Variety's Scores

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For 17,782 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 2.4 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: 9,136 out of 17782
  2. Mixed: 7,010 out of 17782
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17782
17782 movie reviews
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  1. Hustlers
    Flashy, fleshy and all-around impossible to ignore, Hustlers amounts to nothing less than a cultural moment, inspired by an outrageous New York Magazine profile (which serves as the sturdy six-inch stilettos on which the movie stands) adapted by writer-director Lorene Scafaria at her most Scorsese, and starring Jennifer Lopez like you’re never seen her before.
  2. Let the Sunshine In
    Perfectly small rather than slight, and radiantly carried by Juliette Binoche — in a light-touch tour de force to be filed alongside her work in Kiarostami’s “Certified Copy” — this turns out to be a subtler departure than it outwardly appears for Denis, most evoking her other Parisienne drifting-hearts study, “Friday Night,” in its bittersweet tone.
  3. Life of Pi
    This exquisitely beautiful adaptation of Yann Martel's castaway saga has a sui generis quality that's never less than beguiling, even if its fable-like construction and impeccable artistry come up a bit short in terms of truly gripping, elemental drama.
  4. Let Me In
    "Cloverfield" director Matt Reeves hasn't ruined the elegant Swedish vampire story by remaking it. If anything, he's made some improvements, including the addition of a tense action-horror sequence in the middle of the film.
  5. For Those in Peril
    Wright’s strongest achievement here is an evocative depiction of place, where young teens flee from adult supervision and danger lies in wait. And while the story may feel claustrophobic, the visuals are free-flowing.
  6. Return to Dust
    A later-life love story of the gentlest kind, Li Ruijun’s Return to Dust is an absorbing, beautifully framed drama that makes a virtue — possibly too much a virtue — of simplicity.
  7. Fences
    Fences has passages of fierce and moving power, but on screen the play comes off as episodic and more than a bit unwieldy.
  8. Kimi
    It’s a welcome reminder that less, in the movies, can sometimes be more.
  9. The Witness
    The Witness functions as a project of not only confrontation but resurrection, as Bill’s sleuthing sheds new light on Kitty’s personality, romances and career, and thus finally re-emphasizes her as a flesh-and-blood person rather than just a famous victim.
  10. Twinless
    Sweeney recognizes that some of his laughs could be in poor taste, but isn’t shy about casting himself as a weirdo, when such discomfort can point the way to deeper truths.
  11. Miss Bala
    With the blistering firecracker that is Miss Bala, next-gen Mexican director and AFI grad Gerardo Naranjo delivers on the promise of such well-respected early pics as "Drama/Mex" and "I'm Gonna Explode," revealing them as dry runs for this "Scarface"-scary depiction of south-of-the-border crime run amok.
  12. Birders: The Central Park Effect
    Director Kimball's sharply focused, serenely ravishing nature photography provides reason enough to go armchair birding.
  13. Conclave
    Conclave is one of those rare films that respects the audience’s attention, even as it sneaks a few tricks behind their backs.
  14. Mother
    Key casting is aces, led by a deglammed Kim, forcefully low-key as the mother who seems capable of anything to protect her son.
  15. Free Willy
    An astute, intelligent family picture, the film is a potent reminder that you can have your heart in the right place and still produce a gripping, satisfying entertainment.
  16. Keep the Lights On
    Delicately tracing the troubled nine-year bond between two men living in New York, Ira Sachs mines his own memories to sensitive, melancholy if somewhat muted effect in Keep the Lights On.
  17. Hermia & Helena
    With its tricksy timeline and waifish subplots, the film feels unduly stretched even to reach its modest length, while our dramaturgy-fixated protagonist is slow to stumble into a compelling arc of her own.
  18. Rogers Park
    It’s an ideal showcase for the four leads, who are given the latitude to create fully human characters.
  19. Another Round
    Another Round is the kind of movie that’s so into its cool concept that it doesn’t sweat the details. Yet the film’s sloppy broadness ends up fighting the Dogme style, which keeps telling us that these people are authentic.
  20. Bitterbrush
    Think of John Ford vistas by way of Kelly Reichardt’s lyricism, soulfully underscored by Bach, and you’ll be roughly in Mahdavian’s vicinity.
  21. Shiva Baby
    Having grown up in a tight-knit Jewish community herself, Seligman tightly orchestrates it all with loving cultural specificity and nuance, working her satirical muscles to a thrilling extent.
  22. Searching for Sugar Man
    A winning musical detective story about a failed, forgotten early '70s rocker.
  23. Sing Street
    The truest and most tearduct-tugging relationship here is that between Conor and his lank-haired college-dropout brother, played with spaced-out warmth and wistful good humor by the ever-likeable Reynor.
  24. Keane
    Convincing as a portrait of a marginal man gone beyond the emotional pale.
  25. Brawl in Cell Block 99
    It’s the rare movie that truly evokes the grindhouse ’70s, because it means everything it’s doing. It’s exploitation made with vicious sincerity.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Yellow Submarine
    This is a full length animated cartoon in which the prime factor is the appearance of the Beatles in caricature form. Here are all the ingredients of a novel entertainment.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Quadrophenia (re-release)
    Sting, as the weekend super-Mod whose image collapses when he's revealed to work as a bellhop, cuts a slick dash in the dancehall sequences.
  28. Va Savoir (Who Knows?)
    An entrancing ensemble piece, directed with calm assurance, acted by a fine ensemble, and structured and scripted with wit and precision.
  29. The Law in These Parts
    Adopting a postmodern method quite different from that of his remarkable "The Inner Tour," Ra'anan Alexandrowicz poses his questions from a legal angle, and finds these minds stumped by a system they've professionally defended.
  30. Official Competition
    Cruz is quite obviously having a ball sending up the ivory-tower vanities and mannerisms of the prodigious auteurs she’s worked with over the years. It’s a performance of fizzy, frenzied, physically elastic inventiveness, though she doesn’t render Lola a complete cartoon.
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