Variety's Scores

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For 17,791 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: 9,139 out of 17791
  2. Mixed: 7,015 out of 17791
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17791
17791 movie reviews
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  1. Our Daily Bread
    Looks at the agricultural industry across Europe through sound and images alone. Pic offers a tabula rasa in which some auds will see a horrifying indictment of the industry's cruelties, others a realistic depiction of mechanized farming, and some a soft-spoken tribute to manual labor. Meanwhile, precisely composed lensing and painstaking sound design create moments of sublime beauty.
  2. Memoirs of My Nervous Illness
    Richly layered picture dramatizes a landmark doctor/patient showdown, chronicles a classic case of transgenderism and reveals how aspects of Schreber's story prefigured Nazism.
  3. In the Pit
    Leo Heiblum's pulsating music and Samuel Larson's dense, fascinating sound editing rewardingly compliment Rulfo's electrifying visuals.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tazza: The High Rollers
    Writer-director Choi Dong-hoon, whose grifter dramedy "The Big Swindle" was an unheralded gem two years ago, considerably ups the ante in his second feature, a long-limbed yarn centered on a bunch of ruthless professional gamblers. But involving characters and devil-may-care tone make the long running time hardly a stretch.
  5. Daratt
    Using a simple storytelling style that grows stronger with each passing scene, Dry Season draws the viewer into its small two-character drama set in post-war Chad, while it offers a deep reflection on injustice and frustrated revenge.
  6. I Don't Want to Sleep Alone
    With a pronounced Baroque palette and his usual astonishing use of light, picture looks ravishing -- individual scenes make a deeper impact than the characters themselves.
  7. Private Property
    Boasting a script so clear and airtight that shrinks could use it for family therapy courses, the sole caveat is the unrelenting unpleasantness of the stronger-willed son.
  8. Joshua
    A creepy-little-kid suspenser decked out with sufficient class to lend it a certain distinction.
  9. Laura Smiles
    Sharp dialogue, idiosyncratic characters and a wickedly brilliant structure that subtly derails expectation make Laura Smiles a rarity among mellers.
  10. The Life of Reilly
    With equal measures of prickly wit, gleeful pride and bemused gratitude, Charles Nelson Reilly looks back at his life, and invites his audience to share the view, in this thoroughly engaging filmization of his one-man stage show.
  11. 'Tis Autumn: The Search for Jackie Paris
    De Felitta seems a born documaker. He brilliantly constructs a tale born of a genuine love of jazz and a need to understand how Paris went from sensation to footnote in a generation.
  12. Protagonist
    The dangers of extremism and the virtues of uncertainty are the keys to the remarkable Protagonist, docu helmer Jessica Yu's exploration of four men's journey through dysfunction, obsession and redemption.
  13. Woman on the Beach
    A wonderful, serious-minded romantic comedy-drama.
  14. To the Limit
    A visually breathtaking essay about daredevils hooked on the thrill of speed rock-climbing.
  15. What We Do Is Secret
    Actor Shane West and writer-director Rodger Grossman have a clear, unwavering perspective on Crash that should entice curiosity seekers and old punks.
  16. Momma's Man
    Wryly comic, sometimes heartbreaking and altogether original film about a thirtysomething Angeleno who pays a visit to his aging New York parents and finds himself unwilling or unable to leave.
  17. Guest of Cindy Sherman
    If a doc manages to inform and entertain, it's ahead of the competition. If it features engaging personalities (or penguins), so much the better. And if it manages not to lose its assets while dipping its toe into murkier issues -- becoming, say, a brow-knitting thumb-sucker -- then it's really a work of art.
  18. Lymelife
    Intense perfs by Rory Culkin and Alec Baldwin are standouts in a movie that brims with vivid supporting turns.
  19. The Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story
    Engaging documentary draws on plentiful archival footage and A-list interviewees, and should lure dedicated nostalgists.
  20. Quiet Chaos
    Beautifully modulated, fluidly told film expresses pain with warm understatement.
  21. Flame and Citron
    An absorbing, shades-of-gray look at home-front intrigue in Nazi-occupied Denmark during World War II. Ole Christian Madsen’s accomplished fourth feature plays out on a much larger canvas than he’s used previously and offers nuance and ambiguity in equal measure with violence and tragedy.
  22. Passing Strange
    This first-rate multicamera transcript of a terrific show should delight musical fans (and many who think they aren't) as a niche broadcast item.
  23. Second Skin
    The human dramas of individual gamers are what really make this technically polished documentary so fascinating and potentially commercial.
  24. Casi divas
    Gloriously flamboyant comedic extravaganza, fuses soap opera and "American Idol"-type competition, following four wildly different women vying for the star role in a feature filmization of a popular telenovela.
  25. Unmade Beds
    An exquisitely tender tale of two young Euro immigrants trying to find themselves (but not each other) in contempo London, Unmade Beds has a lively, romantic spirit that recalls the playfulness and spontaneity of the French New Wave.
  26. In Search of Beethoven
    Beautifully lensed and intelligently crafted.
  27. Bam gua nat
    Very Korean in its emotional content, while also preserving a quizzical distance that is quite French, picture is one of his lightest and most easily digestible metaphysical meals to date.
  28. In Search of Memory
    Petra Seeger's beautifully crafted documentary about neurobiologist Eric Kandel, In Search of Memory, interweaves experience and experiments, autobiography and science as seamlessly as the Nobel Prize winner's same-titled book.
  29. Ajami
    Time shifts may overcomplicate the narrative for some, but the pay-off packs a major punch.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Terribly Happy
    Entertaining and full of surprising twists, this highly cinematic tale of a Copenhagen policeman working punishment duty in the provinces plays with genre in a manner that can be compared with the Coen brothers or David Lynch.
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