Variety's Scores

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For 17,760 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: 9,121 out of 17760
  2. Mixed: 7,003 out of 17760
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17760
17760 movie reviews
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    • 67 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Fisher King
    The Fisher King has two actors at the top of their form, and a compelling, well-directed and well-produced story.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Indian Runner
    A tortured examination of the disintegration of a Mid-western family, The Indian Runner is very much actors' cinema. Rambling, indulgent and joltingly raw at times, Sean Penn's first outing as a director takes a fair amount of patience to get through but has an integrity that intermittently serves it well.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare
    Delivers enough violence, black humor and even a final reel in 3-D to hit paydirt with horror-starved audiences.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Commitments
    Director Alan Parker's story of a band of young Dubliners playing American '60s soul is fresh, well-executed and original.
    • 27 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Child's Play 3
    Noisy, mindless sequel.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Dead Again
    Engaging film style is buoyed by an infectious sense of fun and punctuated by wild and woolly character turns.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man
    A dopey, almost poignantly bad actioner about two legends-in-their-own-minds, who bungle their way through a bank robbery on behalf of a friend, stands out only for big stars Mickey Rourke and Don Johnson.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Barton Fink
    Scene after scene is filled with a ferocious strength and humor. Michael Lerner's performance as a Mayer-like studio overlord is sensational.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Doc Hollywood
    Has no real taste of its own, but, in its mildness and predictability, offers the reassurance of a fast-food or motel chain.
    • 28 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Return to the Blue Lagoon
    Return to the Blue Lagoon is a pointless spinoff of the 1980 hit, which was itself a remake of a 1949 British pic.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Trust
    Long Island filmaker Hal Hartley progresses from his debut feature, The Unbelievable Truth to this bleak, off-center comedy about dysfunctional families in working class suburbia.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Life Stinks
    Mel Brooks' Life Stinks is a fitfully funny vaudeville caricature about life on Skid Row. Premise of a rich man who chooses to live among the poor for a spell feels sorely undeveloped, and suffers from the usual gross effects and exaggerations.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey
    These guileless airheads with the outrageous vocabulary are obviously a beloved creation, and filmmakers might have gotten more mileage if they'd rooted their adventure a bit more in reality.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Boyz n the Hood
    Ultra socially responsible, sometimes to the point of playing like a laundry list of difficulties faced specifically by the urban black community.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Point Break
    A hare-brained wild ride through big surf and bad vibes, Point Break acts like a huge, nasty wave, picking up viewers for a few major thrills but ultimately grinding them into the sand via overkill and absurdity.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Regarding Henry
    A subtle emotional journey impeccably orchestrated by director Mike Nichols and acutely well acted, Regarding Henry has a back-to-basics message that’s bound to strike a responsive chord in the troubled aftermath of the 1980s.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Slacker
    Linklater springs these seemingly random encounters together with a fluid, on-the-move style. Basic problem, given the absence of storyline, is that interest quickly rises and falls by virtue of who happens to be on screen.
    • Variety
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Terminator 2: Judgment Day
    As with "Aliens," director James Cameron has again taken a first rate science fiction film and crafted a sequel that's in some ways more impressive - expanding on the original rather than merely remaking it.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear
    The Naked Gun 2 1/2 is at least two-and-a-half times less funny than its hilarious 1988 progenitor. But even if the laugh machine isn't operating at top efficiency, it still cranks out a few choice bits of irreverent lunacy.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Rocketeer
    Newcomer Campbell exhibits the requisite grit and all-American know-how, but the lead role is written with virtually no humor or subtext. Those around him come off to better advantage, notably Dalton as the deliciously smooth, insidious Sinclair; Sorvino and Alan Arkin, with the latter as the Rocketeer’s mentor; Terry O’Quinn as Hughes; and the lovely, voluptuous Connelly.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
    Kevin Costner’s Robin Hood is a Robin of wood. Murky and uninspired, this $50 million rendition bears evidence of the rushed and unpleasant production circumstances that were much reported upon.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead
    Starts with an enjoyable, if crude, black comedy situation promised by the title, but then it turns into an incredibly dumb teenage girl's fantasy of making it in the business world.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Jungle Fever
    Performances are all pointed and emotionally edgy. Film feels too long, but it ends powerfully, as the audience exits with the view that both the white and black communities are deeply troubled and have a very long way to go to resolve their differences.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Soapdish
    Soapdish aims at a satiric target as big as a Macy’s float and intermittently hits it. Sally Field and Kevin Kline play a feuding pair of romantically involved soap opera stars in this broad but amiable sendup of daytime TV.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Backdraft
    Visually, [the film] often is exhilarating, but it's shapeless and dragged down by corny, melodramatic characters and situations.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Thelma & Louise
    Even those who don't rally to pic's fed-up feminist outcry will take to its comedy, momentum and dazzling visuals.
    • 17 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Hudson Hawk
    A relentlessly annoying clay duck that crash-lands in a sea of wretched excess and silliness.
  28. Truly Madly Deeply
    This sharply scripted study of a bereaved woman who literally wishes her partner back from the grave is an impressive directorial bow by British playwright Anthony Minghella. Despite surface similarities with Ghost pic has a different feel and theme.
    • 25 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Drop Dead Fred
    Oscillating between long arid stretches, inspired explosions of slapstick and disarming warmth, Drop Dead Fred [suggested by a story by Elizabeth Livingston] has an almost irresistible premise - kid's imaginary friend comes back to help the grown woman work out her problems - but it's probably too slow and mushy for kids and too sporadic in its rewards for adults.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    What About Bob?
    Bill Murray finds a real showcase for his oft-shackled talent in this manic comedy.
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