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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    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Captains Courageous
    The Kipling yarn, built around a wealthy, motherless brat who accidentaly lands with a cod-fishing fleet, and undergoes regeneration during an enforced three months’ piscatorial quest, has been given splendid production, performance, photography and dramatic composition.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Kid Galahad
    The treatment is sophisticated and production deluxe. Also more than the usual amount of romance for a slugfest
    • 77 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    A Star Is Born
    Although not the first film which has attempted to capitalize the international reputation of Hollywood, it is unquestionably the most effective one yet made. The highly commendable results are achieved with a minimum of satiric hokum and a maximum of honest story telling.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Marked Woman
    Marked Woman has no romance to sell. This is a hard-hitting yarn of five girls working for a vice king.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Sabotage
    Competent and experienced hand of the director is apparent throughout this production, which is a smart one and executed in a business-like manner from start to finish.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    After the Thin Man
    It has the same stars, William Powell and Myrna Loy; the same style of breezy direction by W.S. Van Dyke; almost as many sparkling lines of dialog and amusing situations; but it hasn't, and probably couldn't have, the same freshness and originality of its predecessor.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    My Man Godfrey
    William Powell and Carole Lombard are pleasantly teamed in this splendidly produced comedy. Story is balmy, but not too much so, and lends itself to the sophisticated screen treatment of Eric Hatch's novel.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Swing Time
    Swing Time is another winner for the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers combo. It's smart, modern, and impressive in every respect, from its boy-loses-girl background to its tunefulness, dancipation, production quality and general high standards.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Green Pastures
    A simple, enchanting, audience-captivating all-[black] cinematic fable.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Secret Agent
    Secret Agent dallies much on the way but rates as good spy entertainment, suave story telling, and, in one particular case, brilliant characterization.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Show Boat
    Show Boat, Universal’s second talkerized version, is a smash filmusical. Basic tender romance [from Edna Ferber’s novel] between Magnolia (Irene Dunne) and Gaylord Ravenal (Allan Jones), romantic wastrel of the Mississippi river banks, has been most effectively projected by this reproduction of the classic [1927] Edna Ferber-Oscar Hammerstein II-Jerome Kern operetta.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Great Ziegfeld
    William Powell’s Zieggy is excellent. Preserving the sympathies, he endows the impersonation with all the qualities of a great entrepreneur and sentimentalist without sacrificing the shades and moods called for.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Desire
    The direction is subtle and inspired, with many smart little Lubitschian touches adding to the general appeal of the yarn [by Hans Szekely and R.A. Stemmle] and its plot.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Story of Louis Pasteur
    It couldn't have been an easy film to make, and the fact that it holds as much general interest as it does speaks volumes. But the producers couldn't avoid some dull stretches of scientific discourse.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Captain Blood
    Captain Blood, from the Rafael Sabatini novel, is a big picture. It's a spectacle which will establish both Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. Director Michael Curtiz hasn't spared the horses. It's a lavish, swashbuckling saga of the Spanish main.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    A Tale of Two Cities
    Metro achieves in A Tale of Two Cities a screen classic.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Mutiny on the Bounty
    Mutiny takes its time, and plenty of it, without being guilty of a single dull moment.
    • 93 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Top Hat
    This one can't miss and the reasons are three - Fred Astaire, Irving Berlin's 11 songs and sufficient comedy between numbers to hold the film together.
    • 93 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The 39 Steps
    Yes, they can make pictures in England. This one proves it. International spy stories are most always good, and this is one of the best. [19 Jun 1935, p.21]
    • Variety
    • 44 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Raven
    A good horror flicker. Just vaguely 'suggested' by the Edgar Allen Poe classic, the adaptation wanders not a little, but the basic romance is wisely kept to the fore, and Bela Lugosi, as the psycopathic medico to whom Irene Ware is indebted for her life contributes the shocker aspects forcibly.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Informer
    The Informer is forcefully and intelligently written, directed and acted.
    • 95 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Bride of Frankenstein
    Karloff manages to invest the character with some subtleties of emotion that are surprisingly real and touching.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Man Who Knew Too Much
    An unusually fine dramatic story handled excellently from a production standpoint. Built along gangster lines, but from an international crook standpoint, with a lot of melodramatic suspense added.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Strauss' Great Waltz
    The Great Waltz is a field day for music lovers plus elegant entertainment. Producers were nearly two years on this film, but the extra effort shows in the nicety with which its many component parts fit together. It is Luise Rainer who makes the film.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Roberta
    Roberta is musical picture-making at its best - fast, smart, good looking and tuneful.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    David Copperfield
    It was almost an adventure to try to bring to the screen the expansively optimistic Micawber, but he lives again in W.C. Fields, who only once yields to his penchant for horseplay.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Imitation of Life
    John M. Stahl directs this kind of thing very well. He keeps the Fannie Hurst ‘success story’ brand of snobbishness under control and the film flows with mounting interest, if at moments a trifle slowly.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Gay Divorcee
    All through the picture there's charm, romance, gaiety and eclat.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Little Miss Marker
    This picture is a good response to that element that claims there is nothing good in pictures. Clean, funny, with thrills and heart appeal all nicely blended. [22 May 1934, p.15]
    • Variety
    • 86 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Thin Man
    The Thin Man was an entertaining novel, and now it's an entertaining picture.
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