Variety's Scores

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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
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  1. Naked
    Leigh’s gallery of haves and have-nots, of emotional anorexics and exploited deadbeats, carries a strong political charge that’s there for the taking. But the pic also plays simply as a black, offbeat comedy with a romantic undertow.
  2. Wayne's World 2
    The latest chapter in the saga of Aurora, Ill., twosome Wayne and Garth is a puerile, misguided and loathsome effort ... NOT! The "Saturday Night Live" icons of vapid youth have come up with an exceedingly clever mixture of pure juvenilia and hip, social comedy for Wayne's World 2.
  3. Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit
    Lacks the charm and buoyancy that made the first "Act" a mass-appeal hit
  4. Geronimo: An American Legend
    Neatly turning longstanding genre conventions upside down while working squarely within them, director Walter Hill has fashioned a physically impressive, well-acted picture whose slightly stodgy literary quality holds it back from an even greater level of impact.
  5. Six Degrees of Separation
    Six Degrees is magical when addressing the preposterous. Like any good storyteller, Paul is deft at knitting eyes with wool. Smith proves himself an extremely charismatic presence, convincing in his sincerity and cunning in conveying his ability as a human sponge.
  6. The Snapper
    There’s plenty of unvarnished, off-the-wall Irish humor, especially in the ensemble scenes of family life and boozy barroom chat, plus real warmth beneath the rough one-liners.
  7. Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould
    An assured melange of dramatic re-creation, archival material and interviews, it is a uniquely entertaining venture.
  8. Mrs. Doubtfire
    Director Chris Columbus shrewdly brings together many of the same selling points as in his "Home Alone" movies, mixing broad comedic strokes with heavy-handed messages about the magical power of family.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    A Perfect World
    Star Kevin Costner and director Clint Eastwood deliver lean, finely chiseled work in A Perfect World, a somber, subtly nuanced study of an escaped con’s complex relationship with an abducted boy that carries a bit too much narrative flab for its own good.
  10. Addams Family Values
    It’s the kind of wickedly delicious comedy one can savor without adding the proviso of guilty pleasure.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Carlito's Way
    Handsomely made, expertly directed and colorfully acted, it should satisfy action buffs and slightly more sophisticated audiences. That adds up to solid commercial prospects at home and abroad that are just shy of blockbuster returns.
    • 28 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Ernest Rides Again
    The fifth in the series of slapstick comedies about Ernest P. Worrell will please his fans but is unlikely to convince anyone else as to it merits.
  13. The Three Musketeers
    A handsome but pallid affair aimed squarely at a young Disney audience. Those who have never seen a previous "Musketeers" adaptation or a truly exciting Hollywood adventure in the grand style may be swept along, but the mechanical feel of this outing is too evident to ignore.
  14. The Remains of the Day
    All the meticulousness, intelligence, taste and superior This curious, cloistered piece... is continuously absorbing but lacks the emotional resonance that would have made it completely satisfying.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    RoboCop 3
    This latest widget off the RoboCop assembly line is a bit better than the first sequel, which amounts to damnation with faint praise. Limiting the gore, but not the carnage, in pursuit of a PG-13 rating and more youngsters, pic remains a cluttered, nasty exercise that seems principally intent on selling action figures.
    • 26 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Look Who's Talking Now
    One nagging point: Pic seems aimed at kidvid market, but it revels in its ongoing references to open sexuality, including a reprise of opening credits that run over a microscopic view of squirming sperm. Very tasteful.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Ruby in Paradise
    A wonderfully expressive character study exhibiting a thoughtfulness and concern for real life rare in American cinema, Ruby in Paradise rewards the care put into it and the patience it asks of audiences. After an eight-year layoff from filmmaking after A Flash of Green, Victor Nunez has returned with a film of gentle, intelligent qualities, vividly portraying a young woman's inner life.
  18. Kalifornia
    Though somewhat overplayed and coy about its destination, the film packs a helluva wallop.
  19. The Piano
    The Piano confirms Campion as a major talent, an uncompromising filmmaker with a very personal and specific vision.
  20. Return of the Living Dead III
    A pedestrian and gruesome, but never really scary, story of how the undead zombies interact with the living.
  21. Fatal Instinct
    Director Carl Reiner and writer David O’Malley simply cast their nets too far and wide in this grating sendup, which proves crude without being clever or, for that matter, even remotely funny.
  22. The Nightmare Before Christmas
    If it were a normal holiday animated film, The Nightmare Before Christmas would be an entertaining, amusing, darker-than-usual offering indicating that Disney was willing to deviate slightly from its tried-and-true family-fare formula. But the dazzling techniques employed here create a striking look that’s never been seen in such sustained form, making this a unique curio that will appeal to kids and film enthusiasts alike.
  23. Rudy
    Rudy is one of those beating-the-odds tales that no one does better than Hollywood. A film that hits all the right emotional buttons, it's an intelligent , sentimental drama that lifts an audience to its feet cheering. In the current filmgoing climate, this is an easy winning touchdown that should score big returns.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Ordinary Magic
    While the actors work hard, script’s overall facile characterizations and predictable plot development detract from real tension.
  25. The Beverly Hillbillies
    It’s thin stuff, but the ingratiating naivete of the characters and the aw-shucks friendliness of the cast are disarming, and it becomes easy to just let this go down as a country tune with some moonshine on the side.
  26. Judgment Night
    This is an exceedingly well directed, cleverly filmed and edited, tension-filled affair. It is also a wholly preposterous, muddled, paranoid's view of the inner-city nightmare where the slightest misstep is sure to have a fateful result.
  27. Farewell My Concubine
    A seductively lensed but emotionally uninvolving drama about two male Peking Opera stars and the ex-prostie who comes between them, Chen Kaige's fourth feature, Farewell to My Concubine, reps a stylistic U-turn compared with his earlier abstract parables like Life on a String and Yellow Earth.
  28. Totally F***ed Up
    This ultra-low-budget, Godardian "homo movie" feels like a step backward to his earlier group mopes rather than an advance beyond his provocative last film, The Living End.
  29. Demolition Man
    A noisy, soulless, self-conscious pastiche that mixes elements of sci-fi, action-adventure and romance, then pours on a layer of comedy replete with Hollywood in-jokes.
    • Variety
  30. Mr. Nanny
    Cross Uncle Buck with Home Alone, stir in the Hulkster, and you've got Mr. Nanny, a gonzo comedy-actioner that should entertain the under-12 and couch-potato sets.
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