Variety's Scores

Select another publication »
For 17,765 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: 9,125 out of 17765
  2. Mixed: 7,004 out of 17765
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17765
17765 movie reviews
view
per page
  1. Oh. What. Fun.
    Director Michael Showalter’s yuletide anthem for unheralded matriarchs fumbles severely, delivering bland comedic hijinks, insufferable characters and generic conundrums.
  2. Fackham Hall
    The movie, in its mud-on-the-doily way, is amusing enough to get by. But it never shocks you into laughter.
  3. Remake
    Remake is extraordinarily clear-eyed for a work so broken-hearted: at once a home movie, an intimate diary and an expansive study of the filmmaker’s purpose, constantly disrupting its own conclusions with expressions of anger, amusement and still-unresolved confusion.
  4. Silent Night, Deadly Night
    Hewing closer to the 1984 template, it’s an improvement on that film — not a particular high bar to reach — though a somewhat mixed bag overall.
  5. Dust Bunny
    The strength of the performances and the filmmaker’s smart handling of ambiguity (is there or is there not an actual monster at play here?) do enough to keep one engaged.
  6. Troll 2
    It’s slick and fun in just the same way the earlier film was. Though given the parting promise of a third installment, one hopes Uthaug and writer Espen Aukan come up with some new twists — inspiration is beginning to run a little thin here.
  7. A Poet
    Its tone shifts from absurdist to serious to satirical and back again. This odd mix should not work, but Soto pulls it off with a sure hand and precisely exacting storytelling. That it succeeds in being both funny and poignant makes A Poet even more of an achievement.
  8. H Is for Hawk
    It’s a rare privilege to spend so much time with Helen and her charge, and the footage of Mabel (filmed by Mark Payne-Gill in the wild and DP Charlotte Bruus Christensen in dramatic scenes) hunting pheasants and so forth mesmerizes. But there’s arguably too much of it, dominating the film’s slightly excessive run time.
  9. Goodbye June
    There’s a lot of acting here, little of it peak-form for the talent involved, though the ensemble lifts and colors Anders’ sometimes heavy-handed dialogue.
  10. Merv
    Sadly, the film doesn’t live up to its charming premise, spending most of its runtime chasing its own tail with pointless jokes and dog-related puns that are only mildly amusing, along with an undercooked love story that doesn’t know how to steal our hearts.
  11. Dry Leaf
    Defiantly peculiar and only a little overlong at three hours, Dry Leaf is a joy for devotees of the strange, singular and sometimes transcendent. It’s a movie to ride shotgun alongside, with the windows down on a lazy trip to nowhere in particular, that ends up taking you everywhere in particular.
  12. Outerlands
    Elena Oxman’s Outerlands is a film of great cinematic sleight of hand.
  13. 100 Nights of Hero
    It’s a gorgeous-looking film, but a drag.
  14. Endless Cookie
    Underneath the lowbrow fart jokes and images of caribou mating, the Scrivers’ Endless Cookie honors the legacy others left behind through their experiences so that it can help each new generation piece together their understanding of the embattled present.
  15. Man Finds Tape
    Hall and Gandersman compel enough interest to pull viewers through, even if they may find the fadeout less than satisfying.
  16. A Sad and Beautiful World
    For his evocative and wistful romance to yield its intended effect, writer-director Cyril Aris’ biggest ask of the viewer is to surrender to the serendipitous nature of the couple’s connection — a request that is later supported with a concept that expands the film’s magical realist vein. Contrived by design, the premise eventually earns enough goodwill for one to play along.
  17. Little Trouble Girls
    This is a striking statement of intent from its Slovenian writer-director — there’s an airy delicacy here that invites comparisons to early Céline Sciamma, but with its own raw, restless edge.
  18. Five Nights at Freddy's 2
    Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is a supernatural video-game slasher movie of astonishing clunky crudeness. No, the movie isn’t dumb fun. It’s flat-out bad, maybe even worse than the first film.
  19. Marty Supreme
    One of the year’s few masterpieces.
  20. Zootopia 2
    These movies are comedies first and crime-film homages second, but it’s their tertiary value as social commentary that makes the franchise so indispensable: Behind the laughs are teachable moments.
  21. Happy Holidays
    Copti and cinematographer Tim Kuhn shoot each interaction with an up-close, handheld intimacy that not only magnifies the subtle, powerful performances of the cast (many of them first-time actors), but welcomes the viewer into each scene, as though it were a complicated family reunion.
  22. Cutting Through Rocks
    The film’s irascible but deeply principled subject — thirty-something divorcee Sara Shahverdi — gives the film its energy, though its lulls aren’t quite as purposeful. However, despite feeling drawn-out, the doc features occasional bursts of visual panache that help emphasize its underlying story.
  23. Wicked: For Good
    The emotions are real; everything else is movie magic, representing where we now stand — at the apex of artificiality — for better or worse.
  24. The White House Effect
    Engrossing as well as damning.
  25. Newport & the Great Folk Dream
    Newport & the Great Folk Dream is a rapturous documentary — elegant and transporting, full of scratchy lyrical black-and-white images and performances that have a timeless power.
  26. Come See Me in the Good Light
    Come See Me in the Good Light, is very good on the existential. But Gibson and Falley are even more generous in sharing their journey through the medical morass.
  27. Keeper
    The mood is low-key and naturalistic, yet a streak of trippy weirdness keeps intruding. And here’s the thing: The weird parts don’t add up. That’s likely by design, but that doesn’t make it good.
  28. The Alabama Solution
    The Alabama Solution is one of the most powerful exposés of the inhumanity of the American prison system I’ve ever seen.
  29. Belén
    Belén might never regain the vivid rage and terror of its opening minutes, but Fonzi’s film ends up carrying viewers on its own wave of pride and upright conviction, ultimately delivering the hope its promises
  30. Sarah's Oil
    The period detail is impressive, the storytelling is engrossing, and the overall impact is pleasantly enjoyable.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »