Variety's Scores

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For 17,765 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: 9,125 out of 17765
  2. Mixed: 7,004 out of 17765
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17765
17765 movie reviews
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    • 80 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    3:10 to Yuma
    Aside from the fact that this is an upper-drawer western, 3:10 to Yuma will strike many for its resemblance to High Noon. That the climax fizzles must be laid on doorstep of Halsted Welles, who adapts Elmore Leonard's story quite well until that point.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    An Affair to Remember
    Adding comedy lines, music, color and CinemaScope, Jerry Wald and Leo McCarey turn this remake of the 1939 Love Affair into a winning film that is alternately funny and tenderly sentimental.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Love in the Afternoon
    Under Billy Wilder's alternately sensitive, mirthful and loving-care direction, and with Maurice Chevalier turning in a captivating performance as a private detective specializing in cases of amour, the production holds enchantment and delight in substantial quantity.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Curse of Frankenstein
    Peter Cushing gets every inch of drama from the leading role, making almost believable the ambitious urge and diabolical accomplishment.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    A Face in the Crowd
    Elia Kazan and Budd Schulberg, who teamed to bring forth On the Waterfront, have another provocative and hardhitting entry, based on Schulberg's short story The Arkansas Traveler. It's a devastating commentary on hero-worship and success cults in America.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
    Producer Hal Wallis has taken the historic meeting of Wyatt Earp, a celebrated lawman of the West, his brothers and Doc Holliday, with the Clanton gang in the O.K. Corral of Tombstone, Arizona, and fashioned an absorbing yarn [suggested by an article by George Scullin] in action leading up to the gory gunfight.
    • 97 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    12 Angry Men
    Perhaps the motivations of each juror are introduced too quickly and are repeated too often before each changes his vote. However, the film leaves a tremendous impact.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Incredible Shrinking Man
    Director Jack Arnold works up the chills for maximum effect.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Wrong Man
    Alfred Hitchcock draws upon real-life drama for this gripping piece of realism [from the Life magazine story The True Story of Christopher Emmanuel Balestrero by Maxwell Anderson]. He builds the case of a NY Stork Club musician falsely accused of a series of holdups to a powerful climax, the events providing director a field day in his art of characterization and suspense.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Baby Doll
    Except for moments of humor that are strictly inherent in the character of the principals, Baby Doll plays off against a sleazy, dirty, depressing Southern background. Over it hangs a feeling of decay, expertly nurtured by director Elia Kazan.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Written on the Wind
    Tiptop scripting from the Robert Wilder novel, dramatically deft direction by Douglas Sirk and sock performances by the cast give the story development a follow-through.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Giant
    It is also, for the most part, an excellent film which registers strongly on all levels, whether it's in its breathtaking panoramic shots of the dusty Texas plains; the personal, dramatic impact of the story itself, or the resounding message it has to impart.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Around the World in 80 Days
    Around the World In 80 Days, is a smasheroo from start to finish.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Lust for Life
    This is a slow-moving picture whose only action is in the dialog itself. Basically a faithful portrait of Van Gogh, Lust for Life is nonetheless unexciting. It misses out in conveying the color and entertainment of the original Irving Stone novel.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Bad Seed
    Taken from Maxwell Anderson's stage play, adapted from William March's novel, the film remains more of the theatre than of the motion picture field. Nonetheless, it is well done within that qualification.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    High Society
    Fortified with a strong Cole Porter score, film is a pleasant romp for cast toppers Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly and Frank Sinatra. Their impact is almost equally consistent. Although Sinatra has the top pop tune opportunities, the Groaner makes his specialties stand up and out on showmanship and delivery, and Kelly impresses as a femme lead.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The King and I
    All the ingredients that made Rodgers & Hammerstein's [1951] The King and I a memorable stage experience have been faithfully transferred to the screen. The result is a pictorially exquisite, musically exciting, and dramatically satisfying motion picture.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Moby Dick
    Moby Dick is interesting more often than exciting, faithful to the time and text [of the Herman Melville novel] more than great theatrical entertainment. Essentially it is a chase picture and yet not escaping the sameness and repetitiousness which often dulls the chase formula.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Crime in the Streets
    Crime in the Streets, in its jump from a TV origin, sets out to be a gutsy melodrama about slum area delinquents and, within the framework of Reginald Rose's highly contrived story, succeeds in making its shock points under Don Siegel's pat directorial handling.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Killing
    This story of a $2 million race track holdup and steps leading up to the robbery, occasionally told in a documentary style which at first tends to be somewhat confusing, soon settles into a tense and suspenseful vein which carries through to an unexpected and ironic windup.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Man Who Knew Too Much
    With Alfred Hitchcock pulling the suspense strings, The Man Who Knew Too Much is a good thriller.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Searchers
    The box office appeal of John Wayne combined with the imprint of John Ford makes The Searchers a contender for the big money stakes. It's a western in the grand scale - handsomely mounted and in the tradition of Shane.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Harder They Fall
    Budd Schulberg's vehement novel about the fight racket is given a strong pictorial going-over in The Harder They Fall. It's main-event stuff.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Forbidden Planet
    Imaginative gadgets galore, plus plenty of suspense and thrills, make the production a top offering in the space travel category. Best of all the gadgets is Robby, the Robot, and he's well-used for some comedy touches.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Ikiru
    Kurosawa performs a tour-de-force in keeping a dramatic thread throughout and avoiding the mawkish. It is technically excellent with a telling Occidental-type musical score.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Richard III
    At all times Shakespeare’s poetry, impeccably spoken by this outstanding cast, heightens the dramatic atmosphere. The production, and notably Roger Furse’s decor, is consistently spectacular. The climactic battle sequences rival the pageantry of Henry V.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Ladykillers
    This is an amusing piece of hokum, being a parody of American gangsterdom interwoven with whimsy and exaggeration that makes it more of a macabre farce. Alec Guinness sinks his personality almost to the level of anonymity.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Invasion of the Body Snatchers
    This tense, offbeat piece of science-fiction is occasionally difficult to follow due to the strangeness of its scientific premise. Action nevertheless is increasingly exciting.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    All That Heaven Allows
    Although this story of a long-suffering woman who, at 40 or so, finds romance with a man between 10 and 15 years her junior, is hardly designed to ignite prairie fires, scripter Peg Fenwick nevertheless has managed to turn the Edna L. and Harry Lee story into a slightly offbeat yarn with some interesting overtones that accent the social prejudices of a small town.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Guys and Dolls
    A bangup filmusical in the topdrawer Goldwyn manner.
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