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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  1. Toy Story 3
    This tertiary adventure delivers welcome yet nonessential fun, landing well after its creators have grown up and succeeded toying with more sophisticated stories.
  2. The Souvenir
    Achingly well-observed in its study of a young artist inspired, derailed and finally strengthened by a toxic relationship, it is at once the coming-of-age story of many women and a specific creative manifesto for one of modern British cinema’s most singular writer-directors.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    This Is Spinal Tap
    A vastly amusing satire of heavy metal bands.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Goodfellas
    Simultaneously fascinating and repellent, Goodfellas is Martin Scorsese's colorful but dramatically unsatisfying inside look at Mafia life in 1955-1980 New York City.
  5. A Man Vanishes (1967)
    Imamura's square-framed, black-and-white imagery, in all its various stylistic incarnations, proves as compelling through the docu's myriad detours as in any of his better-known psychological thrillers.
  6. The Look of Silence
    So involving is the raw content of The Look of Silence that some might view its formal elegance as mere luxury, yet the film reveals Oppenheimer to be a documentary stylist of evolving grace and sophistication.
  7. Tower
    A gripping dramatic reconstruction, a tribute to the heroes and the fallen, and inevitably an expression of nostalgia for the days when a mass shooting still had the power to shock, Keith Maitland’s film weaves rotoscopic animation, archival footage and present-day interviews into a uniquely cinematic memorial.
  8. The Secret Agent
    Mendonça crams the film with vivid time-capsule details.
  9. Burning
    The degree to which Burning succeeds will depend largely on one’s capacity to identify with the unspoken but strongly conveyed sense of jealousy and frustration its lower-class protagonist feels, coupled with a need to impose some sense of order on events beyond our control.
  10. Drive My Car
    Hamaguchi’s filmmaking, always accomplished, reaches new heights of refinement and sensory richness here, principally via Shinomiya’s immaculate, opaline lensing.
  11. Moolaadé
    This richly textured parable feels every inch the work of a master.
  12. It Was Just an Accident
    While the simple premise recalls certain post-WWII dramas in which survivors recognize the Nazi culprits who once terrorized them, the film’s chilling last scene feels like a call to action.
  13. A Summer's Tale
    The thoughts may not be profound, but they are profoundly true to life,and the writer-director’s approach to young people’s concerns is remarkably universal and timeless.
  14. Saint Omer
    Saint Omer challenges accepted ideas of perspective, of subjectivity and objectivity — and even of what cinema can be when it’s framed by an intelligence that doesn’t accept those accepted ideas.
  15. Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner
    The first-ever screenplay written in the Inuit language, Inuktitut -- and the first time's a charm.
  16. L.A. Confidential
    An irresistible treat with enough narrative twists and memorable characters for a half-dozen films.
  17. Three Colors: White
    The entertaining second seg of Krzysztof Kieslowski’s “Three Colors” trilogy is involving, bittersweet and droll. A fine lead perf from Zbigniew Zamachowski anchors an ingenious rags-to-riches tale of revenge filtered through abiding love.
    • 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.
    • 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.
  20. Lost in Translation
    The film's unhurried pace will target it for discerning audiences only, but its wry humor and coolly amused observation of contemporary Japan should score with smart urbanites.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Breaking Away
    Though its plot wins no points for originality, Breaking Away is a thoroughly delightful light comedy, lifted by fine performances from Dennis Christopher and Paul Dooley. The story is nothing more than a triumph for the underdog through sports, this time cycle racing.
  22. Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus
    Far more than a showcase of his talent and productivity, Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus lets Sakamoto deliver an elegy, and in the process, an autobiography of his creative journey, as captured through the precision and poetry of director Neo Sora’s camera.
  23. Son of Saul
    The result is as grim and unyielding a depiction of the Holocaust as has yet been made on that cinematically overworked subject — a masterful exercise in narrative deprivation and sensory overload that recasts familiar horrors in daringly existential terms.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Love Affair
    Dunne is excellent in a role that requires both comedy and dramatic ability. Boyer is particularly effective as the modern Casanova.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Frankenstein
    Looks like a Dracula plus, touching a new peak in horror plays and handled in production with supreme craftsmanship.
  26. Her
    What begins like an arrested adolescent dream soon blossoms into Jonze’s richest and most emotionally mature work to date, burrowing deep into the give and take of relationships, the dawning of middle-aged ennui, and that eternal dilemma shared by both man and machine: the struggle to know one’s own true self.
  27. The Echo
    Examining the unique ties that bind farming families, where everyone’s welfare hangs on the same unkind elements, this exquisitely textured film observes how children’s lives echo those of their parents, repeating for generations on the same constantly inconstant land, until somebody breaks the pattern.
  28. Little Women
    Gerwig’s script is far more comical than any previously committed to film. This she achieves by emphasizing the humor inherent in the source material.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The African Queen
    An engrossing motion picture. Just offbeat enough in story, locale and star teaming of Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn to stimulate the imagination. It is a picture with an unassuming warmth and naturalness that can have a bright boxoffice chance
  30. Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat
    Writer and director Johan Grimonprez sets himself a difficult task with Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, yet accomplishes it with astonishing success. The film plays like both a dense historical text and a lively jazz concert while proving itself to be an invigorating piece of documentary filmmaking.
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