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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    • 47 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Pink Floyd: The Wall
    An eye-popping dramatization of an audio storyline. Being a visual translation of a so-called 'concept' album, pic works extremely well in carrying over the somber tone of the LP.
  2. Love Potion #9
    Inspired by the 1959 hit song, Dale Launer’s Love Potion No. 9 is a light-hearted one-joke romantic comedy that tries too hard to be cute. Glib humor and emphasis on “feel good” values aim squarely at the dating crowd and twentysomething couples. But lack of real wit and comic vitality, absence of star names and sluggish pace make pic less appealing than it might have been.
  3. The Mission
    There’s nothing terribly wrong with Anderson’s documentary — save that after 96 minutes, any viewer could well obliviously walk right past its principal subjects on the street, so fleeting an impression do they make in this surface-level portrait.
  4. Mr. Jones
    A high-energy performance by Richard Gere and an intensely brooding one from Lena Olin engage attentive viewer interest, but the stars are forced to overcompensate for a rather slow pace and lack of plot.
  5. The A-Team
    Best enjoyed (a la the "Mission: Impossible" franchise) by simply admiring the explosions and silliness without dwelling too much on the skeletal plot.
  6. The Passion of the Christ
    If an age produces the renditions of classic stories that reflect those times, then The Passion of the Christ, which is violent, contentious, emotional, extreme and highly proficient, must be the Jesus movie for this era.
  7. Just Friends
    A surprisingly shrewd and energetic romantic comedy.
  8. 24 Hours on Craigslist
    Picture is a colorful human mosaic.
  9. The Disappearance of Finbar
    Brit filmmaker Sue Clayton's muddled feature bow is full of intriguing ideas and incidental charms that fail to come together into a cohesive whole.
  10. Phyllis and Harold
    Evocatively fleshed out with surprisingly iconic homemovies, passionate love letters and well-chosen pop tunes, Kleine's homegrown Jewish "Madame Bovary" escapes the navel-gazing boundaries of the personal-diary docu by the sheer force of its evocation of bygone sensuality.
  11. At the Devil's Door
    At the Devil’s Door (which premiered at SXSW last spring under the title “Home”) ends up too tentative and underdeveloped, playing like an attenuated prologue for a bigger film.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    History of the World: Part I
    The one interlude which really brings down the house has Brooks working as a waiter at the Last Supper and asking the assembled group. ‘Are you all together or is it separate checks?’..As the old ad line said, there’s something here to offend everybody, particularly the devout of all persuasions and homosexuals.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Manitou
    This bout between good and Satan includes some scares, camp and better than average credits.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Bobby Deerfield
    Bobby Deerfield is a brilliantly unusual love story, told in a European fashion which makes the Sydney Pollack film at first irritating, then intriguing, finally most rewarding and emotionally satisfying.
  15. Secret Society
    Charmingly eccentric light comedy.
  16. Hey Arnold! The Movie
    Has surprising hipness and good humor to spare, all put across with a funky, low-tech vibe.
  17. The Other Side of the Bed
    A nicely contempo mood, engaging characters energized by solid perfs from a good-looking, high-profile young cast, and genuinely witty scripting are let down only by over-length and some generally turgid tunes.
  18. Anything But Love
    A low-budget musical so steeped in nostalgia that accusing it of being too old-fashioned is like accusing "Gone With the Wind" of being too Southern, (Standard Time-as this film was once titled) wears its heart, intentions and limitations on its sleeve.
  19. Treading Water
    Emitting the unpleasant stench of over-affectation, Treading Water slaps together its particular peculiarities with such randomness, it’s as if the film were conceived from blindly throwing disparate elements at the wall.
  20. Nostalgia
    Though lent a degree of executional grace by helmer Mark Pellington, Nostalgia nonetheless emerges an inorganic experiment that might’ve seemed more at home developed for the stage or as a novella.
  21. In Secret
    Serviceable but uninspired, this latest version of Emile Zola’s much-adapted 1867 novel “Therese Raquin” sends its characters to their doom on schedule without stirring much sense of tragedy or emotional involvement.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Predator 2
    While the film doesn’t achieve the same thrills of the final 45 minutes of Predator in terms of overall excitement, it outdoes its first safari in start-to-finish hysteria. The real star is the pic’s design. Writers don’t waste much time on character development.
  23. Black Rock
    Straining to be a distaff “Deliverance,” indie thriller Black Rock is unable to shock, much less convince.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Perfect
    Set in the world of journalism, pic is guilty of the sins it condemns - superficiality, manipulation and smugness.
  25. Home Alone 2: Lost in New York
    The studio has simply re-made the first movie, only with bigger pratfalls.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    For the Love of Benji
    Only a heart of steel can resist this pooch...The tale itself is slim, and while the plot is a bit contrived, and all of the loose ends tied up a bit too neatly in the film’s last five minutes, it should be remembered that For the Love of Benji is merely a star vehicle. The idea is to watch the dog act.
  27. The Tenants
    Keeps grimly glued to its one-note premise, relieved by nary a glimmer of humor, surprise or personality.
  28. Alien Abduction
    A sci-fi thriller as generic as its title, Alien Abduction generates only low-voltage shocks.
  29. Forces of Nature
    An extremely enjoyable neo-screwball comedy about attractive opposites on the road.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Thing Called Love
    Perhaps there's not much new to say about the dues and disappointments involved in breaking into the country music scene, but the scenes are fresh and the emotions real in Peter Bogdanovich's tune-laden, mixed-mood drama.
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