Variety's Scores

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For 17,771 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 2.5 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: 9,130 out of 17771
  2. Mixed: 7,005 out of 17771
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17771
17771 movie reviews
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    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Changeling
    A superior haunted house thriller.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Little Darlings
    In his feature debut, director Ronald F. Maxwell isn’t perfect. But he gets several fine scenes from his performers, especially when O’Neal deals with her love interest, when NcNichol deals with her love interest, and best of all, when O’Neal and McNichol finally level with each other.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Coal Miner's Daughter
    A thoughtful, endearing film charting the life of singer Loretta Lynn from the depths of poverty in rural Kentucky to her eventual rise to the title of 'queen of country music'. Thanks in large part to superb performances by Sissy Spacek and Tommy Lee Jones, film [based on Lynn's autobiography, with George Vescey] mostly avoids the sudsy atmosphere common to many showbiz tales.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Lady Vanishes
    A midatlantic mish-mash with some moderately amusing moments but no cohesive style.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Foxes
    Foxes is an ambitious attempt to do a film relating to some of the not-so-acceptable realities among teenagers that ends up delivering far less than it is capable of.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Ninth Configuration
    The Ninth Configuration is an often confusing story concerning the effects of a new 'doctor' on an institution for crazed military men which manages to effectively tie itself together in the end. Problem is the William Peter Blatty film takes entirely too long to explain itself.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Wise Blood
    John Huston, with uncluttered direction and expert handling of actors, has fashioned a disturbing tale of the fringe side of overzealous religious preachers in the deep South.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Mad Max
    The film belongs to the director, cameraman and stunt artists: it’s not an actor’s piece, though the leads are all effective.
    • 9 Metascore
    • 10 Critic Score
    Saturn 3
    Douglas is sprightly, but he has to handle some pretty awful lines in this Martin Amis script [from a story by John Barry]. Keitel’s dialog, if quoted, would be on a par.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Cruising
    Like any approach to the bizarre, it is fascinating for about 15 minutes. In many respects, Cruising [from the novel by Gerald Walker] resembles the worst of the ‘hippie’ films of the 1960s. Taking away the kissing, caressing and a few bloody killings, Friedkin has no story, though picture pretends to be a murder mystery combined with a study of Al Pacino’s psychological degradation.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Fog
    John Carpenter is anything but subtle in his approach to shocker material. Story exposition and setting are well-established before the opening titles are over, and The Fog proceeds to layer one fright atop another.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    American Gigolo
    A hot subject, cool style and overly contrived plotting don’t all mesh in American Gigolo. Paul Schrader’s third outing as a director is betrayed by a curious, uncharacteristic evasiveness at its core.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Electric Horseman
    Even though Redford, as an ex-rodeo champ, and Fonda don’t create the romantic sparks that might be expected, it’s their dramatic professionalism that salvages Horseman and makes it a moving and effective film by the time the final credits roll by.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Black Hole
    What ensues is sometimes talky but never dull. Director Gary Nelson’s pacing and visual sense are right on target.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Cuba
    Cuba is a hollow, pointless non-drama.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    All That Jazz
    All That Jazz is a self-important, egomaniacal, wonderfully choreographed, often compelling film which portrays the energetic life, and preoccupation with death, of a director-choreographer who ultimately suffers a heart attack.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Kramer vs. Kramer
    Kramer vs. Kramer is a perceptive, touching, intelligent film about one of the raw sores of contemporary America, the dissolution of the family unit.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Being There
    Being There is a highly unusual and an unusually fine film. A faithful but nonetheless imaginative adaptation of Jerzy Kosinski's quirky comic novel, pic marks a significant achievement for director Hal Ashby and represents Peter Sellers' most smashing work since the mid-1960s.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Human Factor
    Graham Greene's low-keyed, highly absorbing 1978 novel of an aging English double agent finding himself trapped into defecting to Moscow and leaving his family behind may have seemed like ideal material for Otto Preminger's style of dispassionate ambiguity, but helmer doesn't seem up to the occasion, bringing little atmosphere or feeling to the delicate ticks of the story.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    1941
    Billed as a comedy spectacle, Steven Spielberg’s 1941 is long on spectacle, but short on comedy. The Universal-Columbia Pictures co-production is an exceedingly entertaining, fast-moving revision of 1940s war hysteria in Los Angeles spawned by the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and boasts Hollywood’s finest miniature and special effects work seen to date.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Jerk
    An artless, non-stop barrage of off-the-wall situations, funny and unfunny jokes, generally effective and sometimes hilarious sight gags and bawdy non sequiturs.
  22. Star Trek: The Motion Picture
    Producer Gene Roddenberry and director Robert Wise have corralled an enormous technical crew, and the result is state-of-the-art screen magic.
    • Variety
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Rose
    Result is an ultra-realistic look at the infusion of money, sex, drugs and booze into the simple process of singing a song, a chore Midler does faultlessly in several excellent concert sequences.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    When a Stranger Calls
    More than anything else, When a Stranger Calls resembles a good, old-fashioned grade B thriller.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Great Santini
    Robert Duvall gives an excellent portrayal of a semi-psychotic, softened with a warmer side. But Duvall has to fight for every inch of footage against the overwhelming performances by several others in the cast - and that's the strength of The Great Santini.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    ...and justice for all.
    And Justice for All is a film that attempts to alternate between comedy and drama, handling neither one incompetently, but also not excelling at either task.
    • 27 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Meteor
    Meteor really combines several disasters in one continuous cinematic bummer.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Black Stallion
    The Black Stallion is a perfect gem.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Starting Over
    Starting Over takes on the subject of marital dissolution from a comic point of view, and succeeds admirably, wryly directed by Alan J. Pakula, and featuring an outstanding cast.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Time After Time
    A delightful, entertaining trifle of a film that shows both the possibilities and limitations of taking liberties with literature and history. Nicholas Meyer has deftly juxtaposed Victorian England and contemporary America in a clever story, irresistible due to the competence of its cast.
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