Variety's Scores

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For 17,771 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 2.5 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: 9,130 out of 17771
  2. Mixed: 7,005 out of 17771
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17771
17771 movie reviews
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  1. Adam
    Taking the stories of two women, both frozen in existential stasis, and bringing them together in a predictable yet deeply satisfying manner, the writer-director ensures this scrupulously even two-hander about grief, shame, and the redemption of motherhood doles out emotional comfort food that’s neither too sweet nor too heavy.
  2. The Disappearance of Shere Hite
    The Disappearance of Shere Hite is an astonishing, beautifully made corrective to the cultural amnesia that has for decades surrounded Hite, the author of “The Hite Report,” a landmark 1976 survey on female sexuality, that is apparently still ranked the 30th best-selling book in history.
  3. In My Mother's Skin
    “In My Mother’s Skin” finds a rare sweet spot between story-book nightmare and historical allegory.
  4. Landscape with Invisible Hand
    Finley loses his exacting handle on the material, allowing the story’s more commonplace ideas to dictate its direction in ways both unsurprising and a little rough around the edges.
  5. Kokomo City
    The questions may not be pre-approved by GLAAD, but they’re coming from a trans woman actively working against the usual feel-good talking points; the responses she gets are frank, funny and frequently shocking.
  6. Radical
    Radical isn’t so much an irresponsibly magical against-the-odds yarn as a truthful one, in which a well-intentioned outsider can only go so far in protecting underprivileged students from certain grim paths.
  7. Scrapper
    Regan’s debut rehashes a host of familiar elements from assorted kitchen-sink dramas and dysfunctional parent-child stories, painting them colorfully enough that audiences won’t mind the odd bit of rust.
  8. Talk to Me
    A somewhat mixed bag, as the script doesn’t fully ballast the serious tenor, this is nonetheless a confidently crafted effort with enough intriguing elements to keep viewers involved, if not particularly scared.
  9. Shortcomings
    For all the film’s chatty insights into modern dating mores and its casually pointed discussions of racial identity, the formula to which Shortcomings mostly adheres is a familiar one, as though someone has given one of the Apatow-esque man-child comedies of the aughts an Asian makeover.
  10. Passages
    Sachs excels at investigating thorny, uncomfortable situations, and he treats all three characters fairly here, which allows audiences to decide which one they identify with.
  11. A Little Prayer
    MacLachlan’s writing style is at once honest and slightly elevated, the kind we’re used to hearing onstage, where the structure of the entire script matters, and subtext is every bit as important as what’s spoken.
  12. Fairyland
    There’s an unforced authenticity to its portrait of ruptured early childhood that isn’t matched by its later, more melodramatic depiction of father-daughter warfare — even if its tear-jerking tactics are undeniably effective. That it’s affecting in both registers comes down to a performance of quiet, good-humored grace by Scoot McNairy.
  13. Beyond Utopia
    What we’ve forgotten about, for too long, is the North Korean people. For years, their misery has existed under a blackout. Beyond Utopia looks behind the wall and shines a light.
  14. Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project
    "Going to Mars” responds creatively to the call of its ingenious subject thanks to the directors’ soulful grasp of her work, and Terra Long and Lawrence Jackman’s skillful editing.
  15. The Persian Version
    The Persian Version is a bit madcap and self-indulgent, not unlike its protagonist, before it settles into a groove that foregrounds Shirin.
  16. Kompromat
    Focusing on the moment-to-moment thrills proves more satisfying than wondering what actually sparked this intrigue.
  17. Theater Camp
    Mostly, audiences are stuck watching everybody trying to be funny: testing out one-liners, singing off-key, panhandling for laughs. Running jokes trip over their own shoelaces.
  18. A Thousand and One
    Rockwell uses the full range of cinematic expressivity to turn a small, often tragic story of raw deals and rash decisions into an admiring portrait of survivorship, determination and resourcefulness.
  19. The Mission
    There’s nothing terribly wrong with Anderson’s documentary — save that after 96 minutes, any viewer could well obliviously walk right past its principal subjects on the street, so fleeting an impression do they make in this surface-level portrait.
  20. Memories of My Father
    Trueba keeps things moving within and between eras in a graceful, affectionate, assured way that’s always enjoyable, even if the film overall seems a bit frivolous given its larger themes.
  21. Maybe I Do
    To be fair: Maybe I Do is undemanding, painless and pleasantly diverting, and has the saving grace of never trying too hard for a cheap laugh. There are quite a few undeniably funny lines, many of them made all the more amusing by the perfect-pitch delivery of the pros in the cast.
  22. AUM: The Cult at the End of the World
    Braun and Yanagimoto go for comprehensiveness over comprehension, bringing in many more commentators — writers, lawyers, reporters, eyewitnesses — each to peel back one further, fascinating fold in the infinite origami of the Aum story.
  23. Flora and Son
    It’s catchy and touching, it weaves the music into the story with a spontaneity that can leave you laughing with pleasure, and it navigates an honest path from despair to belief, which is Carney’s disarmingly sweet calling card.
  24. Earth Mama
    Leaf recognizes that whatever happens to Gia, the problem remains. Her portrait is intended to illuminate, and Nomore makes for a wonderful collaborator in this.
  25. Blood
    Brad Anderson’s film steers a middle course between dysfunctional domestic drama and supernatural horror. That balance doesn’t completely work. But solid performances and some strong, occasionally unpleasant content make this an involving if not entirely satisfying watch.
  26. Eileen
    The formal rigor that made Oldroyd’s “Lady Macbeth” such a striking debut is in evidence here throughout, but this time that directorial precision is applied to a narrative of bold, even garish ambition, which “Eileen” conceals, along with its unhinged heart, beneath a controlled, placid exterior.
  27. All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt
    If “All Dirt Roads” perhaps does not connect quite as powerfully as it could on a narrative level, it marks the arrival of an arresting new talent in Raven Jackson, at the very least as the creator of the kind of cinema you do not watch as much as touch and smell and taste.
  28. Polite Society
    In many respects, Polite Society comes across as a giant pastiche of Manzoor’s favorite movie references, with homage paid to films from all over the globe via individual shots and sound cues throughout. But there’s no denying her creativity or the defiantly original voice she brings to her characters.
  29. Past Lives
    For all the films that have been made about love triangles, Song has fashioned hers in the form of a circle, defying so many of the clichés in her quietly devastating way.
  30. You Hurt My Feelings
    You Hurt My Feelings stays true to the droll casualness of its title. It’s not a major Holofcener movie; it’s closer to a lively and digressive short story. Yet it’s compelling to see Holofcener merge the fates of all her characters through a grand tweak of the piety of positivity.
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