Variety's Scores

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For 17,831 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: 9,163 out of 17831
  2. Mixed: 7,031 out of 17831
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17831
17831 movie reviews
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  1. The Collection
    An energetic but utterly weightless exercise in slice-and-dice cinema. This sequel to 2009 chiller "The Collector" is in many ways bigger (more characters, more locations, more carnage), but in no way better than its predecessor.
  2. The Flying Swords of Dragon Gate
    The 3D is terrific in Flying Swords of Dragon Gate, but helmer Tsui Hark's costume actioner -- the first Chinese-lingo movie shown in the stereoscopic Imax format -- is let down by two-dimensional characters.
  3. Promised Land
    By manipulating their story to advance the cynical notion that you really can't trust anyone, the filmmakers inadvertently beg the question why their own motives should be so above suspicion.
  4. Detropia
    Among several recent documentaries about Detroit, the elegiac Detropia is perhaps the most aesthetically pleasing, if not the most informative or insightful.
  5. Last Vegas
    A smattering of funny gags and the nostalgia value of the cast — none of whom, curiously, have ever shared the screen before — keeps the whole thing more watchable than it has any right to be.
  6. Backwards
    Passably pleasant but thoroughly predictable.
  7. The Other Son
    An adequate if never surprising effort from French helmer Lorraine Levy.
  8. Doctored
    What starts as an impassioned exploration of the medical establishment's court-proven conspiracy to "contain and eliminate" the chiropractic profession soon turns into a scattershot expose of the entire health care field in Doctored.
  9. Pain & Gain
    Bay can be a master of exuberant chaos, but here the violence mostly lands with a sickening thud, which is fitting, one supposes, but also ultimately numbing.
  10. Admission
    The comedy feels forced as Fey works overtime to insert unnecessary zingers at the tail of every scene. If the cast weren’t so endearing, her actions could easily sour an audience on the whole experience, and Admission digs itself a hole only an ensemble this appealing can escape.
  11. The Place Beyond the Pines
    Two half-stories about fathers and sons on opposite sides of the law do not a full movie make in The Place Beyond the Pines, the overlong and under-conceived reunion between “Blue Valentine” director Derek Cianfrance and lookalike star Ryan Gosling.
  12. Hitchcock
    Hitchcock is a diverting but dramatically insipid account of how the Master of Suspense took his biggest gamble and delivered his greatest success with "Psycho."
  13. Here Comes the Devil
    Promises much in an ominously atmospheric package that nods to 1970s genre stylings. But the payoff is on the meh side.
  14. 186 Dollars to Freedom
    Setting his fact-based tale on the eve of democratic elections in 1980 Peru, Vila tends to err on the side of melodrama whenever possible, and John Robinson's lead performance offers no end of privileged American naivete. But the characters are solid and the action sound.
  15. Bel Borba Aqui
    A vibrant catalogue of his outdoor pieces presented in context with an exhaustive portrait of Borba as a boundlessly energetic, iconoclastic creator, the documentary ties itself too tightly to its subject, mimicking forms and rhythms it never fully makes its own.
  16. Simon & the Oaks
    Though it retains the narrative complexity of the Swedish bestseller on which it's based, WWII saga Simon and the Oaks never creates an emotional or intellectual throughline of its own.
  17. Least Among Saints
    The forced plotting and Lifetime movie-style tearjerking are a chore, and commercial prospects look narrow, but if this is indeed a good-faith effort to preach beyond the choir, it deserves plaudits.
  18. An Affair of the Heart
    While she creates an affectionate portrait of the charismatic musician, helmer Sylvia Caminer is really concerned with the meaning of fandom; anyone harboring an inexplicable or arcane passion could conceivably be interested.
  19. Waiting for Lightning
    A slickly produced, unabashedly celebratory picture about professional skateboarder Danny Way.
  20. Sassy Pants
    Walking a sometimes wobbly line between charming and cloying.
  21. Yogawoman
    Few could dispute the obvious physical and mental benefits derived from the practice of this ancient discipline. One could, however, wish that this endless encomium played less like a PowerPoint sales pitch, illustrated with clip-art imagery, scored with generic music and narrated in mellifluous tones by Annette Bening.
  22. Pusher (2012)
    What's missing cast-wise is an appealing personality in the sidekick role, and Webb is no match for Mads Mikkelsen.
  23. Olympus Has Fallen
    A North Korean terrorist may be responsible for taking the president hostage, but it’s Bulgarian-made CGI that does the most damage in Antoine Fuqua’s intense, ugly, White-House-under-siege actioner Olympus Has Fallen.
  24. Ride Along
    A lazy and listless buddy-cop action-comedy that fades from memory as quickly as its generic title.
  25. California Solo
    A former rock 'n' roller withers on the vine in California Solo, Marshall Lewy's forgettable sophomore effort (after a promising beginning with "Blue State").
  26. Save the Date
    The film features a lead performance by Lizzy Caplan, who might be mistaken here for a graduate of the Zooey Deschanel School of Dramatic Arts.
  27. A Dark Truth
    A self-serious eco-thriller assembled with a competent but heavy hand, A Dark Truth decries corporate corruption and Third World oppression in an all-too-obvious manner.
  28. Barrymore
    The material itself has a formulaic solo-bioplay rhythm neither performer nor director can fully elude.
  29. Buffalo Girls
    Considering that many will regard child boxing as inappropriate, at the very least, the documentary invites criticism by choosing not to include any voices of dissent or analysis of the sport within a broader social and cultural context.
  30. Gottfried Helnwein and the Dreaming Child
    Colburn's focus is so single-mindedly laudatory that the whole collaborative process is reduced to people either helping or hindering the visiting genius.
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