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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    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Gods Must Be Crazy
    Film’s main virtues are its striking, widescreen visuals of unusual locations, and the sheer educational value of its narration.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Little Drummer Girl
    A disappointingly flat film adaptation of one of John Le Carre's top novels.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Razor's Edge
    Tonally inconsistent and structurally awkward, film does develop some dramatic interest in the second half, but inherent power of the material is never realized.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Places in the Heart
    Flawlessly crafted, Benton creates a full tapestry of life in Waxahachie, Texas circa 1935, but filmgoers may find his understated naturalistic approach lacking in dramatic punch.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Eureka
    Even by his own standards, Nicolas Roeg's Eureka is an indulgent melodrama [based on a book by Marshall Houts] about the anticlimactic life of a greedy gold prospector after he has struck it rich.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Irreconcilable Differences
    Irreconcilable Differences begins strongly as a human comedy about a nine-year-old who decides to take legal action to divorce her parents. Unfortunately, this premise is soon jettisoned for a rather familiar tale of a marriage turned sour as shown step-by-step.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    All of Me
    For all its clowning, All of Me makes some good points about taking chances and doing what you want in life. Tomlin undergoes a transformation from a crabby sheltered poor little rich girl to a compassionate woman. It’s a measure of her performance that even as a sourpuss she’s irressistible.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Brother from Another Planet
    Pic is essentially a series of behavioral vignettes, and many of them are genuinely delightful and inventive. Once the Brother discovers the Harlem drug scene, however, tale takes a rather unpleasant and, ultimately, confusing turn.
    • 25 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Ninja III: The Domination
    The new outing into the never-never land of the world's trickiest controlled violence is done with quite a twist.
  10. Amadeus
    Loaded with pleasures, the greatest of which derive from the on location filming in Prague, the most 18th century of all European cities.
    • 13 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Bolero
    Poor Bo no sooner has her initial introduction to amour than the new lover gets gored in a sensitive location, putting him out of commission.
    • 19 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Oxford Blues
    Director-writer Robert Boris fails to establish a consistent tone to make his fairytale story believable.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Tightrope
    Action is well-handled, as Tuggle demonstrates ample storytelling talent and draws a multitude of nuances from his cast.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Dreamscape
    Film [from a screen story by David Loughery] centers on 'dreamlinking', the psychic projection of one person's consciousness into a sleeping person's subconscious, or his dreams. If that sounds far-fetched, it is.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Sheena: Queen of the Jungle
    There are plenty of laughs to be had in Sheena, but it's quite impossible to tell how many of them were intentional. Attempt to install this 1930s jungle heroine in the pantheon of the contempo adventure icons fails to find a consistent tone.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Woman in Red
    A wonderful diversion through all of this is Gilda Radner, a relatively plain fellow office worker who initially thinks she’s the object of Wilder’s wanderlust and is bitterly – and vigorously – disappointed when she finds out she isn’t.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Phar Lap
    Tom Burlinson is very effective as the shy stable-boy who becomes devoted to the courageous horse. Martin Vaughan is impressive as the grimly determined trainer who leases the horse in the first place, as is Celia de Burgh, luminous as his loyal but neglected wife. Ron Leibman practically walks away with the picture as Davis, the smooth American horseowner, and Judy Morris is quietly effective as his naive, talkative wife.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Red Dawn
    Red Dawn charges off to an exciting start as a war picture and then gets all confused in moralistic handwriting, finally sinking in the sunset. Swayze, Howell and the other youngsters are all good in their parts.
    • Variety
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Crimes of the Future
    Cronenberg’s obsession for such matters as bodily mutation and grotesque growths, aberrant medical experiments, massive plagues and futuristic architecture are all here in a convoluted look at a future gone perverse.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Philadelphia Experiment
    The philadelphia Experiment had a lot of script problems in its development that haven't been solved yet, but final result is an adequate sci-fi yarn.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Bostonians
    This is a classy adaptation of a Henry James novel.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Purple Rain
    Playing a character rooted in his own background, and surrounded by the real-life members of his Minneapolis-based musical 'family,' rock star Prince makes an impressive feature film debut in Purple Rain, a rousing contemporary addition to the classic backstage musical genre.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Stranger Than Paradise
    Stranger than Paradise is a bracingly original avant-garde black comedy. Begun as a short which was presented under the same title at some earlier festivals, film has been expanded in outstanding fashion by young New York writer-director Jim Jarmusch.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The NeverEnding Story
    Wolfgang Petersen's The NeverEnding Story is a marvelously realized flight of pure fantasy.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Revenge of the Nerds
    Revenge of the Nerds shows more than enough smarts to deserve a passing grade.
    • Variety
    • 64 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Muppets Take Manhattan
    The Muppets Take Manhattan is a genuinely fun confection of old-fashioned entertainment.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Last Starfighter
    With The Last Starfighter, director Nick Castle and writer Jonathan Betuel have done something so simple it's almost awe-inspiring: they've taken a very human story and accented it with sci-fi special effects, rather than the other way around.
    • 13 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Cannonball Run II
    Execution is uninspired, laughs are hard to find, and the script is also difficult to locate. Reynold’s high-pitched laugh is wearing thin.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Conan the Destroyer
    Conan the Destroyer is the ideal sword and sorcery picture. As Conan, Arnold Schwarzenegger seems more animated and much funnier under Fleischer’s direction than he did under John Milius’ in the original – he even has an amusing drunk scene. Jones just about runs off with the picture.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Karate Kid
    John G. Avildsen is back in the Rocky ring with The Karate Kid. More precisely, it is a Rocky for kids. Morita is simply terrific, bringing the appropriate authority and wisdom to the part.
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