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. Mr. Jones
    A high-energy performance by Richard Gere and an intensely brooding one from Lena Olin engage attentive viewer interest, but the stars are forced to overcompensate for a rather slow pace and lack of plot.
  2. Deadfall
    Watchable only for camp value, Deadfall is at its best when cameo-laden anarchy reigns. As a tribute to film noir, it won't make it to the late late show.
  3. Short Cuts
    Exploding Raymond Carver's spare stories and minimally drawn characters onto the screen with startling imagination, Robert Altman has made his most complex and full-bodied human comedy since "Nashville."
  4. M. Butterfly
    This butterfly just doesn't fly. Icy, surprisingly conventional and never truly convincing.
  5. Cool Runnings
    Director Jon Turteltaub has a fresh, uncluttered approach to the story that allows its natural warmth and humor to dominate. The classic underdog script provides a positive minority perspective without the usual downside, self-conscious righteousness.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Malice
    The immaculately crafted Malice is a virtual scrapbook of elements borrowed from other suspense pix, but no less enjoyable for being so familiar.
  7. For Love or Money
    Michael J. Fox has charm to burn in his latest screen outing "For Love or Money." A contemporary spin on bygone romantic comedies, the tale of an ambitious young man and the seemingly elusive woman in his life has a definite emotional pull. It falls short on story, however, and no amount of good humor can deter the thin tale from evaporating before the final clinch.
  8. Freaked
    Loud and flamboyant, pic takes a few shots at societal sacred cows but more often misses the target. The effort comes off much in the prankish manner of a student film. “Freaked” thumbs its nose at the status quo, but few will find themselves on the filmmakers’ side when the last laughs are counted.
  9. Dazed and Confused
    One-liners and dry sight gags still abound, but the ennui-sodden formlessness of "Slacker" doesn't fly as well in this $ 6 million, smoothly lensed package, which calls for shapelier narrative and resolution.
  10. Bopha!
    Bopha! is a heartfelt and anguished cry. Though moored in historic/geographic specificity, it is an easily understood and universal tale.
  11. The Good Son
    The bizarre prospect of Macaulay Culkin as a latter-day "bad seed" should prompt enough curiosity to generate initial box office visits, but this peculiar thriller doesn't deliver enough jolts to leave the audience screaming.
  12. The Program
    The Program starts in a fourth-down situation by being a sports movie with virtually no one for whom the audience can root — a major drawback, no matter how hackneyed those “Rocky”-ized finishes have become. Instead, Ward and co-writer Aaron Latham seek to indict big-time college football through a collection of cliches (money-doling boosters, steroid abuse, academic negligence , shady recruiting practices) and still want us to care about whether these players and coaches win the big game.
  13. A Bronx Tale
    A "GoodFellas" with heart, A Bronx Tale represents a wonderfully vivid snapshot of a colorful place and time, as well as a very satisfying directorial debut by Robert De Niro. Overflowing with behavioral riches and the flavor of a deep-dyed New York Italian neighborhood, the film also trades intelligently in pertinent moral and social issues that raise it above the level of nostalgia or the mere memoir.
  14. The Age of Innocence
    Scorsese has met most of the challenges inherent in tackling such a formidable period piece, but the material remains cloaked by the very propriety, stiff manners and emotional starchiness the picture delineates in such copious detail.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Into the West
    Byrne gives a credible, if low-key, rendering of the weak, illiterate father. Barkin downplays her looks and carries off an Irish accent with aplomb. The real stars are the two kids, notably Fitzgerald as the younger bro.
    • Variety
  16. Striking Distance
    Columbia apparently dragged the river to come up with the script for this Bruce Willis vehicle -- an OK action movie until it sinks under the weight of implausible plotting and over-the-top direction.
    • 28 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Airborne
    Kids might enjoy this teenage fish-out-of-the-surf comedy , but anyone approaching the high school age of the movie's characters will spot the obvious formula within 15 minutes of opening credits.
  18. Household Saints
    After building up some cockeyed charm through the first half, Nancy Savoca’s third feature peels off into obscure and particularized religious mysticism, leaving the viewer grasping in vain for a handle to hold onto for the second hour.
  19. True Romance
    It doesn't add up to enough, as preposterous plotting and graphic violence ultimately prove an audience turnoff.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Undercover Blues
    The moderately enjoyable “Undercover Blues” plays like a big-screen, big-budget pilot for a TV series.
  21. The Joy Luck Club
    Wang has made a dramatically confident move into the mainstream on his own terms with highly congenial material.
    • 25 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Boxing Helena
    The numerous sex scenes are good and steamy.
  23. Three Colors: Blue
    Bold final sequence is a visual and aural crescendo calibrated to show that while each person is fundamentally alone, every life inevitably touches other lives.
  24. Needful Things
    Moviegoers aren’t likely to be similarly spellbound, as Heston employs a too-slow buildup to an explosion of mayhem that incorporates gruesome violence with awkward attempts at dark humor.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Son of the Pink Panther
    Starring Italian comedian Roberto Benigni as the new bumbling inspector, it is a tired pastiche of recycled sketches and gags.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Thing Called Love
    Perhaps there's not much new to say about the dues and disappointments involved in breaking into the country music scene, but the scenes are fresh and the emotions real in Peter Bogdanovich's tune-laden, mixed-mood drama.
  27. King of the Hill
    King of the Hill has all the rich satisfactions of a fine novel.
  28. Hard Target
    A briskly vigorous, occasionally brilliant actioner.
  29. Manhattan Murder Mystery
    Woody Allen once described himself as "thin but fun," and the same could be said for his latest effort, Manhattan Murder Mystery. Light, insubstantial and utterly devoid of the heavier themes Allen has grappled with in most of his recent outings, this confection keeps the chuckles coming and is mainstream enough in sensibility to be a modest success.
    • 17 Metascore
    • 10 Critic Score
    Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday
    Jason goes to hell, and not a moment too soon. His descent has been far too long in coming, as the exhausted, witless Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday demonstrates.
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