifty futuristic premise with bargain-basement efficiency and a deadpan, devil-may-care attitude. It's an initially invigorating tactic that proves slapdash and unsatisfying over the long haul, reducing a potentially rich sci-fier to the level of a halfway decent time-killer
  22. Crazy Wisdom: The Life & Times of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche
    The late Chogyam Trungpa's very colorful life makes for a most engaging narrative here.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Memoirs of an Invisible Man
    Main problem with this mildly entertaining special effects showcase proves as transparent as its title character -- namely that Chevy Chase, who can only play Chevy Chase, lacks leading-man qualities necessary to make this sort of Hitchcockian man-in-peril scenario work.
    • Variety
    • 48 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sleeping with the Enemy
    In Sleeping with the Enemy, a chilling look at marital abuse gives way to a streamlined thriller [from the novel by Nancy Price] delivering mucho sympathy for imperiled heroine Julia Roberts and screams aplenty as she's stalked by her maniacal husband.
  25. The Map That Leads to You
    Hallström’s tender touch and assured knack for leading with character-driven narrative action give the proceedings a grounded sense of naturalism. He and his ensemble finesse the more inevitable aspects so they ring as resonant and don’t feel expected.
  26. Bullet to the Head
    To claim the dialogue is written to comfort the narratively challenged would be mere quibbling, as the picture's chief pleasure lies in its store of funny lines, which Stallone tosses off with genuine brio.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Daisy Miller
    Daisy Miller is a dud. Cybill Shepherd is miscast in the title role. Frederic Raphael's adaptation of the Henry James story doesn't play. The period production by Peter Bogdanovich is handsome. But his direction and concept seem uncertain and fumbled.
  28. The Sicilian Girl
    Even if Matteo Garrone's "Gomorrah" hadn't dramatically raised the bar for mafioso movies, The Sicilian Girl would have repped a mediocre entry in the Cosa Nostra canon and a waste of an extraordinary true story.
  29. The Unholy Trinity
    It’s not just a wallow in nostalgia: It also stands on its own merits as a satisfying entertainment that could easily find a receptive audience among folks who’ve never seen, or even heard of, such golden oldies as “Seven Ways from Sundown” or “Gunfight at Comanche Creek.”
  30. Just Cause
    The flip-flops, coincidences, surprising disclosures, far-fetched happenings, TV-style chases and illogically protracted confrontations come flying virtually all at once, obliterating the plausible character work and making the film feel like a hundred others.
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