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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    • 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.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Rough Cut
    Rough Cut emerges as an undistinctive, frothy romantic comedy that will charm a few and probably miss the eye of many.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Bronco Billy
    Bronco Billy is a caricature of many of the strong heroes whom Eastwood has played in other pix and he's obviously having a wonderful time with the satire.
    • Variety
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Urban Cowboy
    Director James Bridges has ably captured the atmosphere of one of the most famous chip-kicker hangouts of all: Gilley’s Club on the outskirts of Houston.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Outsider
    The Outsider represents the first attempt to get behind the incessant headlines and into the minds and motives at work on one of the longest-fought terrorist campaigns of the times - through an intelligent fictional story with an Irish setting.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Mountain Men
    It’s a limp feature debut for director Richard Lang.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Shining
    The crazier Nicholson gets, the more idiotic he looks. Shelley Duvall transforms the warm sympathetic wife of the book into a simpering, semi-retarded hysteric.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Carny
    Edgy tale [from a story by Phoebe and Robert Kaylor and Robbie Robertson] of three born outsiders living on a tightrope vividly recalls, both in style and content, the doom-laden films noir of the late 1940s.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back
    A worthy sequel to "Star Wars," equal in both technical mastery and characterization, suffering only from the familiarity with the effects generated in the original and imitated too much by others.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Long Riders
    What’s ultimately missing is a definable point of view which would tie together the myriad events on display and fill in the blanks which Hill has imposed on the action by sapping it of emotional or historical meaning.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Fame
    Alan Parker has come up with an exposure for some of the most talented youngsters seen on screen in years. There isn't a bad performance in the lot. The great strength of the film is in the school scenes -- when it wanders away from the scholastic side as it does with increasing frequency as the overlong feature moves along, it loses dramatic intensity and slows the pace.
    • Variety
    • 49 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Humanoids from the Deep
    Given the nonsensical script and fact that considerable footage was added, editor Mark Goldblatt did a good job in making disparate elements at least hang together and play coherently. James Horner’s score makes it seem that more is happening than actually takes place.
    • 22 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Friday the 13th
    Lowbudget in the worst sense – with no apparent talent or intelligence to offset its technical inadequacies – Friday the 13th has nothing to exploit but its title.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    ffolkes
    The biggest attraction is the banter between Roger Moore and the various types with whom he comes in conflict during his preparations to save a hijacked supply ship.
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