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. Big Eyes
    Despite Amy Adams’ affecting performance as an artist and ’50s/’60s housewife complicit in her own captivity, this relatively straightforward dramatic outing for Tim Burton is too broadly conceived to penetrate the mystery at the heart of the Keanes’ unhappy marriage — the depiction of which is dominated by an outlandish, ogre-like turn from Christoph Waltz that increasingly seems to hold the movie hostage.
  2. The Giver
    The Giver reaches the screen in a version that captures the essence of Lowry’s affecting allegory but little of its mythic pull.
  3. For No Good Reason
    While the effort is admirable, the result is a bit unwieldy, casting too wide a net to really plumb its subject’s depths, and defanging some of Steadman’s acid wit with an overly busy, hit-and-miss aesthetic approach.
  4. God Help the Girl
    It will be up to viewers to decide whether God Help the Girl is ingratiatingly naive art, gratingly inept art, or a bit of both.
  5. If You Build It
    A bittersweet ending offers both victory and defeat, but closes on a note of hard-won optimism.
  6. Hamlet
    A modestly inventive but curiously bloodless version of the Bard’s timeless tragedy.
  7. Unbroken
    A bit embalmed in its own nobility, it’s an extraordinary story told in dutiful, unexceptional terms, the passionate commitment of all involved rarely achieving gut-level impact.
  8. Finding Fela!
    While the filmed stage performances are among the pic’s most galvanizing sequences, their inclusion underscores how flat Gibney’s combination of archival footage and talking-head interviews otherwise plays.
  9. Equals
    From Doremus’ side of things, it can’t be easy to depict something as subtle as “intermittent feeling” or “increased sensitivity,” though the helmer does a fine job of laying the groundwork for the attraction blooming between Silas and Nia — boosted by the resonant collection of electronic tones and chimes that constitute Equals’ futuristic score.
  10. Band of Sisters
    Mary Fishman’s admiring docu is more a general survey than a detailed history or portrait of individual personalities and causes, and as a result, it holds interest without achieving any real narrative arc, offering inspirational content in a merely workmanlike package.
  11. HairBrained
    The film doesn’t quite have the verve or originality to capitalize on its spasmodic absurdist impulses, leaving the whole in a rather innocuous middle ground despite all efforts at quirkiness.
  12. Odd Thomas
    Sommers attempts to glue it all together with a raffish all-in-fun tone (despite some gory moments and unpleasant conceits), but the pic is neither witty nor macabre enough to pull off Koontz’s balance of elements in cinematic terms.
  13. The Art of the Steal
    Once the script is done playing its belabored game of who’s who, it becomes a sleek and moderately clever exercise in narrative misdirection, with at least one or two twists sly enough to pull the wool over even an attentive viewer’s eyes, as the climactic rush of “gotcha!” flashbacks makes duly apparent
  14. U Want Me 2 Kill Him?
    Salaciously watchable but finally hokey.
  15. The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature
    As an animated entertainment, The Nut Job 2 lacks several key factors: memorable characters, a fun story, jokes that will appeal to adults as well as little kids. But one thing it does not lack is visual momentum.
  16. Crimson Peak
    Aflame with color and awash in symbolism, this undeniably ravishing yet ultimately disappointing haunted-house meller is all surface and no substance, sinking under the weight of its own self-importance into the sanguine muck below.
  17. As Above, So Below
    It all makes for clumsy-fun escapism, not bad as end-of-summer chillers go.
  18. Mars at Sunrise
    Suliman (“Paradise Now,” “The Attack”) dominates the screen as Khaled, utterly compelling in and out of jail, his magnificent perf tying up cinematic loose ends.
  19. Haunt
    Following on the coattails of “The Conjuring” and “Insidious,” Haunt is a classical haunted-house thriller with perhaps little that’s out of the ordinary for the genre, but occasionally inventive execution.
  20. In the Blood
    Pulses are likely to remain level during In the Blood, a serviceable vehicle for MMA champ Gina Carano.
  21. The Shadow
    Despite similarities as a vigilante creature of the night, however, the Shadow — a character that enjoyed its greatest success in radio after being created in pulp novels — lacks the visceral appeal of Batman and won’t strike the same chord with moviegoers.
  22. How to Be Single
    Splintered between thinly sketched focal points rather than actually plumbing the real fear, paranoia and elation that come from operating without a romantic partner, How to Be Single never transcends its most sitcom-y instincts.
  23. The Signal
    Exceedingly stylish and ultimately quite silly, The Signal is a sci-fi head trip better appreciated for the journey than the destination.
  24. The Machine
    Closer to “Her” in its musing on human/machine connectivity, while also incorporating the dystopian and action-thriller aspects of “Blade Runner” and its ilk, albeit on a much smaller scale, the pic will divide fantasy fans, some of whom will give it props for breaking somewhat from genre formula, while others will be disappointed by the largely budgetary limits of its imagination.
  25. Hank and Asha
    Kakkar and Pastides generate a rooting interest in their characters, with compellingly persuasive performances.
  26. A Monster Calls
    We’ve heard the same lesson countless times before in other movies, and though it’s certainly impressive to see Conor’s anxieties manifest themselves in such a stunning Ent-like being, as monsters go, Bayona’s creation is all bark and no bite.
  27. The Last of Robin Hood
    The script represents a too-tame middle ground, which gives the unfortunate impression that perhaps the filmmakers want us to empathize with this icky romance.
  28. The Love Punch
    A creaky heist-caper comedy that hopes to get by on sunny amiability.
  29. The Hundred-Foot Journey
    Scrumptious as it all is, it hurts to watch chefs so committed to excellence in a movie so content to settle for attractive mediocrity.
  30. Let's Be Cops
    The mix of raucous buffoonery and violent mayhem isn’t exactly seamless, and the laugh-out-loud moments come with conspicuously less frequency during a third act that suggests a rough draft for “Bad Boys 3.”
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