Variety's Scores

Select another publication »
For 17,794 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: 9,142 out of 17794
  2. Mixed: 7,015 out of 17794
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17794
17794 movie reviews
view
per page
  1. Miss Minoes
    Though conceived in whimsy, Minoes generally lacks imagination; once the premise is established, familiar plot conventions reign.
  2. Seeking a Friend for the End of the World
    The end of the world can't come fast enough in Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, a disastrously dull take on the disaster-movie formula.
  3. Detachment
    Scripter Lund, himself an ex-teacher, delivers a story that lacks nuance, and mixes badly with Kaye's impatient edits, Dutch angles and extreme close-ups.
  4. Paranormal Activity 4
    Less reliant on slow-burn suspense and larded with fake-out jump scares, this is the first sequel in the series that fails to advance the overall mythology in any meaningful way.
  5. ATM
    Seems assembled from autopilot thriller material, with most of the dull dialogue devoted to plugging potential plot holes rather than anything resembling logic.
  6. Silent House
    Pulling off the thespian equivalent of running a marathon, the hyperventilating Olsen works awfully hard in the service of a film that, in the end, does little or nothing to preserve her character's integrity.
  7. Brake
    Mannion's script goes a bit too far in terms of twists, capping the third-act suspense with a plot U-turn, and then another, that leaves audiences feeling played. Worse, the final development loses credibility in retrospect, reducing the film to the level of an exercise in paranoia, effects and one actor's ability to hold attention for nearly 90 minutes.
  8. The Moth Diaries
    The body count runs high at Brangwyn boarding school, but tension, surprise and viewer interest are the real casualties in The Moth Diaries.
  9. Musical Chairs
    This would-be inspirational picture has its heart in the right place, but with default-setting characters, loudly telegraphed emotional beats and lack of any real sizzle to enliven its maudlin moralizing, it all feels like a cursory run through a well-trodden routine.
  10. After Fall, Winter
    Uncomfortably confessional or wildly melodramatic plot twists work interestingly in the moment, but wobble in retrospect. Pic's overarching structure is further weakened by Schaeffer's half-hearted attempt to tie together loose ends.
  11. Buried Prayers
    Documentary's insistent inflation of buried gold jewelry and watches into symbols of heroic defiance and transcendental tragedy rings hollow in the wake of weightier Holocaust testimonials.
  12. Laredoans Speak: Voices on Immigration
    Some six or seven men (women conspicuously absent), including a mayor, an immigration lawyer, a congressman and a "coyote," offer views on immigration. Unfortunately, they all say the same thing -- and it's nothing new, affecting or articulate.
  13. Life Happens
    The film is ultimately an untenable muddle.
  14. Bonsai People: The Vision of Muhammad Yunus
    Unfortunately, the documentary's impact is mitigated the benefactor's constant presence and paternalistic, infomercial-like exposition.
  15. The Trouble with Bliss
    One can guess how the elements here might have been alluring on the page, but helmer/co-scenarist Michael Knowles' third feature doesn't find the distinctive tone needed to make its eccentric characters less than irksome and its plot more than arbitrary.
  16. Fun Size
    Of course, questionable propriety would be a moot point if the film were consistently funny, but its hit-to-miss ratio is dire.
  17. We the Party
    This South Los Angeles-set dramedy flirts with terminal stereotypes and high-school movie cliches right and left.
  18. Elles
    A typically smart performance by Juliette Binoche isn't enough to keep Elles from drowning in pseudo-intellectual pretension and general banality.
  19. 360
    With a multilingual cast of mostly unfamiliar faces, plus a few stars, 360 feels too abstract, orchestrating break-ups and hook-ups in a passionless vacuum.
  20. Delicacy
    Tautou is fine but clearly typecast as another whimsical pixie with strong melancholy undercurrents.
  21. Bel Ami
    "I had no conception of the depths of your emptiness!" a character shrieks in Bel Ami, and her words take on an unintended resonance as addressed to Robert Pattinson in the lead role.
  22. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
    Neither a particularly good movie nor the pop-cultural travesty that some were dreading.
  23. Losing Control
    Some of Weiss' funniest material gets lost between episodes of outright silliness; to paraphrase Mark Twain's assessment of Richard Wagner, the film is smarter than it looks.
  24. The Hangover Part III
    Ditching the hangovers, the backward structure, the fleshed-out characters and any sense of debauchery or fun, this installment instead just thrusts its long-suffering protagonists into a rote chase narrative, periodically pausing to trot out fan favorites for a curtain call.
  25. The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
    A ludicrous, borderline-nonsensical supernatural concoction with a slightly redeeming sense of its own silliness.
  26. Deadline
    Although helmer Curt Hahn champions the causes of racial justice and crusading journalism, he can't seem to find a tone that's consistent or that befits the gravity of his subject matter.
  27. Late Bloomers
    While the world could certainly use more films about characters entering their sunset years, a solution as toothless and saggy as Julie Gavras' Late Bloomers does little to help the cause.
  28. Mamitas
    Every bit as cliched as it sounds, picture offers a dramatically crude, overly familiar take on the bad-boy-turned-good story. At its best, it offers young thesps E.J. Bonilla and Veronica Diaz-Carranza a showcase for their range.
  29. Virginia
    A scattershot Southern melodrama that can't decide what it's supposed to be.
  30. Nesting
    The script unfortunately suffers from its own case of arrested development, barely getting out of the gate before stalling, and never building enough laughs or narrative impetus to justify feature length.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »