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. Kill List
    Displaying both a nasty edge and a playful sense of humor -- but thankfully, never at the same time -- Brit import Kill List is several cuts above its fellow midbudget horror brethren.
  2. Goodbye First Love
    The present picture, filmed with supreme confidence, offers another unapologetically sentimental story stripped to its emotional core.
  3. Sound of My Voice
    Two documentary filmmakers infiltrate a mysterious cult, only to find themselves drawn into the leader's insidious grip, in the taut, compelling low-budget feature Sound of My Voice.
  4. Splinters
    Surfing meets sociology in Splinters, a compelling documentary about the sport's arrival in the Papua New Guinea village of Vanimo.
  5. The Turin Horse
    Though ripe for metaphorical interpretation, the slender setup, about the fate of a horse seen beaten in the streets, gives arthouse audiences little to cling to, and will provide institutional and fest programmers a test-of-wills head-scratcher for their calendars.
  6. First Position
    The picture combines the built-in drama, tension and suspense of documentaries such as "Spellbound" with exciting, beautifully lensed variations performed by the virtuosos of the future.
  7. The Pruitt-Igoe Myth
    Detailing the birth, life and death of America's first major urban housing project in St. Louis, Chad Freidrichs' The Pruitt-Igoe Myth combines concise but thoroughgoing sociological-historical analysis and elegant cinematic resources in service of an uncommonly artful example of film journalism.
  8. Sinister
    The scares are not just intense but unyielding in this compelling horror yarn from "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" director Scott Derrickson.
  9. Under Fire: Journalists in Combat
    Viewers unconvinced by the "war is a drug" doctrine set forth by Kathryn Bigelow's "The Hurt Locker" will find it amply corroborated by the self-admitted adrenaline junkies here, whose collective war-reporting experience spans an astounding number of overseas conflicts from Sarajevo and Chechnya to El Salvador and Libya.
  10. The Miners' Hymns
    Morrison sometimes slows down imagery to a hypnotic, frame-by-frame trance-like state; one can imagine townsfolk scrutinizing the faces of long-dead relatives magically raised.
  11. The Wolverine
    The Wolverine boasts one of the best pulp-inspired scripts yet. It’s still full of corny dialogue...but there’s a genuine elegance to the way it establishes Logan’s tortured condition and slowly brings the character around to recovering his heroic potential, methodically setting up and paying off ideas as it unfolds.
  12. Your Sister's Sister
    After putting male insecurity under a comic microscope in "Humpday," writer-director Lynn Shelton hands the fairer sex a more prominent role in Your Sister's Sister, another winning study of relational boundaries crossed and sexual dares gone awry.
  13. Marley
    Kevin Macdonald's generous, absorbing, family-authorized documentary on the late, still-reigning king of reggae music.
  14. Safety Not Guaranteed
    Develops into an endearingly scrappy and romantic romp that serves up some nice soul-searching moments alongside a steady stream of laughs.
  15. End of Watch
    Ultimately, the mock-doc device works because Gyllenhaal and Pena so completely reinvent themselves in-character. Instead of wearing the roles like costumes or uniforms, they let the job seep into their skin, a feat without which "End of Watch's" pseudo-reality never would have worked.
  16. Ruby Sparks
    There's little doubt that Kazan has written a sly, amusing portrait of male self-absorption and artistic tyranny.
  17. The Long Day Closes
    Strength of Davies’ vision is the crux, and it holds the line to the final, confident fadeout.
  18. A Simple Life
    Suffused with the gentle, unforced humanity viewers have come to expect from Hong Kong helmer Ann Hui, A Simple Life is a tender ode to the elderly, their caregivers and the mutual generosity of spirit that makes their limited time together worthwhile.
  19. Noah
    It is never less than fascinating — and sometimes dazzling — in its ambitions.
  20. Dolphin Boy
    A natural fit for nature-film audiences and the edu-tainment market.
  21. Caroline and Jackie
    The sum of the film is greater than its parts, and while it does make demands of its audience, the cumulative emotional impact is startling.
  22. The LEGO Movie
    Phil Lord and Christopher Miller irreverently deconstruct the state of the modern blockbuster and deliver a smarter, more satisfying experience in its place, emerging with a fresh franchise for others to build upon.
  23. Side Effects
    Steven Soderbergh's elegantly coiled puzzler spins a tale of clinical depression and psychiatric malpractice into an absorbing, cunningly unpredictable entertainment that, like much of his recent work, closely observes how a particular subset of American society operates in a needy, greedy, paranoid and duplicitous age.
  24. Sleepless Night
    There's no mistaking Jardin's playful mastery of the Hollywood-style action aesthetic; his movie starts in high gear and accelerates steadily from there.
  25. Patience (After Sebald)
    Gee follows Sebald's path with only occasional detours, while intermittently glimpsed talking heads fade in and out of artful black-and-white landscapes.
  26. Flight
    Denzel Washington is aces as a commercial airline pilot who pulls off a miraculous mid-air stunt while flying with a 0.24 blood alcohol concentration, only to face his demons on the ground.
  27. Bill W.
    Showing deep appreciation for Wilson's influence, as well as for the obscurity in which he spent his career in the spiritual-rescue business, the helmers employ a motherlode of photographs, diary entries, correspondence and recorded speeches to tell a sensational story that many will think they know, but don't.
  28. OC87: The Obsessive Compulsive, Major Depression, Bipolar, Asperger's Movie
    OC87 serves both its subject and its viewers well by chronicling a process that is actually insightful, entertaining and apparently successful.
  29. The Queen of Versailles
    This timely and involving documentary elicits both sympathy and schadenfreude, as Greenfield regards her all-too-vilifiable subjects with a complexity that should impress viewers of all economic and political persuasions.
  30. Paul Williams Still Alive
    An engrossing and satisfying picture, one that can be enjoyed even by people who have never before heard of its subject.
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