Variety's Scores

Select another publication »
For 17,779 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 2.4 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: 9,134 out of 17779
  2. Mixed: 7,009 out of 17779
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17779
17779 movie reviews
view
per page
    • 69 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Towering Inferno
    The Towering Inferno is one of the greatest disaster pictures made, a personal and professional triumph for producer Irwin Allen.
  2. A Very Brady Sequel
    Highly entertaining.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Elephant Man
    Hopkins is splendid in a subtly nuanced portrayal of a man torn between humanitarianism and qualms that his motives in introducing the Elephant Man to society are no better than those of the brutish carny. The center-piece of the film, however, is the virtuoso performance by the almost unrecognizable John Hurt.
  4. A Self-Made Hero
    This sure-footed, deeply ironic comedy about an impostor who rises through the ranks is rock-solid entertainment with an appealing edge.
  5. The Small Town (Kasaba)
    A remarkable first feature from director Nuri Bilge Ceylan, The Town is a strikingly original, vibrantly sensitive look at an extended family living in a remote Turkish village.
  6. McQueen
    Itself crafted with great artistry and ingenuity, McQueen works both as a spectacular visual album of his work and an achingly moving account of the incomplete life behind it.
  7. United Skates
    Like such trendsetting classics as “Paris Is Burning” and “Rize,” this kaleidoscopically vibrant, essential-viewing survey plunges audiences into a dazzling underground scene, celebrating the endangered art form it finds there.
  8. Born and Bred
    Flirting with predictable tragedy but displaying an immense sense of empathy toward its central character, pic is finally an emotionally stunning journey of a father's return to his senses after a horrible accident.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Bugsy Malone
    It’s a brave, funny and winning pic which is nearly – but regrettably not quite – a triumph.
  10. Tre Maison Dasan
    This engrossing documentary focuses primarily on the kids as each grows through some rough developmental patches. But en route a few stereotypes get demolished, most notably the notion that every convict is a “deadbeat dad” or otherwise inherently bad person.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Logan's Run
    Logan's Run is a rewarding futuristic film that appeals both as spectacular-looking escapist adventure as well as intelligent drama.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Little Mermaid
    Romantic, suspenseful and at times extremely funny.
  13. Sick: The Life & Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist
    Undoubtedly the most wildly original and audacious documentary in this year's Sundance Film Festival, Kirby Dick's Sick: The Life and Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist is an uncompromising chronicle of the flamboyant poet and performance artist who died in 1996.
  14. Cold War
    Cold War may return to “Ida’s” meticulous monochrome aesthetic of “Ida,” but it’s a companion piece with its own tonal and structural energy: less emotionally immediate, perhaps, but immersively informed by the broken jazz rhythms beloved of its protagonist.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    To Live and Die in L.A.
    To Live and Die in L.A. looks like a rich man's Miami Vice. William Friedkin's evident attempt to fashion a West Coast equivalent of his [1971] The French Connection is engrossing and diverting enough on a moment-to-moment basis but is overtooled.
  16. Birds of Passage
    Few films have captured quite so powerfully the tension between the old and new worlds — a feat Birds of Passage accomplishes while simultaneously allowing audiences to channel the Wayuu’s surrealistic view of their surroundings, where spirits walk the earth, and wise women interpret their dreams.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The World According to Garp
    George Roy Hill’s film adaptation of [John Irving’s novel] The World According to Garp has taste, intelligence, craft and numerous other virtues going for it.
  18. Sauvage / Wild
    There are fleeting moments of wit, bliss and even tenderness amid the gritty severity, as Vidal-Naquet perceptively portrays not just the lonely, drug-fueled rigors of the hustler lifestyle, but the simultaneously competitive and supportive fraternal community that sustains it.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Unbearable Lightness of Being
    Regarded as essentially unfilmable by many observers, so Philip Kaufman has pulled off a near-miracle in creating this richly satisfying adaptation.
  20. Who We Are Now
    Newton has made a beautiful little film about sacrifice and redemption, and he earns it one tiny brushstroke at a time.
    • 93 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Last Picture Show
    Notre Dame professor Edward Fischer has said that the best films, like the best books, tell how it is to be human under certain circumstances. Larry McMurtry did a beautiful job of this in his small novel (which he transferred to the screen), The Last Picture Show.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Wicker Man
    Anthony Shaffer penned the screenplay which, for sheer imagination and near-terror, has seldom been equalled.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Coming Home
    In general an excellent Hal Ashby film which illuminates the conflicting attitudes on the Vietnam debacle from the standpoint of three participants.
  24. We the Animals
    As if by magic, Zagar has managed to foster a sense of familiarity among the boys that sells the illusion that they’re related, further reinforced by the editors’ trick of including moments of spontaneous, unscripted tomfoolery between the young actors.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    A Star Is Born
    The new A Star Is Born has the rare distinction of being a superlative remake. Barbra Streisand's performance as the rising star is her finest screen work to date, while Kris Kristofferson's magnificent portrayal of her failing benefactor realizes all the promise first shown five years earlier in Cisko Pike.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    A Star Is Born
    A Star Is Born was a great 1937 moneymaker and it’s an even greater picture in its filmusical transmutation.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    A Star Is Born
    Although not the first film which has attempted to capitalize the international reputation of Hollywood, it is unquestionably the most effective one yet made. The highly commendable results are achieved with a minimum of satiric hokum and a maximum of honest story telling.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Soul Man
    This social farce is excellently written, fast paced and intelligently directed. Film is hilarious throughout.
  29. Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts
    At once tightly controlled and simmering with righteous fury, it’s gorgeously lensed, atmospherically scored and moves inexorably toward a gratifying payoff.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Three Caballeros
    It’s a gay, colorful, resplendent conceit. Neatly conceived, it ties in many Pan-American highlights through the medium of irascible Donald Duck, the wiseguy Joe Carioca (first introduced in Saludos Amigos), and a lovable character in Panchito, the little South American boy.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »