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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    • 30 Metascore
    • 10 Critic Score
    Friday the 13th Part III
    Friday the 13th Part III is terrible, too...There are some dandy 3-D sequences, however, of a yo-yo going up and down and popcorn popping.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Pink Floyd: The Wall
    An eye-popping dramatization of an audio storyline. Being a visual translation of a so-called 'concept' album, pic works extremely well in carrying over the somber tone of the LP.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Tex
    What Tex will probably best be remembered for is breaking new ground at Disney Studios in representing some of the real problems confronting today’s young people. The teenagers are put in the milieu of drugs, alcohol, sex and violence. Family life is not necessarily rosy and well-scrubbed. Where the picture ironically goes awry is in trying to tackle all of these problems in the space of 103 minutes.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Night Shift
    Though the plotline hardly sounds like a family film, this is probably the most sanitized treatment of pimps and prostitution audiences will ever see. None of this much matters, because director Ron Howard and screenwriters Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, all TV veterans, are only bent on giving the audience a good time.
    • Variety
    • 75 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    An Officer and a Gentleman
    An Officer and a Gentleman deserves a 21-gun salute, maybe 42. Rarely does a film come along with so many finely-drawn characters to care about.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The World According to Garp
    George Roy Hill’s film adaptation of [John Irving’s novel] The World According to Garp has taste, intelligence, craft and numerous other virtues going for it.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
    The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas is just about everything it's meant to be - a couple of diverting hours in the dark. Rollicking, good-natured, a bit spicy and with just enough heart to avoid seeming totally synthetic.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy
    Woody Allen’s A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy is a pleasant disappointment, pleasant because he gets all the laughs he goes for in a visually charming, sweetly paced picture, a disappointment because he doesn’t go for more.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Secret of NIMH
    The Secret of NIMH is a richly animated and skillfully structured film created by former Disney animators Don Bluth, Gary Goldman and John Pomeroy. As craft, their first feature film is certainly an homage to the best of an age ago.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    TRON
    Tron is loaded with visual delights but falls way short of the mark in story and viewer involvement. Steven Lisberger has adequately marshalled a huge force of technicians to deliver the dazzle, but even kids (and specifically computer game freaks) will have a difficult time getting hooked on the situations.
    • Variety
    • 57 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Thing
    If it’s the most vividly gruesome monster ever to stalk the screen that audiences crave, then The Thing is the thing. On all other levels, however, John Carpenter’s remake of Howard Hawks’ 1951 sci-fi classic comes as a letdown.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Annie
    In an effort to be more 'realistic' Annie winds up exposing just how weak a story it had to start with [stage play book by Thomas Meehan], not helped here by the music [songs by Charles Strouse and Martin Charnin].
    • 44 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Firefox
    Firefox is a burn-out. Despite the tense mission being depicted, there’s no suspense, excitement or thrills to be had, and lackadaisical pacing gives viewer plenty of time to ponder the gaping implausibilities.
  14. E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
    There are some unsatisfactory elements–slow spots occur during the middle stretch, the mild anti-establishment stance is getting to be a bit cliche and one never knows whether E.T.’s mortal illness is physical or psychological in nature, or both. But, as with “Close Encounters,” the truly lovely and moving ending more than makes up for everything. Chalk up another smash for Spielberg.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Grease 2
    Where this film has a decided edge on its predecessor is in the staging and cutting of the musical sequences. Choreographer and director Patricia Birch has come up with some unusual settings (a bowling alley, a bomb shelter) for some of the scenes, and employs some sharp montage to give most of the songs and dances a fair amount of punch.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
    Star Trek II is a very satisfying space adventure, closer in spirit and format to the popular TV series than to its big-budget predecessor.
    • Variety
    • 79 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Poltergeist
    Given the talents, Poltergeist is an annoying film because it could have been so much better.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Rocky III
    The real question with Rocky III was how Sylvester Stallone could twist the plot to make an interesting difference. He manages. As usual, Stallone the writer-director is less successful in handling all the dramatic interims than staging the battles.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Escape Artist
    Treatment frequently pushes past the careful to the precious, and the quiet, odd tale never becomes more than mildly intriguing.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Road Warrior
    Director Miller keeps the pic moving with cyclonic force, photography by Dean Semler is first class, editing is supertight, and Brian May’s music is stirring.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid
    Film is most engaging in its romantic sparring between Martin and his gorgeous client, Ward.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Conan the Barbarian
    Director John Milius does a nice job of setting up the initial story.... But for whatever reasons, [Schwarzenegger] has a minimum of dialog and fails to convey much about the character through his actions.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Wrong Is Right
    Wrong Is Right represents Richard Brooks' shriek of protest at what he sees as the insane, downward spiral of world history over the past decade. Part political satire, part doomsday melodrama and part intellectual graffiti scribbled on the screen, film is impossible to pigeon-hole.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Sword and the Sorcerer
    Combine beaucoup gore and an atrocity-a-minute action edited in fastpace style. Then, toss in a scantily clad cast of none-too- talented performers mouthing dimwitted dialog and garnish with a touch of medieval gibberish. The result would be something resembling The Sword and the Sorcerer.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Chosen
    Director Kagan and writer Gordon do wonders with the poignant material. Despite the obvious ethnic slant this is a picture which communicates universally.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Diva
    Diva is an extraordinary thriller and first film from Jean-Jacques Beineix, complex, stylish and fast-moving.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Chariots of Fire
    The casting is pin point. Charleson and Cross, neither meaningful to film fans up to now, come over as plausible types rather than stereotypes. John Gielgud and Lindsay Anderson contribute sharply as university officials dismayed by the upstart young Jew. Nigel Davenport is very good as the Olympic squad’s titular leader, and Patrick Magee is excellent in a brief turn as a blimpish peer of the realm.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Cat People
    Paul Schrader’s reworking of the 1942 Val Lewton-Jacques Tourneur Cat People is a super-chic erotic horror story of mixed impact. Kinski was essential to the film as conceived, and she’s endlessly watchable.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Some Kind of Hero
    Some Kind of Hero is yet another example of how Richard Pryor can take a mediocre film and elevate it to the level of his extraordinary talents.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Silent Rage
    Silent Rage seems as if it were made with a demographics sampler entitled ’10 Sleazy Ways to Cash in on the Exploitation Market’. The result is a combination horror-kung fu-oater-woman in peril-mad scientist film with more unintentional laughs than possible in the space of 100 minutes.
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