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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    • 97 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Night of the Hunter
    This start for Gregory as producer and Laughton as director is rich in promise but the completed product, bewitching at times, loses sustained drive via too many offbeat touches that have a misty effect.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    We're No Angels
    At times proceedings are too consciously cute and stage origin of material [a play by Albert Husson] still clings since virtually all scenes are interiors with characters constantly entering and exiting. However, Michael Curtiz’ directorial pacing and topflight performances from Humphrey Bogart, Aldo Ray and Peter Ustinov help minimize the few flaws.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Not as a Stranger
    Though some scenes come off fairly well, Mitchum is poker-faced from start to finish.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Land of the Pharaohs
    When the viewing senses begin to dull from the tremendous load of spectacle, the script and Hawks’ direction wisely switch to sex and intrigue.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Lady and the Tramp
    A delight for the juveniles and lots of fun for adults, Lady and the Tramp is the first animated feature in CinemaScope and the wider canvas and extra detail work reportedly meant an additional 30% in negative cost. It was a sound investment.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Marty
    It’s a warm, human, sometimes sentimental and an enjoyable experience.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    East of Eden
    Powerfully somber dramatics have been captured from the pages of John Steinbeck's East of ed en and put on film by Elia Kazan. It is a tour de force for the director's penchant for hard-hitting forays with life.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Blackboard Jungle
    Glenn Ford, Morrow and Poitier are so real in their performances under the probing direction by Brooks that the picture alternatingly has the viewer pleading, indignant and frightened before the conclusion.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
    A very special kind of picture, combining photographic ingenuity, imaginative story telling and fiscal daring.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Last Time I Saw Paris
    The Last Time I Saw Paris is an engrossing romantic drama that tells a good story with fine performances and an overall honesty of dramatic purpose.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Carmen Jones
    Preminger directs with a deft touch, blending the comedy and tragedy easily and building his scenes to some suspenseful heights. He gets fine performances from the cast toppers, notably Dorothy Dandridge, a sultry Carmen whose performance maintains the right hedonistic note throughout.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    A Star Is Born
    A Star Is Born was a great 1937 moneymaker and it’s an even greater picture in its filmusical transmutation.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    White Christmas
    Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye, along with VistaVision, keep the entertainment going in this fancifully staged production, clicking well.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Barefoot Contessa
    Sharpness of the characters, the high-voltage dialog, the cynicism and wit and wisdom of the story, the spectacular combination of the immorally rich and the immorally sycophantic - these add up to a click feature from writer-director Joseph L. Mankiewicz.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sabrina
    A slick blend of heart and chuckles makes Sabrina a sock romantic comedy.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Brigadoon
    In transferring Brigadoon, a click as a [1947] Broadway musical play, to the screen, Metro has medium success. It's a fairly entertaining tunefilm of mixed appeal.
    • 100 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Rear Window
    Hitchcock confines all of the action to this single setting and draws the nerves to the snapping point in developing the thriller phases of the plot. He is just as skilled in making use of lighter touches in either dialog or situation to relieve the tension when it nears the unbearable. Interest never wavers during the 112 minutes of footage.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Magnificent Obsession
    It is a sensitive treatment of faith told in terms of moving, human drama which packs emotional impact.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
    This is a happy, hand-clapping, foot-stomping country type of musical with all the slickness of a Broadway show. Johnny Mercer and Gene de Paul provide the slick, showy production with eight songs, all of which jibe perfectly with the folksy, hillbilly air maintained in the picture.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    On the Waterfront
    Under Elia Kazan's direction, Marlon Brando puts on a spectacular show, giving a fascinating, multi-faceted performance.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Caine Mutiny
    The Caine Mutiny is highly recommendable motion picture drama, told on the screen as forcefully as it was in the Herman Wouk best-selling novel. The intelligently adapted screenplay retains all the essence of the novel.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Them!
    This science-fiction shocker has a well-plotted story [by George Worthington Yates, adapted by Russell Hughes], expertly directed and acted in a matter-of-fact style.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Monsieur Hulot's Holiday
    Though not as funny as Fete, due to a lesser story peg, this one generates a load of yocks, with fine observation of types at a vacation resort.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Dial M for Murder
    There are a number of basic weaknesses in the setup that keep the picture from being a good suspense show for any but the most gullible. Via the performances and several suspense tricks expected of Hitchcock, the weaknesses are glossed over but not enough to rate the film a cinch winner.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Salt of the Earth
    Salt of the Earth is a good, highly dramatic and emotion-charged piece of work that tells its story straight. It is, however, a propaganda picture which belongs in union halls rather than theatres.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Wild One
    Inspired by an episode when a mob of youths on motorcycles terrorized a Californian town for an entire evening, this feature is long on suspense, brutality and sadism. Marlon Brando contributes another hard-faced 'hero' who never knew love as a boy and is now plainly in need of psychoanalysis.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Knights of the Round Table
    The carefully developed script plus knowing direction by Richard Thorpe give the legendary tale credibility. It’s storybook stuff – and must be accepted as such – but the astute staging results in a walloping package of entertainment for all except, perhaps, the blase.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Hondo
    Hondo is an exciting offbeat western. The stereoscopic 3-D cameras and WarnerColor successfully capture the vast natural beauty of Camargo, Mexico, where the picture was filmed on location.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Calamity Jane
    Giving such Wild West characters as Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickok a workout in a tuned-in western doubtless had strong possibilities but Warners comes close to missing the stagecoach. Colorful settings and costumes add the entry some sparkle but the 'book' is lacking in originality and the players simply are uneasy.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mogambo
    The lure of the jungle and romance get a sizzling workout in Mogambo and it's a socko package of entertainment, crammed with sexy two-fisted adventure.
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