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. A Screaming Man
    Haroun’s tender but unsentimental regard for his characters allows his storytelling a natural gravitas thoroughly suited to the simultaneously unfolding private and national tragedies.
  2. Stake Land
    A highly satisfying low-budget horror-thriller from helmer/co-writer Jim Mickle.
  3. The Devil's Double
    The life story of Latif Yahia, body double to Saddam Hussein's diabolically unhinged son Uday, makes for slick action-movie fodder in The Devil's Double, a rocket-powered thriller.
  4. Higher Ground
    A satirical yet sensitive portrait of life in an evangelical Christian community, Higher Ground marks a startlingly bold directing debut for actress Vera Farmiga.
  5. Fly Away
    Exceptional performances by two femme leads and sensitive but unsentimental storytelling throughout.
  6. The First Grader
    The uplifting true story of world's oldest primary school student, The First Grader reels you in with its human-interest hook, but packs an even more vital agenda: enlisting Kenyan locals to share little-known details of their nation's independence.
  7. Buck
    Warmly engaging Buck is a portrait of Buck Brannaman, a trainer whose remarkable way with equines provided a model for "The Horse Whisperer" in both novel and movie forms.
  8. The Guard
    A crusty jewel of a performance by Brendan Gleeson goes a long way toward enlivening an otherwise routine tale of murder, blackmail, drug trafficking and rural police corruption in The Guard.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Road to Nowhere
    Monte Hellman's first feature film in 21 years is one of his finest and deepest, a twin peak to his 1971 masterpiece, "Two Lane Blacktop."
  10. The Whistleblower
    This accomplished debut feature avoids most of the usual pitfalls, channeling its outrage into a tense, focused piece of storytelling with a powerful sense of empathy.
  11. ParaNorman
    Few movies so taken with death have felt so rudely alive as ParaNorman, the latest handcrafted marvel from the stop-motion artists at Laika ("Coraline").
  12. The Artist
    A love letter to silent cinema sealed with a smirk, The Artist reteams director Michel Hazanavicius with dapper "OSS 117" star Jean Dujardin for another high-concept homage, delivering a heartfelt, old-school romance without the aid of spoken dialogue or sound.
  13. The Mill and the Cross
    Neither conventional costume drama nor abstract objet d'art, this visually ravishing, surprisingly beguiling gamble won't fit any standard arthouse niche. Still it could prove the Polish helmer's belated international breakthrough.
  14. Tuesday, After Christmas
    Again, Muntean and his script collaborators offer exceptionally naturalistic dialogue.
  15. Rejoice and Shout
    An overview of African-American gospel sounds whose dazzling talent-display should exhilarate viewers regardless of religious leanings.
  16. One Lucky Elephant
    A bittersweet story of man, beast and a very real relationship that makes helmer Lisa Leeman's documentary the thinking person's "Dumbo" -- and, coincidentally, one of the better kids' movies.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    An American Werewolf in London
    A clever mixture of comedy and horror which succeeds in being both funny and scary, An American Werewolf in London possesses an overriding eagerness to please that prevents it from becoming off-putting, and special effects freaks get more than their money's worth.
  18. !Women Art Revolution
    Anyone seeking a dialectic, of course, can look elsewhere, but Hershman Leeson's film is a valuable resource on a movement whose issues remain relevant.
  19. The Pirates! Band of Misfits
    Although this family-friendly tale of feckless adventurers pursuing a prize is consistently funnier than "Arthur," in language, humor and attitude it's as endearingly British as Yorkshire pudding, soccer hooliganism and wonky teeth.
  20. Elysium
    Even working within a more conventional framework, Blomkamp again proves to be a superb storyteller. He has a master’s sense of pacing, slowly immersing us into his future world rather than assailing us with nonstop action, and envisioning that world with an architect’s eye for the smallest details.
  21. Take Shelter
    This deliberately paced psychological drama builds an ever-tightening knot of tension around an excellent Michael Shannon, here playing a family man slowly driven mad by apocalyptic visions that could be paranoid, prophetic or both.
  22. Looper
    In a genre infamous for loose ends, this thinking man's thriller marshals action, romance and a dose of very dark comedy toward a stunning payoff.
  23. Killer Elite
    A macho, adrenaline-fix suspenser that plays like the bigscreen equivalent of those pulpy spy novels that once clogged grocery-store checkouts.
  24. Attack the Block
    Brit comedian-TV presenter Joe Cornish emerges fully formed as an exciting new writer-helmer with his enormously appealing debut feature, Attack the Block.
  25. Savages
    Savages never quite captures the novel's diamond-hard sarcasm, it offers other satisfactions in its visceral immediacy, its overriding sense of danger and a clutch of performances that, whatever one's reservations about the characters, can't help but court the viewer's emotional investment.
  26. Bully
    Lee Hirsch's "The Bully Project" serves as a call to action against abuse of students by their peers as it follows, over the course of a year, five sobering case histories of unrelenting schoolyard persecution.
  27. Senna
    Footage from an onboard camera thrillingly places the viewer in Senna's lap, and soberingly includes the accident that claimed his life.
  28. Where Soldiers Come From
    Covering their lives with intimate access from before boot camp to the difficult return home, Heather Courtney's documentary packs a savage but understated punch.
  29. We Were Here
    We Were Here concentrates on the impressive way a collective of disenfranchised individuals came together to support one another in this time of crisis. In that respect, the title has dual meanings, referring to both the film's "Shoah"-like survivors' testimony and the fact that the gay community was there for one another at a time that government and medicine were slow to respond.
  30. This Is 40
    Judd Apatow's instincts have rarely been sharper, wiser or more relatable than in This Is 40, an acutely perceptive, emotionally generous laffer about the joys and frustrations of marriage and middle age.
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