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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    • 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.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Final Analysis
    Final Analysis is a crackling good psychological melodrama [from a screen story by Robert Berger and Wesley Strick] in which star power and slick surfaces are used to potent advantage. Tantalizing double-crosses mount right up to the eerie final scene.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Mississippi Masala
    Washington is savvy and attractive as the enterprising carpet cleaner destined for a brighter future. Choudhury is a discovery as the Americanized Mina, who calls herself a kind of masala (mixed spices). Together, they carry the film smoothly and agreeably.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Fried Green Tomatoes
    Celebrating the crucial, sustaining friendships between two sets of modern-day and 1930s Southern femmes, pic [based on Fanny Flagg’s novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe] emerges as absorbing and life-affirming quality fare, but for a story celebrating fearlessness, it’s remarkably cautious.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Juice
    Dickerson and co-writer Gerard Brown exhibit a sharp ear for dialog and have some real finds in their largely unknown cast.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Rush
    Head-swiveling directorial debut of Lili Fini Zanuck lays out a tough masculine scenario [based on Kim Wozencraft's book] in a way that is always emotionally riveting.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Hand That Rocks the Cradle
    Helmer has obtained taut, impressive performances, notably from cast women.
  21. Guncrazy
    A shoot-'em-up exploitationer with a few interesting ideas floating around in it, Guncrazy lacks the exhilaration of a first-class lovers-on-the-run crime drama. After a promising beginning, competently made indie effort settles into a surprisingly somber mood that suppresses the possibilities latent in the story and actors.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Light Sleeper
    Paul Schrader has created a pointed companion piece to his earlier portraits of lonely outcasts (Taxi Driver, American Gigolo). Contemplative and violent by turns, this quasi-thriller about a long-time drug dealer leaving the business has a great deal to recommend it but could have been significantly better had Schrader done some fresh plotting and not relied on his standby gunplay to resolve issues.
  23. Porco Rosso
    Not only does this rank among Miyazaki’s finest achievements, it reflects his personal love of aviation, his political concerns and his fullest expression to date of a non-fantasy world resembling our own.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Naked Lunch
    Stretching himself with each new work, David Cronenberg has come up with a fascinating, demanding, mordantly funny picture.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Grand Canyon
    [An] earnest, often moving but not totally successful film.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Prince of Tides
    Bringing her usual strengths of character to her role as Nolte’s psychiatrist/lover, Barbra Streisand marks every frame with the intensity and care of a filmmaker committed to heartfelt, unashamed emotional involvement with her characters.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Until the End of the World
    In the logistically taxing effort to get all this on screen, Wenders has sacrificed some of his customary poetry. And the grand emotion and obsession needed to carry the two lovers around the world isn’t apparent in Hurt and Dommartin.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    JFK
    Oliver Stone's JFK is electric muckraking filmmaking.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Bugsy
    A melancholy and intimate gangster saga about a romantic dreamer with fatal flaws, Bugsy emerges as a smooth, safe portrait of a volatile, dangerous character. An absorbing narrative flow and a parade of colorful underworld characters vie for screen time with an unsatisfactory central romance.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Last Boy Scout
    There’s really nothing special about this entertaining if mindless shoot-’em-up other than an ample supply of amusing juvenile put-downs and elaborate action sequences.
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