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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  1. Mass
    The writing is so deft, and the actors so committed, that by the end you feel you’ve touched the burning core of something real.
  2. The Dog Who Wouldn't Be Quiet
    It presents details so small they belong under a microscope, and events so large they belong in science fiction; that these chopped fragments can build to an experience so smooth and significant is only because of Katz’s radical re-centering of the drama, away from what happens and onto the life it happens to.
  3. Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street
    A highly satisfying HBO documentary ... that wisely places roughly equal emphasis on how the sausage was made and how the culture was changed.
  4. What's Love Got to Do with It
    A passionate personal and professional drama that hits both the high and low notes of an extraordinary life and career. An immensely enjoyable saga that's tough, funny and touching.
  5. Tina
    I went into Tina feeling like I knew this story in my bones, but the film kept opening my eyes — to new insights, new tremors of empathy, and a new appreciation for what a towering artist Tina Turner is.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Singles
    [A] dynamite romantic comedy.
  7. Hope
    Sødahl’s skill at making gesture and its absence count in the most subtle ways is an essential component in our investment with these protagonists, thanks to the superbly understated camerawork of Lars von Trier’s regular DP Manuel Alberto Claro.
  8. Sophie Jones
    The cinematic catharsis the Barrs and company have carefully crafted stands as a fully realized portrait of grief that’s universal in its texture. By focusing on living with the specter of grief and the discovery of its blessings, the filmmakers highlight the human struggle, breaking through to the gutting truth of the matter.
  9. Wojnarowicz
    “Wojnarowicz” is impressive as a tapestry woven near-whole from preexisting materials, amplifying its subject’s own voice in every creative form it took. Editor Dave Stanke merits kudos alongside McKim for their evocative, first-rate assembly.
  10. The Fever
    It is Myrupu’s beguiling performance what anchors this intimate and entrancing epic, a modern-day fable about the very concept of modernity and the promise of fabulation.
  11. Petite Maman
    In their children, parents often see reflections of the kids they once were. But daughters can’t access those same memories without a little magic. And that’s just what Petite Maman delivers: the spell that makes such a reunion possible, if only in our imaginations.
  12. A Cop Movie
    At times, A Cop Movie seems unnecessarily convoluted in its structure, but by the end, the brilliance of its design becomes clear: This is nothing short of an existential inquiry into what it takes to be a cop.
  13. What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?
    We are active participants in the creation of this (or any) work of cinema. And given how much this movie loves the movies, as well as dogs, music, children, soccer, ice cream, the ancient Georgian town of Kutaisi, and the very process of falling in love, there is something immensely hopeful and moving about being thus invited to collude.
    • 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.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Gas Food Lodging
    Gas, Food Lodging is filled with the kind of personal, small-scale rewards indie filmmakers seem best at delivering. Lensed on location in Deming, NM, on a budget of about $1.3 million, Allison Anders' fresh and unfettered pic [from Richard Peck's novel Don't Look and It Won't Hurt] emerges distinctively as an example of a new cinema made by women and expressive of their lives.
    • 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.
  17. Husbands and Wives
    This is definitely his edgiest, rawest work in a good while. Acting is of a very high caliber across the board, but Judy Davis, in a very meaty part compared to her previous walk-on for Allen in “Alice,” is incandescent, revealing a whole new side to her personality that has never surfaced onscreen before.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Oklahoma!
    The tunes ring out with undiminished delight. The characters pulsate with spirit. The Agnes De Mille choreography makes the play literally leap.
  19. Introducing, Selma Blair
    Rachel Fleit’s film Introducing, Selma Blair is eye-opening and empathetic — but it’s also intensely moving as a documentary in its own right, enriched by a human subject who appears to learn as much about herself in the course of filming as we do.
  20. The Legend of Molly Johnson
    An exceptionally compelling Outback Western.
  21. Riders of Justice
    The film’s significant humor comes from amusingly implausible situations coupled with rapid-paced droll dialogue; its equally sizable heart derives from the script’s respect for society’s outcasts and Jensen’s way of nimbly endowing every character with their own emotional backstory, all in need of healing.
  22. This Is Not a Burial, It's a Resurrection
    A haunted, unsentimental paean to land and its physical containment of community and ancestry — all endangered by nominally progressive infrastructure — this arresting third feature from Lesotho-born writer-director Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese is as classical in theme as it is adventurous in presentation.
  23. Tiny Tim: King for a Day
    The last act of Tiny Tim: King for a Day is about Tiny’s descent, which the film portrays with a haunted majesty worthy of a Larry Karaszewski/Scott Alexander biopic.
  24. Labyrinth of Cinema
    Opening with a riotous bombardment of sound and image that risks confusing and losing some viewers even as it sends others into rapturous delight, Labyrinth of Cinema then makes sense of the chaos and emerges as a touching plea for peace and an exuberant celebration of the artifice and transformative power of cinema.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Ruby in Paradise
    A wonderfully expressive character study exhibiting a thoughtfulness and concern for real life rare in American cinema, Ruby in Paradise rewards the care put into it and the patience it asks of audiences. After an eight-year layoff from filmmaking after A Flash of Green, Victor Nunez has returned with a film of gentle, intelligent qualities, vividly portraying a young woman's inner life.
  26. Paris Calligrammes
    Ottinger takes us through this formative time of her life in a way that deftly balances past and present to paint a picture of a threshold era of both positives and negatives.
  27. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
    Unlike other filmmakers, who make it feel like we’re sitting back and watching someone else get to play, Gunn keeps the surprises coming, so audiences are actively engaged throughout, trying to manage multiple storylines and the ever-changing loyalties between characters.
  28. Azor
    Like the intelligent performances — both Rongione and Cléau are standouts — and the terrific art direction, the film’s design reinforces an exquisite, levelheaded decorum about to be smashed by a chillingly cruel monster.
  29. The Phantom
    A fascinating and ultimately infuriating documentary.
  30. Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain
    The film presents a psychological, almost novelistic portrait of how Bourdain evolved as a person during the years of his celebrity.
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