Variety's Scores

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For 17,832 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: 9,164 out of 17832
  2. Mixed: 7,031 out of 17832
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17832
17832 movie reviews
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  1. Total Recall (2012)
    Crazy new gadgets, vigorous action sequences and a thorough production-design makeover aren't enough to keep Total Recall from feeling like a near-total redundancy.
  2. Two Gates of Sleep
    Starts off promisingly but peters out as the story, told practically sans dialogue, heads nowhere consistent.
  3. Meeting Spencer
    Brit helmer Malcolm Mowbray's film assumes the constrictions of a stagebound farce, taking place on a single set in real time, and swept along in magisterially broad strokes by Jeffrey Tambor's playfully theatrical perf.
  4. Our Idiot Brother
    Picture needs every ounce of goodwill it can wring from Rudd's likable lead performance to offset a sour, borderline misogynistic streak for which scattered snickers offer only modest compensation.
  5. I Don't Know How She Does It
    Sarah Jessica Parker's myriad fans will doubtless appreciate her frazzled warmth in a part she energetically inhabits, but the picture at times feels out of step with contemporary reality and humorless in its adaptation of a comic bestseller.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Croods
    Although state-of-the-art in its rendering of textures, movement and stereography, The Croods, adopts a relatively primitive approach to storytelling with its Flintstonian construction of stock, ill-fitting narrative elements.
  7. If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front
    Lacks the passion of previous Marshall Curry films ("Racing Dreams," "Street Fight") -- something mirrored in his principal character, but also something that keeps the documentary from being as sharp as it might have been, or as up-to-date.
  8. They're Out of the Business
    The two still rely on their run-on, Woody Allen-ish interlocking rhythms to smartly propel the desultory plot forward, but after countless mumblecore and slacker indies, the sense of newness is gone.
  9. Mysteries of the Jesus Prayer
    Though initially fascinating, this two-hour travelogue soon becomes repetitive as it forsakes stark desert isolation for icon-festooned churches and overcrowded ceremonies.
  10. Dumbstruck
    It's only natural that audiences should root for such characters to succeed, but since human nature also harbors a mean streak, it's peculiar that Dumbstruck doesn't better exploit the obvious humor of its eccentric subject.
  11. Footprints
    Exhibits stray instances of intrigue and wit, and makes nostalgic hay with its enshrinement of old-timers Pippa Scott and H.M. Wynant, but ultimately suggests a too-writerly, over-padded "Twilight Zone" episode.
  12. The First Beautiful Thing
    Occasionally affecting but unremarkable, the picture's emotional moments are designed to pluck local heartstrings.
  13. A Better Life
    Director Chris Weitz's problematic new picture, which, despite Demian Bichir's affecting lead performance and a strong feel for Los Angeles' Mexican-American communities, emerges an earnest and overly programmatic heart-tugger.
  14. Kidnapped
    A technically proficient and aggressively unpleasant suspenser about sadistic home invaders.
  15. What on Earth?
    Inoffensive but mostly undistinguished "Ancient Aliens"-type concoction.
  16. St. Nick
    Virtually dialogue-free, the film opts for an almost perverse minimalism; even the camera is limited to the topography within the kids' purview.
  17. The Myth of the American Sleepover
    A movie that tries and fails to channel the indelibly dreamy mood of Sofia Coppola's "The Virgin Suicides." Well-intentioned but derivative and only intermittently engaging, the suburban Michigan-set indie hits at least as many false notes as true ones.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    That's What I Am
    Benefits from sensitive, restrained thesping, most notably by Ed Harris, and leaves one feeling blandly inspired.
  19. Janie Jones
    There's never any doubt where the picture is headed. If it finally achieves a modicum of poignancy, the impact surely would have been greater if the whole felt fresher.
  20. The Devil Inside
    Despite the palpable air of deja vu that hangs over it like a light fog, The Devil Inside generates a fair amount of suspense during sizable swaths of its familiar but serviceable exorcism-centric scenario.
  21. The Five-Year Engagement
    It puts Emily Blunt in a wedding dress, which will appease the hopeless romantics in the house, even while making the institution of marriage seem ridiculously obsolete.
  22. Man on a Ledge
    This cloddishly contrived suspenser is too busy to bore, but too farfetched to thrill, combining routine heist-thriller machinations with dialogue that often thuds like a body hitting asphalt.
  23. Harvest
    A venerable cast of Broadway vets interminably wanders through the clan's Connecticut mansion with no apparent goal, carrying the remains of never fully explained resentments.
  24. Safe
    What starts out crisp and promising gives way to a conventional shoot-'em-up in Safe, a fast-paced but extremely familiar vehicle for Jason Statham, who can only carry the material so far on his brawny shoulders.
  25. Free Birds
    A cute but disposable item were it not for the story’s weird racial undertow.
  26. Reagan
    This is hagiography, not history. If you accept it as such, you may find yourself mildly engrossed from scene to scene, regardless of your political persuasion, without ever viewing “Reagan” as anything more substantial than a small-budget docudrama series on cable TV.
  27. Dark Shadows
    This bizarre but weirdly bloodless retro-camp exercise is neither funny nor eerie enough to seduce the uninitiated, and will court bemused reactions at best from the series' still-estimable fan following.
  28. Littlerock
    Well-crafted picture has a nice sense of place and rudderless youth, though in the end, simply too little happens for the story to have much resonance.
  29. Mr. Nice
    Mildly amusing but overly discursive.
  30. In the Land of Blood and Honey
    Though sufficiently well made to suggest a viable career behind the camera for debutante writer-director Angelina Jolie, In the Land of Blood and Honey seems to spring less from artistic conviction than from an over-earnest humanitarian impulse.
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