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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    • 78 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore
    Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore takes a group of wellcast film players and largely wastes them on a smaller-than-life film – one of those ‘little people’ dramas that make one despise little people.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Lenny
    Bob Fosse's remarkable film version of Julian Barry's legit play, Lenny, stars Dustin Hoffman in an outstanding performance.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    A Woman Under the Influence
    This is a disturbing portrait of a slightly-mad housewife. Its serious treament of a downbeat subject is hypoed by a fine performance from Peter Falk and a bravura one from Gena Rowlands.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Earthquake
    Mark Robson's Earthquake is an excellent dramatic exploitation extravaganza, combining brilliant special effects with a multi-character plot line which is surprisingly above average for this type film. Large cast is headed by Charlton Heston, who comes off better than usual because he is not Superman, instead just one of the gang.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Phantom of the Paradise
    A very good horror comedy-drama about a disfigured musician haunting a rock palace. Brian De Palma's direction and script makes for one of the very rare backstage rock story pix, catching the garishness of the glitter scene in its own time.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Airport 1975
    Jack Smight’s direction has the refreshing pace of a filmmaker who knows his plot can crash unless he hurries.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Benji
    One of the wonders of the production, told simply and with no pretense of grandiose style, is the manner in which Benji – real name Higgins – performs. In this case, it isn’t a dog performing, but a dog acting, just as humans act. Much of the footage is shot from about 18 inches above the ground, upward from Benji’s point of view, and innovation is fascinating.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Gambler
    The Gambler is a compelling and effective film. James Caan is excellent and the featured players are superb. However, it is somewhat overlong in early exposition and has one climax too many.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    It's Alive
    Stomach-churning.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Big Bad Mama
    Big Bad Mama is mostly rehashed Bonnie and Clyde, with a bit more blood and Angie Dickinson taking off her clothes for sex scenes with the crooks in her life.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Phase IV
    This one didn't get the bugs worked out before release. It's another in the Hollywood cycle of films based on every kind of creature enlarged by radiation.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Longest Yard
    The Longest Yard is an outstanding action drama, combining the brutish excitement of football competition with the brutalities of contemporary prison life. Burt Reynolds asserts his genuine star power, here as a former football pro forced to field a team under blackmail of warden Eddie Albert.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Harry and Tonto
    A pleasant film about an old man who rejuvenates himself on a cross-country trek. Script is a series of good human comedy vignettes, with the large supporting cast of many familiar names in virtual cameo roles.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Wicker Man
    Anthony Shaffer penned the screenplay which, for sheer imagination and near-terror, has seldom been equalled.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
    Bring Me the Head of Alfred Garcia is turgid melodrama [from a story by Frank Kowalski and Sam Peckinpah] at its worst.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    California Split
    The film is technically and physically handsome, all the more so for being mostly location work, but lacks a cohesive and reinforced sense of story direction.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Death Wish
    Poisonous incitement to do-it-yourself law enforcement is the vulgar exploitation hook on which Death Wish is awkwardly hung.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    That's Entertainment!
    An outstanding, stunning, sentimental, exciting, colorful, enjoyable, spirit-lifting, tuneful, youthful, invigorating, zesty, respectful, dazzling, and richly satisfying feature documentary commemorating its filmusicals.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Chinatown
    An outstanding picture.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Parallax View
    The Parallax View is a partially-successful attempt to take a serious subject - a nationwide network of political guns for hire - and make it commercially palatable to the popcorn trade - via chases, fights, and lots of exterior production elements.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Herbie Rides Again
    Another fat plug for the Volkswagen 'bug' as the runaway (literally) titular star.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Thunderbolt and Lightfoot
    Thunderbolt and Lightfoot is an overlong, sometimes hilariously vulgar comedy-drama, about the restaging of a difficult safecracking heist. Debuting director Michael Cimino obtains superior performances from Clint Eastwood, George Kennedy, Geoffrey Lewis and especially Jeff Bridges.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Daisy Miller
    Daisy Miller is a dud. Cybill Shepherd is miscast in the title role. Frederic Raphael's adaptation of the Henry James story doesn't play. The period production by Peter Bogdanovich is handsome. But his direction and concept seem uncertain and fumbled.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Dirty Mary Crazy Larry
    With more than a third of the footage devoted to spectacular chases and collisions deftly staged by stunt coordinator Al Wyatt, there’s little time left to hint at the reasons for Fonda’s increasingly unappetizing monomania.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Black Windmill
    All principal players are well cast, but the production fizzles in its final half-hour because the story premise gets clobbered by clumsy and ineffective resolution and execution.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Lords of Flatbush
    Not too much finesse distinguishes the script, which carries neither warmth nor particular interest for the various characters.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Conversation
    A major artistic asset to the film - besides script, direction and the top performances - is supervising editor Walter Murch's sound collage and re-recording.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Sugarland Express
    Unfortunately, the film degenerates in final reels to heavy-handed social polemic and sound-and-fury shootout.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Foxy Brown
    Even by the gutter-high standards of the genre, Foxy Brown is something of a mess. Jack Hill’s screenplay has peculiar narrative gaps.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Golden Voyage of Sinbad
    An Arabian Nightish saga told with some briskness and opulence for the childish eye, yet ultimately falling short of implied promise as an adventure spree.
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