Variety's Scores

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For 17,825 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: 9,159 out of 17825
  2. Mixed: 7,029 out of 17825
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17825
17825 movie reviews
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  1. Morning Sun
    Admirably balanced production that pulls the curtain back slightly on a little-charted period of modern Chinese history.
  2. Corsage
    Full of odd glitches and deliberate flubs in period detail, the film feels like an invitation into a secret conspiracy to reach back through time and, with deft, irreverent 21st-century fingers, loosen the stays on Empress Elisabeth’s corsetry just a little.
  3. The Army of Crime
    Guediguian's lengthy period yarn features a wide array of characters filmed with his habitual simpatico eye, but loses the dramatic thread in too many plots, too little action and not enough originality.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Escape from Alcatraz
    Screenwriter Richard Tuggle and director Don Siegel provide a model of super-efficient filmmaking. From the moment Clint Eastwood walks onto The Rock to the final title card explaining the three escapees were never heard from again, Escape from Alcatraz is relentless in establishing a mood and pace of unrelieved tension.
    • Variety
  5. Dirty Wars
    It takes pains to make the political personal, forging the viewer’s identification with Scahill by making persistent use of his voiceover narration and keeping him oncamera throughout.
  6. Grosse Pointe Blank
    The zeal and good nature of the cast overcome the artificial quality of the situations.
  7. Machuca
    Richly human in focus, the drama steadily cranks up its political and emotional charge.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Boyz n the Hood
    Ultra socially responsible, sometimes to the point of playing like a laundry list of difficulties faced specifically by the urban black community.
  9. Red Rocket
    Everything in Red Rocket happens just a little too easily, which is one of the weaknesses of a self-indulgent regional satire that stretches its perhaps-80-minute plot over more than two hours.
  10. 3:10 to Yuma
    James Mangold's remake walks a fine line in retaining many of the original's qualities while smartly shaking things up a bit.
  11. Jane Eyre
    The candlelight flickers exquisitely even as the passions are slow to ignite in this spare, shrewdly acted but not especially vital retelling of Jane Eyre.
  12. Wolf Children
    Embracing the patient, poetic style of such Japanese masters as Ozu and Mizoguchi, Hosoda sees no need for the manic energy and manufactured conflict of other recent toons.
  13. Actress
    Robert Greene's extraordinary collaboration with actress Brandy Burre is a playful, provocative examination of self-performance.
  14. Children of the Revolution
    Brimming with almost too many ideas for its 99-minute running time, Duncan's film boasts a strong cast of top actors who flesh out a group of bizarre yet recognizable characters involved in the political scene from the '50s to the present day.
  15. A Monster Calls
    We’ve heard the same lesson countless times before in other movies, and though it’s certainly impressive to see Conor’s anxieties manifest themselves in such a stunning Ent-like being, as monsters go, Bayona’s creation is all bark and no bite.
  16. 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.
  17. Elza (Le bonheur d'Elza)
    Suffused with buoyant, sunlit sensuality, like its free-flying heroine, Elza confounds logic while seducing the senses.
  18. Machines
    This simultaneously beautiful and abjectly unhappy film is forced to close by silently admitting its limitations.
  19. Shaun of the Dead
    A classic example of a clever idea that could easily have run out of steam halfway. However, co-scripters Pegg and Wright structure it as a classic three-acter (set-up, journey, finale) with enough twists, character development and small set pieces to keep the comedy boiling.
  20. Their Finest
    Their Finest is the sort of crowd-pleaser that knows the difference between satisfying its viewers and flattering them, all the while showcasing surprising performances from Gemma Arterton and Sam Claflin, and an entirely unsurprising one from Bill Nighy — a master scene-stealer pulling off yet another brazen heist.
  21. Creepy
    The film supplies a headlong rush of tension and cruelty all the way to a gratifying final payoff.
  22. The White Tiger
    The White Tiger isn’t a fairy tale, but by the end the movie still leaves you feeling that it has made a wish into a command.
  23. Syriana
    A weighty and deeply intriguing look at the many-tentacled beast that is the international oil industry. Wide-ranging and restlessly probing, Stephen Gaghan's second directorial effort uses the same mosaic storytelling technique as in his Oscar-winning screenplay for "Traffic."
  24. The Stroll
    The Stroll is a powerful piece of trans history-making, a document that feels wounded, lived in, and yet joyfully alive.
  25. Confessions of a Good Samaritan
    Despite being a tad too long and a trifle repetitive, the documentary essay “Confessions of a Good Samaritan” from American helmer Penny Lane is a thought-provoking personal investigation into a subject rarely examined: the nature of altruism.
  26. Silent Souls
    Beautifully assembled, but emotionally inert despite its focus on bereavement and love's endurance, Russian art film Silent Souls reps at the very least a significant step up for its helmer, Aleksei Fedorchenko.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Stand by Me
    Scripters have written inspired dialog for this quartet of plucky boys at that hard-to-capture age when they’re still young enough to get scared and yet old enough to want to sneak smokes and cuss.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Reds
    Reds bites off more than an audience can comfortably chew. Constant conflicts between politics and art, love and social conscience, individuals versus masses, pragmatism against idealism, take the form of intense and eventually exhausting arguments that dominate the script by Beatty and British playwright Trevor Griffiths.
  29. Islands
    A lean but revealing film of unexpected existential heft.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Colors Within
    Its alignment with its characters’ emotional currents is cemented by some of Yamada’s flourishes.
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