Variety's Scores

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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
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    • 51 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Sister Act
    It’s a divine concept, and after a weak start director Emile Ardolino milks it for all the laughs it’s worth, while deriving requisite warmth from solid performances by Goldberg and Smith.
  2. Far and Away
    Handsomely mounted and amiably performed but leisurely and without much dramatic urgency.
  3. Alien 3
    A muddled effort that offers little more than visual splendor to recommend it.
    • 25 Metascore
    • 10 Critic Score
    Encino Man
    Encino Man is a mindless would-be comedy aimed at the younger set. Low-budget quickie is insulting even within its own no-effort parameters.
  5. Lethal Weapon 3
    Lethal Weapon 3 is all about chases and comedy schtick, and in this case the sum of the parts really adds up to more than the whole.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    One False Move
    Working for the most part in straightforward style, director Carl Franklin achieves considerable suspense by pitting the frailties of each party against the other.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Poison Ivy
    Suicide, hints of lesbianism, murder, staged accidents and every other applicable melodramatic contrivance is dragged in. Unfortunate thesps take it all very seriously, while technical aspects are emptily polished.
    • 26 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Split Second
    Split Second is an extremely stupid monster film, boasting enough violence and special effects to satisfy less-discriminating vid fans.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    White Sands
    The plot shifts as often as the desert in White Sands, an absorbing, tightly coiled thriller not always easy to follow, with a fine cast, no-fat direction by Roger Donaldson, and nasties belonging to the all-purpose CIA-FBI consortium of evil.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 10 Critic Score
    Brain Donors
    The title Brain Donors sounds like a horror film and for those expecting a comedy, it is.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Deep Cover
    Convoluted and mostly unconvincing as a portrait of the drug underworld, Deep Cover [based on a story by Michael Tolkin] still carries some resonance due to its vivid portrait of societal decay and a heavyweight performance by Larry Fishburne.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Newsies
    Newsies was made with care and affection by choreographer-turned-director Kenny Ortega. But the writers have created cardboard cutouts instead of flesh-and-blood characters.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Sleepwalkers
    Stephen King's Sleepwalkers is an idiotic horror potboiler.
    • Variety
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    FernGully: The Last Rainforest
    Drawn in brilliantly verdant colors immediately inviting the viewer into a special world, FernGully is certainly simple enough for any youngster to understand, yet is sufficiently hip around the edges to contain the sap.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Player
    Mercilessly satiric yet good-natured, this enormously entertaining slam dunk quite possibly is the most resonant Hollywood saga since the days of "Sunset Blvd." and "The Bad and the Beautiful."
    • Variety
    • 66 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Delicatessen
    Beautifully textured, cleverly scripted and eerily shot (often with a wideangle lens making characters look even weirder), Delicatessan is a zany little film that's a startling and clever debut for co-helmers Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Thunderheart
    Reasonably engrossing as a mystery-thriller despite its overburdened plot, Thunderheart succeeds most in its captivating portrayal of mystical Native American ways.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Power of One
    On the one hand a captivating and inspiring tale of a boy's journey to courage amid searing injustice, pic often gives way to scenes of intense violence that are likely to bludgeon the very sensibilities it seeks to awaken.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Ladybugs
    A klutzy would-be comedy about a girls' soccer team, Ladybugs is sexist, homophobic and woefully unfunny to boot. Paramount apparently thought it was ordering up another Bad News Bears, but the garish Ladybugs has the look of a third-rate TV movie.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Basic Instinct
    Grade-A pulp fiction. This erotically charged thriller about the search for an ice-pick murderer in San Francisco rivets attention through its sleek style, attractive cast doing and thinking kinky things, and story, which is as weirdly implausible as it is intensely visceral.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Noises Off...
    Bogdanovich has judged his approach to the material astutely, resisting impulses toward comic overkill or transferring focus away from the stage. He takes his cue from the actors, and the camera is always in the right place.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Howards End
    Perhaps the best film made during the 30-year partnership of Ismail Merchant and James Ivory.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    American Me
    The criminal life is portrayed with all the glamour of a mugshot in American Me, a powerful indictment of the cycle of violence bred by the prisons and street culture.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    My Cousin Vinny
    Tomei, sashaying through the proceedings as kind of a sexy hood ornament, creates a buoyant chemistry with her combative boyfriend.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Lawnmower Man
    The stunning visuals for the ‘virtual reality’ sequences really put The Lawnmower Man over. The computer animation doesn’t necessarily break new ground, but it marks the first time it has been so well integrated into a live-action story.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Once Upon a Crime...
    SCTV alum Eugene Levy makes his feature-film directing debut with a film that, ironically, would have provided ample fodder for a Second City spoof as a group of US stars chews its way through Italy and France in search of a movie.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Gladiator
    Marshall, cast as the new kid in school, is sullen and far too low key through much of the picture. Director Rowdy He§rrington, who poured on the trash in Road House, aims for a grittier feel this time, with dull results.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Memoirs of an Invisible Man
    Main problem with this mildly entertaining special effects showcase proves as transparent as its title character -- namely that Chevy Chase, who can only play Chevy Chase, lacks leading-man qualities necessary to make this sort of Hitchcockian man-in-peril scenario work.
    • Variety
    • 57 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Wayne's World
    Director Penelope Spheeris, with her first major studio assignment (and eight-figure budget), delivers a colorful but uneventful picture.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Medicine Man
    An indelicate attempt to create some African Queen-style magic while curing cancer and saving the rainforests in the bargain, this jumbo-budget two-character piece suffers from a very weak script and a lethal job of miscasting.
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