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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    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Winchester '73
    Stewart brings real flavor and appeal to the role of Lin, in a lean, concentrated portrayal.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Gunfighter
    The Gunfighter is a sock melodrama of the old west. There's never a sag or off moment in the footage as it goes about depicting a lightning draw artist, the fastest man with a gun in the old west, and what his special ability has done to his life.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Father of the Bride
    Minnelli could have timed many of the scenes so that laughs would not have stepped on dialog tag lines. Also he permits the wedding rehearsal sequence to play too long, lessening the comedic effect.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Asphalt Jungle
    Ironic realism is striven for and achieved in the writing, production and direction. An audience will quite easily pull for the crooks in their execution of the million-dollar jewelry theft around which the plot is built.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Stage Fright
    Alfred Hitchcock doesn't stress melodrama throughout. He plays a surprising number of sequences strictly for lightness. Also, he has a choice cast to put through its paces, and there's not a bad performance anywhere [In this adaption by Alma Reville of a novel by Selwyn Jepson]. The dialog has purpose, either for a chuckle or a thrill, and the pace is good.
    • 99 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Rules of the Game
    As an experiment it’s interesting, but Jean Renoir, who directs, wrote the scenario and dialog, and takes a leading role, has made a common error: he attempts to crowd too many ideas into 80 minutes of film fare, resulting in confusion.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Cinderella
    The cartoon, in fact, has far more success in projecting the lower animals than in its central character, Cinderella, who is on the colorless, doll-faced side, as is the Prince Charming.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Sands of Iwo Jima
    It's loaded with the commercial ingredients of blazing action, scope and spectacle, but it falls short of greatness because of its sentimental core and its superficial commentary on the war.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Young Man with a Horn
    For the jazz devotee this is nearly two hours of top trumpet notes. For the regular filmgoer, it is good drama.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Gun Crazy
    Script points up the physical attraction between Dall and Cummins but, despite the emphasis, it is curiously cold and lacking in genuine emotions. Fault is in the writing and direction, both staying on the surface and never getting underneath the characters.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    On the Town
    The pep, enthusiasm and apparent fun the makers of On the Town had in putting it together comes through to the audience and gives the picture its best asset.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Adam's Rib
    Adam's Rib is a bright comedy success, belting over a succession of sophisticated laughs. Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin have fashioned their amusing screenplay around the age-old battle of the sexes.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    They Live by Night
    Nicholas Ray adapted the novel and directed, demonstrating a complete understanding of the characters. It’s a firstrate job of moody storytelling.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    She Wore a Yellow Ribbon
    She Wore a Yellow Ribbon is a western meller done in the best John Ford manner.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Under Capricorn
    Under Capricorn is overlong and talky, with scant measure of the Alfred Hitchcock thriller tricks.
    • 97 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Third Man
    Supporting characters turn in excellent portrayals. Camera work on an exceptionally high plane, and in his painstaking direction Carol Reed lives up to his high reputation.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    White Heat
    The tight-lipped scowl, the hunched shoulders that rear themselves for the kill, the gargoyle speech, the belching gunfire of a trigger-happy paranoiac - one with a mother complex, no less - these are the standard and still-popular ingredients that constitute the James Cagney of White Heat.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mighty Joe Young
    Mighty Joe Young is fun to laugh at and with, loaded with incredible corn, plenty of humor, and a robot gorilla who becomes a genuine hero.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Neptune's Daughter
    Neptune's Daughter is a neat concoction of breezy, light entertainment. It combines comedy, songs and dances into an amusing froth.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Little Women
    The tender story, with its frank and unashamed assault on the emotions, still has its effective moments at times when the sentiment doesn’t grow a little too thick.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Take Me Out to the Ball Game
    Take Me Out to the Ball Game, backgrounded by an early-day baseball yarn, is short on story, but has some amusing moments - and Gene Kelly.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Force of Evil
    Force of Evil fails to develop the excitement hinted at in the title. Makers apparently couldn't decide on the best way to present an expose of the numbers racket, winding up with neither fish nor fowl as far as hard-hitting racketeer meller is concerned. A poetic, almost allegorical, interpretation keeps intruding on the tougher elements of the plot. This factor adds no distinction and only makes the going tougher.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    A Canterbury Tale
    Sincerity and simplicity shine through every foot of this oversized modern version of the Chaucer epic tale. Here is rare beauty.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Snake Pit
    The Snake Pit is a standout among class melodramas. Based on Mary Jane Ward's novel, picture probes into the processes of mental illness with a razor-sharp forthrightness, giving an open-handed display of the make-up of bodies without minds and the treatments used to restore intelligence.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Hamlet
    This is picture-making at its best.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Rope
    Hitchcock could have chosen a more entertaining subject with which to use the arresting camera and staging technique displayed in Rope. Theme is of a thrill murder, done for no reason but to satisfy a sadistical urge and intellectual vanity.
    • 96 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Red River
    Howard Hawks' production and direction give a masterful interpretation to a story of the early west and the opening of the Chisholm Trail, over which Texas cattle were moved to Abilene to meet the railroad on its march across the country.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    A Foreign Affair
    While subject is handled for comedy, Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder have managed to underlay the fun with an expose of human frailties and, to some extent, indicate a passive bitterness among the conquered in the occupied areas.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Key Largo
    A tense film thriller has been developed from Maxwell Anderson's play, Key Largo. Emphasis is on tension in the telling, and effective use of melodramatic mood has been used to point up the suspense.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Paradine Case
    The Paradine Case offers two hours and 11 minutes of high dramatics.
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