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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    • 90 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Raging Bull
    But the boxing sequences are possibly the best ever filmed, and the film captures the intensity of a boxer's life with considerable force.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Idolmaker
    Though it's marred by an overly melodramatic and dubious finale, The Idolmaker is an unusally compelling film about the music business in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It shows how teen idols were created, promoted, and discarded by entrepreneurs cynically manipulating the adolescent audience. Ray Sharkey is superb in the title role.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Alligator
    Alligator is bloody and boisterous, featuring the only man-eating monster in memory named Ramone.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Breaker Morant
    As a sheer exercise in manipulation, it approaches the masterful and is extremely effective.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Private Benjamin
    The trouble may be with the use of too many screenwriters who have been told to always keep their star’s image uppermost in their scribblings. But she’s not so gifted that she can carry a heavy load of indifferent material on her own two little shoulders, without considerable sagging.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Elephant Man
    Hopkins is splendid in a subtly nuanced portrayal of a man torn between humanitarianism and qualms that his motives in introducing the Elephant Man to society are no better than those of the brutish carny. The center-piece of the film, however, is the virtuoso performance by the almost unrecognizable John Hurt.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Kagemusha
    Kurosawa, at 70, shows himself young indeed in the impressive handling of this historical drama laced with shrewd insights into the almost Shakespearean intrigues of power.
    • 29 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Somewhere in Time
    A charming, witty, passionate romantic drama about a love transcending space and time, Somewhere In Time is an old-fashioned film in the best sense of that term. Which means it's carefully crafted, civilized in its sensibilities, and interested more in characterization than in shock effects.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Oh, God! Book II
    Absence this time of John Denver, his chemistry with lead George Burns, and the original's solid comedy material lead to a bland, unstimulating film.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Terror Train
    Roger Spottiswoode, vet editor who co-authored a respected book on the subject with Karel Reisz, makes a competent directing debut here.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Gloria
    Gena Rowlands is excellent as the tired woman who decides to take her chances for the boy. The kid is a right blend of understanding and childish tantrums.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    My Bodyguard
    In his directorial debut, Tony Bill assembles a truly remarkable cast of youngsters with little or no previous acting experience. Chris Makepeace is superb as the slightly built kid coming anew to a Chicago high school dominated by extortionist gang leader Matt Dillon, also terrific in his part.
    • Variety
  13. Ordinary People
    A powerfully intimate domestic drama, Ordinary People represents the height of craftsmanship across the board.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Battle Beyond the Stars
    Despite the expense involved, the pic appears not to take itself too seriously. Principal characterizations are skin deep.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Scum
    Given that Scum, a relentlessly brutal slice of British reform school life, is strongly directed by Alan Clarke, and acted with admirable conviction, it is a pity that the hard-hitting screenplay is more passionate tract than powerful entertainment.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Smokey and the Bandit II
    Sally Field tells Burt Reynolds in Smokey and the Bandit II that he is no longer having fun doing what used to come naturally. This stale sequel seems to be evidence of going through the motions for money instead of fun. Ironically, the best part of the film is the unusual end credit sequence, which shows the actors having fun when they blow lines in outtakes.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Octagon
    A wildly incredible but entertaining tale.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Xanadu
    Xanadu is truly a stupendously bad film whose only salvage is the music.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Final Countdown
    As a documentary on the USS Nimitz, The Final Countdown is wonderful. As entertainment, however, it has the feeling of a telepic that strayed onto the big screen. The magnificent production values provided by setting the film on the world's largest nuclear-powered aircraft carrier can't transcend the predictable cleverness of a plot that will seem overly familiar to viewers raised on Twilight Zone reruns.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    The Hunter
    Steve McQueen may have felt that the time had come to revise his persona a bit, but what’s involved here is desecration.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Caddyshack
    This vaguely likable, too-tame comedy falls short of the mark.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Dressed to Kill
    Brian De Palma goes right for the audience jugular in Dressed to Kill, a stylish exercise in ersatz-Hitchcock suspense-terror. Despite some major structural weaknesses, the cannily manipulated combination of mystery, gore and kinky sex adds up to a slick commercial package.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Big Red One
    It's a terrific war yarn, a picture of palpable raw power which manages both Intense intimacy and great scope at the same time. (Review of Original Release)
    • 45 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Prom Night
    Director Paul Lynch seems to capture the spirit of the genre here, but spends a little too much time setting up each murder, thus eliminating some suspense.
    • Variety
    • 68 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Used Cars
    Scripters have provided very little context or societal texture for their unmodulated tale, which disagreeably seeks to find humor in characters’ humiliation, embarrassment and even death. Nonetheless Robert Zemeckis directs with undeniable vigor, if insufficient control and discipline.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Airplane!
    Airplane! is what they used to call a laff-riot. Made by team which turned out Kentucky Fried Movie, this spoof of disaster features beats any other film for sheer number of comic gags.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Blue Lagoon
    Producer-director Randal Kleiser takes the pair through puberty and into parenthood with a charming candor that stresses natural, instinctive sexual development without leering at it. Their romance is enhanced by Nestor Almendros’ exquisite photography (and Basil Poledouris’ score), as is the stunning beauty of the Fiji island where it was filmed.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Stunt Man
    O’Toole is excellent in his best, cleanest performance in years. He smashingly delineates an omnipotent, godlike type whose total control over those around him makes him seem almost unreal.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Blues Brothers
    If Universal had made it 35 years earlier, The Blues Brothers might have been called Abbott & Costello in Soul Town. Level of inspiration is about the same now as then, the humor as basic, the enjoyment as fleeting. But at $30 million, this is a whole new ball-game.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Brubaker
    Even with a sharp cast topped by the star power of Robert Redford, it’s hard to imagine a broad audience wanting to share the two hours of agony in this one, all the way to a downbeat ending with Redford the loser in his righteous battle.
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