Variety's Scores

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For 17,828 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: 9,160 out of 17828
  2. Mixed: 7,031 out of 17828
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17828
17828 movie reviews
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  1. Reset
    Reset is so gorgeously shot that it almost distracts attention away from the sheer inertia of its material.
  2. My Name Is Emily
    the film thrums with an urgency that’s both asset and liability, at once invested with deep feeling and undone by a barrage of flashbacks, allusions, and counterintuitive bits of wisdom.
  3. Dean
    Martin stays within his comfort zone as a New York-based illustrator still processing his mother’s death, but the tyro helmer struggles to square his distinct minimalist charm with the second-hand influence of standard-bearers like Woody Allen and Wes Anderson.
  4. Newness
    The trouble with Newness — and the reason it’s shot in such a clinical vérité fashion — is that it’s a thesis movie, heady and ambitious yet overly thought out.
  5. Havenhurst
    Havenhurst grows less scary the more urgently action-packed it becomes. It’s not that Erin’s direction lacks energy when needed, but rather that his and Daniel Ferrands’ script never develops any of its numerous familiar but viable plot themes enough to really give the film a distinguishing edge.
  6. This Beautiful Fantastic
    Everything about “Fantastic” is designed to charm, and its success in that respect will depend upon the viewer’s susceptibility to cuteness and contrivance ladled on with some proficiency but no subtlety whatsoever.
  7. Give Me Future
    Somewhere buried beneath Peters’ new-day-rising clichés and superficial celebration of electronica stars, there’s an intriguing documentary about Cuba’s transformation struggling to break free.
  8. The Hero
    Haley and Basch have mistaken what the AARP calls “movies for grownups” for a kind of mushy feel-good pablum, throwing together a handful of familiar clichés in the hope that Elliott’s charm will carry the day.
  9. Person to Person
    Mildly amusing, a tad amateurish in some aspects, this little ensemble piece about funny little people is ultimately just too damn little.
  10. Wolves
    It’s a showcase for some fine acting and even finer basketball action, but neither are enough to cover for this story’s enervating formulaic construction.
  11. Speech & Debate
    Though energetically shot and blessed with some appealing performances (including winningly strange cameos for theater darlings Lin-Manuel Miranda and Darren Criss), Speech & Debate never manages to make a convincing case for itself.
  12. Daddy's Home 2
    It arrives at a moment when the crackling voltage of the culture wars — blue state vs. red state, Trump haters vs. Trump lovers — is coursing through every fiber of the nation. This means that a film like Daddy’s Home 2, in its stupido-on-purpose way, can seem almost relevant in its trivial hit-or-miss yocks.
  13. Viceroy's House
    Such a sprawling, two-pronged saga may well have been better served in television miniseries format.
  14. Ana, Mon Amour
    Călin Peter Netzer’s follow-up to his Golden Bear winner “Child’s Pose” lacks that film’s directness and drive, and not only because this time he’s chosen to shuffle the sequence of events.
  15. Django
    The film — while not an especially compelling or well-told biopic unto itself — shines much-needed attention on the plight of the Roma people at the hands of German (and French) officials.
  16. The First Purge
    The First Purge is a slipshod B-movie comic book rooted in gangbanger clichés. It’s a threadbare “Boyz N the Hood” meets “Lord of the Flies.”
  17. Junction 48
    Issues are overly simplified and scenes are often poorly constructed (not helped by uneven editing), though Nafar is a charismatic performer. Ditto Qupty, and the energetic hip-hop scenes are welcome distractions. Visuals are spirited.
  18. The Land of Steady Habits
    No matter how much you want to like the film, something is missing: a spark, a shimmer, a thrust of discovery.
  19. Below Her Mouth
    A sexually frank but narratively flimsy girl-meets-girl romance that never gets under its gorgeous characters’ amply exposed skin.
  20. Live Cargo
    Live Cargo is one of the most evocatively shot debut films in recent memory, which is why its shabby storytelling is such a crushing disappointment.
  21. Mean Dreams
    The join-the-bullet-holes nature of Mean Dreams' storytelling would be less of a problem if the characterization were a little more textured, but for all the picturesque anguish on display, the febrile messiness of actual human life is little in evidence.
  22. The Girl in the Spider's Web
    It was probably inevitable that Hollywood would neuter the best elements of Stieg Larsson’s “Millennium” franchise, but did the producers really need to shift it into a commonplace cross between a superhero flick and James Bond?
  23. Mary Magdalene
    Hushed, deliberate and realised with considerable care and beauty, the resulting film has its heart entirely in the right place; its pulse, unfortunately, is far harder to locate.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Caddyshack
    This vaguely likable, too-tame comedy falls short of the mark.
  25. The Time of Their Lives
    A likably lame rattletrap of a road movie that gets what limited spark it has from the “Dynasty” diva’s still-lascivious on-screen charisma.
  26. Tomorrow Ever After
    The movie’s one recurring joke stems from watching Shaina catch strangers off-guard, and it starts to wear thin by around the one-hour mark, when things start to turn dark.
  27. Death Note
    The movie never quite reckons with just how twisted a concept it’s peddling, and that’s easily the scariest thing about it.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Boys from Brazil
    With two excellent antagonists in Gregory Peck and Laurence Olivier, The Boys from Brazil presents a gripping, suspenseful drama for nearly all of its two hours - then lets go at the end and falls into a heap.
  29. Unlocked
    An anonymously enjoyable espionage thriller that, for purposes of memory, all but self-destructs the second the closing credits begin to roll.
  30. Whisky Galore!
    Oddly stiff where Alexander Mackendrick’s original village farce was infectiously tipsy, Gillies MacKinnon’s interpretation is twee, tweedy and rather timid about putting its own stamp on a now-quaint story.
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