Variety's Scores

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For 17,786 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: 9,137 out of 17786
  2. Mixed: 7,013 out of 17786
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17786
17786 movie reviews
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  1. Dreamland
    For all its salaciousness and scenery-chewing, it’s the dullness of Dreamland that provides further proof that dreams tend to be of fascination mainly — perhaps only — to the dreamer.
  2. Hamilton
    The film aims to be more intimate, but it frequently deprives audiences of the show’s ingenious spatial design. Still, this original cast is so charismatic — and Miranda’s ultra-dense, dizzyingly clever book and lyrics are so effective — that they maintain our attention even when the edit feels like one of those live sporting events, as a producer sits in the control booth choosing between cameras in the moment, rather than planning out the shoot in advance.
  3. An American Pickle
    Of course, the essence of the fish-out-of-water comedy is that it’s never been a realistic genre — it’s pure Hollywood fantasy. Yet An American Pickle, in its ethnically satirical and scattered way, lacks the integrity of its own ridiculousness. It’s pungent but flavorless: an unkosher dill.
  4. Infamous
    One can always make the argument that it’s not absolutely necessary to have sympathetic protagonists for a drama to enthrall or enlighten. But Infamous pushes way, way too far in the opposite direction: Dean and especially Arielle seem so irredeemably psychotic even before they begin to mount a body count, you actively wish for them to be caught or killed.
  5. The Crush
    In fact, with its basic shortage of gore and only brief glimpses of nudity, it’s hard to imagine what in the film prompted an R rating, unless it stands for “ridiculous.”
    • 33 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Deathsport
    David Carradine is the quiet good guy and the best thing that can be said about his acting and his part is that he doesn’t say much. Claudia Jennings is his partner good guy, the one who gets to amuse the bad guy in the dark room. The best thing that can be said about her performance is that she gets to take off her clothes, twice.
    • 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.
  8. The Kissing Booth 2
    It delivers a few refreshing details by giving the heroine more agency in her quest to find happiness — yet not quite enough to justify its interminable run time.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Shoot the Moon
    A number of high-powered artists fail to coalesce their talents in Shoot the Moon a grim drama of marital collapse which proves disturbing and irritating by turns.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Capricorn One
    Capricorn One begins with a workable, if cynical cinematic premise: the first manned space flight to Mars was a hoax and the American public was fooled through Hollywood gimmickry into believing that the phony landing happened. But after establishing the concept, Peter Hyams' script asks another audience - the one in the theatre - to accept something far more illogical, the uncovering of the hoax by reporter Elliott Gould...In general, it is a script of conveniences.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Blob
    Neither the acting nor direction is particularly creditable.
  12. Ghosts of War
    It’s the kind of narrative leap that can make or break a film. But here it overcomplicates a narrative that should’ve better developed its basic elements, rather than lunging for a big-picture profundity it falls short of. Beautifully atmospheric to a point, handsomely produced, “Ghosts” gradually disappoints because its thematic ambitions add more clutter than depth to a story that’s most effective at its simplest.
  13. I Am Vengeance: Retaliation
    Here and there, amid the tedious sound and fury, you can spot some genuinely witty touches. Lynch and Shapiro are initially portrayed as flirty happy warriors who clearly delight in working with each other, and it’s a pity the movie didn’t make more of the chemistry generated between Robinson-Galvin and Benjamin.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Horn Blows at Midnight
    This one is a lightweight comedy that never seems able to make up its mind whether to be fantasy or broad slapstick. There are some good laughs but generally The Horn Blows at Midnight is not solid.
  15. Olympia
    Olympia for all its fondness, is just too cursory a portrait of a complex woman: depth presented as a series of glinting surfaces.
  16. Paydirt
    Paydirt is a crime drama with darkly comical touches that possibly will be enjoyed best while you’re periodically distracted by other things — microwaving leftovers, feeding pets, washing face masks — and are unable to constantly focus on arrant contrivances and gaping plot holes.
  17. Made in Italy
    A cringingly syrupy tale of overdue bonding between an estranged father and his only offspring.
  18. Widow of Silence
    Widow of Silence is a classic example of festival filler, the sort of issue-driven art-house film that masks a plodding obviousness of intent beneath a thick varnish of righteousness and attractive visuals.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    On Dangerous Ground
    Ray manages to inject an occasional bit of excitement into the yarn, and had the psychotic touches been eliminated in the script, film could have qualified as okay, even if grim, melodrama.
  20. Random Acts of Violence
    The result is more flashy and shallow than ingenious, let alone terrifying. Yet it’s also a committed effort, one whose energy and style command some appreciation even when they overwhelm the shaky story gist.
  21. The Binge
    If the premise sounds more fun than the execution, that’s because The Binge doesn’t seem to recognize how or why people indulge in such substances to begin with, treating intoxication as the punchline rather than the setup for what should have been a more subversive satire.
  22. The Argument
    The Argument is amusing for a while, and some of the ensemble — Maggie Q and Coleman in particular — manage to access something both human and humorous in what might have seemed harsh in another actor’s hands. But silly as the filmmakers intend for this to be, there’s something unpleasant about the whole ordeal.
  23. Sno Babies
    It’s the casualness of the drug use, extreme yet just another part of life, that’s the 2020 element. Kristen wants to have her dope and eat it too. And that means turning herself into an invisible junkie.
  24. 2067
    The result is a movie that seems unaware just how generic the should-be-distinguishing details of its earnest eco-cautionary tale have turned out.
  25. Rifkin's Festival
    A scenic summer-wind romcom that was presumably a good time for everyone involved. Saying the same for the audience would be a stretch, but on the spectrum of late Woody Allen clunkers, it registers on the mild, instantly-evaporating end of the scale, unlikely to change the positions of any loyalists, detractors, ex-fans or distributors with regard to the controversy-tailed filmmaker.
  26. Another Round
    Another Round is the kind of movie that’s so into its cool concept that it doesn’t sweat the details. Yet the film’s sloppy broadness ends up fighting the Dogme style, which keeps telling us that these people are authentic.
  27. Mainstream
    A brittle, exasperated satire on social media celebrity, her sophomore film, like the tacky messiah it creates in Andrew Garfield’s YouTube sensation, soon becomes the very thing it sets out to expose: a glittery, jangly image machine that manufactures little of actual substance, except the conclusion that social media = bad.
  28. Penguin Bloom
    Shrewdly, Watts goes for something subtle and soft here — instead of clichéd garishness, her performance hinges on her doleful gaze and melancholic tinge, ultimately helping Penguin Bloom honor its real-life character’s journey with some respect.
  29. Shortcut
    With lackluster character development, a few ill-conceived situations in the second half and dialogue that sounds like it’s been run through Google Translate, there’s only a modest amount of entertainment value found therein.
  30. The Devil Has a Name
    What should have been a galvanizing David-versus-Goliath story pales in comparison with Amazon series “Goliath,” which is comparably colorful but far more coherent as it hits so many of the same beats.
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