Variety's Scores

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For 17,777 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: 9,133 out of 17777
  2. Mixed: 7,008 out of 17777
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17777
17777 movie reviews
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    • 24 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Highlander
    Director Russell Mulcahy can’t seem to decide from one scene to the next whether he’s making a sci-fi, thriller, horror, music video or romance – end result is a mishmash.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Desert Hearts
    Helen Shaver, playing the lead, does a most commendable job as a character who starts by being all tied up inside, and ends up by melting and opening up to emotions she couldn’t even conceive before.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Pretty in Pink
    A rather intelligent (if not terribly original) look at adolescent insecurities.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    House
    Filmmakers Sean S. Cunningham and Steve Miner scored hits with several simple Friday the 13th films but tackle a more complex story here with embarrassing results.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Nine 1/2 Weeks
    The virtual absence of anything interesting happening between them - like plausible attraction, exotic, amazing sex, or, God forbid, good dialog - leaves one great big hole on the screen for two hours.
    • 32 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    The Hitcher
    The Hitcher is a highly unimaginative slasher that keeps the tension going with a massacre about every 15 minutes.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Wildcats
    Michael Ritchie’s direction lacks his usual bite and eye for detail. There is nothing spontaneous about the action and football footage is also surprisingly dull.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    F/X
    Basic premise here is so strong that it proves well-nigh indestructable, even in the face of numerous implausibilities, some silly dialogue and less-than-great casting in secondary roles.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Lady Jane
    With its emphasis on youthful idealism despoiled by treacherous, manipulative adults, Lady Jane emerges as a tragic historical romance tinged with a strong 1960s feeling...Performances are all top-drawer, beginning with newcomer Helena Bonham Carter in the title role.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Hannah and Her Sisters
    He (Allen) makes nary a misstep from beginning to end in charting the amorous affiliations of three sisters and their men over a two-year period.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Down and Out in Beverly Hills
    It’s a loving caricature of the nouveau riche (Beverly Hills variety) and although it is more of a comedy of manners than a well-developed story, there are enough yocks and bright moments to make it a thoroughly enjoyable outing.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Youngblood
    Scenes on the ice look great and Lowe truly looks like the fast and accurate son-of-a-gun hockey player he’s supposed to be.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Power
    Not so much about power as about p.r., this facile treatment of big-time politics and media, featuring Richard Gere as an amoral imagemaker, revolves around the unstartling premise that modern politicians and their campaigns are calculatedly packaged for TV. In spite of relentless jet-propelled location hopping that helps to stave off boredom, Power never gets airborne.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Trip to Bountiful
    The Trip to Bountiful is a superbly crafted drama featuring the performance of a lifetime by Geraldine Page.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    My Chauffeur
    David Beaird avowedly set out to imitate the screwball comedies of the 1930s and 1940s and has succeeded admirably, thanks to adorably spunky Deborah Foreman and her stuffy foil, Sam J. Jones. They make quite a pair.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Iron Eagle
    Director Sidney J. Furie fills in the rest with breakneck action and some dandy dogfights. Much of the dialog is simply laughable.
    • 30 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Troll
    Troll is a predictable, dim-witted premise executed for the most part with surprising style.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Clan of the Cave Bear
    The Clan of the Cave Bear is a dull, overly genteel rendition of Jean M. Auel's novel. Handsomely produced on rugged Canadian exteriors, this is the story of pre-history's first feminist.
    • 22 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Revolution
    Watching Revolution is a little like visiting a museum - it looks good without really being alive. The film doesn't tell a story so much as it uses characters to illustrate what the American Revolution has come to mean. Despite attempting to reduce big events to personal details, Revolution rarely works on a human scale.
    • 97 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Ran
    It’s a dazzlingly successful addition to [Kurosawa's] distinguished career.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Enemy Mine
    It may be a long way to go to a distant sun system to get to a familiar place, but the $33 million project is largely successful in establishing a satisfying bond.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Out of Africa
    At two-and-a-half hours, Out of Africa certainly makes a leisurely start into its story. Just short of boredom, however, the picture picks up pace and becomes a sensitive, enveloping romantic tragedy. Nonetheless it’s a long way to go for a downbeat ending, which may hurt broad appeal.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Brazil
    Chillingly hilarious.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Color Purple
    There are some great scenes and great performances in The Color Purple, but it is not a great film. Steven Spielberg’s turn at ‘serious’ filmmaking is marred in more than one place by overblown production that threatens to drown in its own emotions. But the characters created in Alice Walker’s novel are so vivid that even this doesn’t kill them off and there is still much to applaud (and cry about) here.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Clue
    Clue is campy, high-styled escapism. In a short 87 minutes that just zip by, the well-known board game's one-dimensional card figures like Professor Plum and others become multi-dimensional personalities with enough wit, neuroses and motives to intrigue even the most adept whodunnit solver.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Jewel of the Nile
    As a sequel to Romancing the Stone, the script of The Jewel of the Nile is missing the deft touch of the late Diane Thomas but Lewis Teague's direction matches the energy of the original.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    A Chorus Line
    Chorus often seems static and confined, rarely venturing beyond the immediate. Attenborough merely films the stage show as best he could.
    • 22 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Spies Like Us
    Spies is not very amusing. Though Chase and Aykroyd provide moments, the overall script thinly takes on eccentric espionage and nuclear madness, with nothing new to add.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Fool for Love
    Robert Altman directs a fine cast with all the authority and finesse a good play deserves, so it's too bad the play fooled them all. Sam Shepard's drama of intense, forbidden love in the modern West is made to seem like specious stuff filled with dramatic ideas left over from the 1950s.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Young Sherlock Holmes
    Young Sherlock Holmes is another Steven Spielberg film corresponding to those lamps made from driftwood and coffee tables from redwood burl and hatchcovers. It’s not art but they all serve their purpose and sell by the millions.
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