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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    • 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.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Onion Field
    James Woods as the near-psychotic Powell is chillingly effective, creating a flakiness in the character that exudes the danger of a live wire near a puddle.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Yanks
    Director John Schlesinger has done a beautiful job with both cast and craft in Yanks, a multiple love story set in England in World War II. Yet little that's exciting ever happens in the picture.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    The Legacy
    The Legacy tries for an added dimension of satanic possession, but winds up a tame, suspenseless victim of its own lack of imagination.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Love and Bullets
    Director Stuart Rosenberg could have glossed over the plot’s less believable twists with a brisker style and a lot more attack.
    • 32 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Hanover Street
    Hanover Street is reasonably effective as a war film with a love story background. Unfortunately it's meant to be a love story set against a war background.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Monty Python's Life of Brian
    Just as wacky and imaginative as their earlier film outings. (Review of Original Release)
    • 39 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Concorde... Airport '79
    Unintentional comedy still seems the Airport series' forte, although excellent special effects work, and some decent dramatics help Concorde take off.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    My Brilliant Career
    This Australian film is a charming look [from the book by Miles Franklin] at 19th-century rural days in general and the stirrings of self-realization and feminine liberation in the persona of a headstrong young girl who wants to go her own way.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Seduction of Joe Tynan
    Adroitly combining humor and intimate drama, Joe Tynan joins that list of exemplary Washington-set pix, including Advise and Consent and The Best Man.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Apocalypse Now
    Apocalypse Now was worth the wait. Alternately a brilliant and bizarre film, Francis Coppola’s four year ‘work in progress’ offers the definitive validation to the old saw, “war is hell.”
    • 47 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Sunburn
    Grodin works overtime to carry the picture and does so marvelously, displaying a savvy low-key comedy style.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    North Dallas Forty
    What distinguishes this screen adaptation of Peter Gent’s bestseller is the exploration of a human dimension almost never seen in sports pix. Most people understand that modern-day athletes are just cogs in a big business wheel, but getting that across on the screen is a whole different matter. And in large measure, that success is due to a bravura performance in the lead role by Nick Nolte.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    More American Graffiti
    While dazzling to the eye, the flirtation with split-screen, anamorphic, 16mm and 1:85 screen sizes does not justify itself in terms of the film’s content. What Norton and producer Howard Kazanjian are attempting, and what a variety of technicians pull off flawlessly, is daring, but ultimately pointless.
    • 28 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Amityville Horror
    Flies swarm where they shouldn't, pipes and walls ooze ick, doors fly open, and priests and psychic sensitives cringe and flee in panic. It's definitely a house that audiences will enjoy visiting, especially if unfamiliar with the ending.
    • Variety
    • 22 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Villain
    Rarely has so much talent been used to so little purpose.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Lady in Red
    Lewis Teague, a former second-unit director, guides his large cast reasonably well through John Sayles’ craftsmanlike script.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Breaking Away
    Though its plot wins no points for originality, Breaking Away is a thoroughly delightful light comedy, lifted by fine performances from Dennis Christopher and Paul Dooley. The story is nothing more than a triumph for the underdog through sports, this time cycle racing.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Dracula
    Director John Badham and Frank Langella pull off a handsome, moody rendition, more romantic than menacing.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Frisco Kid
    Director Robert Aldrich has always adroitly mixed comedic and dramatic aspects in his films, and Frisco Kid is no exception. For audiences expecting Mel Brooks belly-laughs amidst the Yiddishisms, however, there’s bound to be disappointment.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Wanderers
    Despite an uneasy blend of nostalgia and violence, The Wanderers is a well-made and impressive film. Philip Kaufman, who also co-scripted with his wife, Rose [from the novel by Richard Price], has accurately captured the urban angst of growing up in the 1960s.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Moonraker
    The visual effects, stuntwork and other technical contributions all work together expertly to make the most preposterous notions believable. And Roger Moore, though still compared to Sean Connery, clearly has adapted the James Bond character to himself and serves well as the wise-cracking, incredibly daring and irresistible hero.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Meatballs
    Scripters have managed to gloss over the stereotypes and come up with a smooth-running narrative that makes the camp hijinks part of an overall human mosaic. No one is unduly belittled or mocked, and Meatballs is without the usual grossness and cynicism of many contempo comedy pix.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Muppet Movie
    Jim Henson, Muppet originator, and Frank Oz, creative consultant, have abandoned the successful format of their vidshow, and inserted their creations into a well-crafted combo of musical comedy and fantasy adventure.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Escape from Alcatraz
    Screenwriter Richard Tuggle and director Don Siegel provide a model of super-efficient filmmaking. From the moment Clint Eastwood walks onto The Rock to the final title card explaining the three escapees were never heard from again, Escape from Alcatraz is relentless in establishing a mood and pace of unrelieved tension.
    • Variety
    • 61 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Rocky II
    Rocky II follows much the same theme as its predecessor – that is fighter Rocky Balboa’s path to a stab at the heavyweight crown. In its boxing and training scenes Rocky II packs much of the punch the original did, complete with an exciting pugilistic finale that’s even better than its predecessor.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Prophecy
    Director John Frankenheimer has made a frightening monster movie that people could laugh at for generations to come, complete with your basic big scary thing, cardboard characters and a story so stupid it's irresistible.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The In-Laws
    Under Arthur Hiller’s fast-paced and engaging direction, everything keeps moving quickly enough to stymie audience qualms about plotting, character developments and a rapidly-compressed time frame.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Phantasm
    Strong point of the feature is that it’s played for both horror and laughs.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Brood
    A horror entry which casts children in the role of malevolent little monsters, The Brood is an extremely well made, if essentially unpleasant, shocker.
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