Variety's Scores

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For 17,786 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: 9,137 out of 17786
  2. Mixed: 7,013 out of 17786
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17786
17786 movie reviews
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    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Peter Pan
    James M. Barrie's childhood fantasy, Peter Pan, many times legit-staged, and previously filmed with live actors, is a feature cartoon of enchanting quality.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Greatest Show on Earth
    As has come to be expected from DeMille, the story line is not what could be termed subtle. While it may draw some critical catcalls, it does effectively serve the purpose of a framework for all the atmosphere and excitement of the circus on both sides of the big canvas. In any case, what bleacher fan wants to get mixed up with a plot he’s going to have to wrestle with?
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Escape from New York
    Although execution doesn’t quite live up to the fabulous premise, Escape from New York is a solidly satisfying actioner.
  4. The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson
    Driven by both empathy and a passion for justice, “How to Survive a Plague” director David France’s stellar documentary charts an investigation into the still-unsolved death of trans icon Marsha P. Johnson, along the way illuminating the persistent discrimination that exists today, and the bonds of community designed to counter it.
  5. 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.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Tucker: The Man and His Dream
    Tucker represents the sunniest imaginable telling of an at least partly tragic episode in recent history.
  7. 99 Homes
    This dynamically acted, unapologetically contrived pic reps the filmmaker’s best chance to date of connecting with a wider audience — one likely to share the helmer’s bristling anger over corruptly maintained class divides in modern-day America.
  8. Father of My Children
    Marked by moments of remarkable stillness amid its emotional tumult, the film's classy, perceptive treatment of potentially maudlin material merits wider arthouse attention than it's likely to receive.
  9. Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story
    Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story is a moving, wrenching, compellingly well-made documentary about Reeve’s life that inevitably ends up centering on his accident and its aftermath.
  10. The Trial of the Chicago 7
    Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 is the rare drama about the 1960s that’s powerful and authentic and moving enough to feel as if it were taking place today.
  11. Cloud
    An offbeat internet-age drama that devolves into a vengeance actioner so deconstructed it’s almost existentially abstract: Beckett giving it both barrels.
  12. A Cop Movie
    At times, A Cop Movie seems unnecessarily convoluted in its structure, but by the end, the brilliance of its design becomes clear: This is nothing short of an existential inquiry into what it takes to be a cop.
  13. Flora and Son
    It’s catchy and touching, it weaves the music into the story with a spontaneity that can leave you laughing with pleasure, and it navigates an honest path from despair to belief, which is Carney’s disarmingly sweet calling card.
  14. The Lunchbox
    Batra adeptly plays on the tension of will they or won’t they meet, making good decisions based on character and situation rather than the need to uplift an audience.
  15. Citizen K
    Authoritative and dense — though never dull — at over two hours, Citizen K is the prolific docmaker’s most rewarding feature in several years, attaching his typically methodical research to a cheerfully slippery, charismatic human subject who, even on the side of right, is cagey in the face of investigation.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Dave
    A delightful, buoyant new take on an old theme, deftly mixing political cynicism with elements of Mr Smith Goes to Washington.
  17. Shine a Light
    Martin Scorsese’s energetic account of a Stones concert at Gotham’s Beacon Theater in fall 2006 takes full advantage of heavy camera coverage and top-notch sound to create an invigorating musical trip down memory lane, as well as to provoke gentle musings on the wages of aging and the passage of time.
  18. Menace II Society
    Fierce, violent and searing in its observation, the film makes previous excursions seem like a stroll through the park.
  19. The Sleepy Time Gal
    Bisset throws herself into what is by far the most emotionally demanding role of her career and emerges honorably.
  20. Blue Car
    This melancholy, insightfully scripted coming-of-age drama is moving without being manipulative and makes an assured calling card for writer-director Karen Moncrieff.
  21. This So-Called Disaster: Sam Shepard Directs the Late Henry Moss
    Not as insightful as "Topsy-Turvy" or "Vanya on 42nd Street" about the process of putting on a show, it's nonetheless a fascinating meeting of the minds -- between iconic New York indie filmmaker Michael Almereyda and laconic American cowboy and dramatist Shepard.
  22. A Very Long Engagement
    Told with a blend of visual mastery and emotional intimacy, ambitious venture sustains a special melding of romance and pragmatism that should engage discerning audiences.
  23. Black Friday
    Despite its large cast and complex criss-crossing from past to present, the movie rarely catches fire as an involving human drama.
  24. Rembrandt's J'Accuse...!
    An enthralling docudrama that examines the Dutch master's most famous painting, "The Night Watch," for proof that it was responsible for his dramatic fall from grace.
  25. Living in Emergency: Stories of Doctors Without Borders
    With rare candor and a refreshing lack of piety, first-timers and combat-weary veterans exhibit their camaraderie, euphoria and burnout as the camera documents their struggles with logistics, horror, death and self-doubt.
  26. This Ain't California
    “Dogtown and Z-Boys” meets “The Lives of Others” in This Ain’t California, a spirited not-quite-documentary portrait of the skateboarding subculture that flourished in East Germany in the early 1980s.
  27. Tokyo Waka: A City Poem
    “Waka” refers to an ancient form of poetry still widely popular today, and helmers Haptas and Samuelson, through their serene lensing and fluid editing, propose a visual thread linking the past to the present “as the crow flies.”
  28. The Death of Louis XIV
    The vividness of the realization — with a sound design that emphasizes every chew and tick of the clock — makes the movie continually engrossing.
  29. The Light of the Moon
    [ Jessica M. Thompson’s ] simply-structured film is harrowingly effective in its streamlined, low-frills way: sensitive without ever being sanctimonious, brutally frank without ever lapsing into exploitation.
  30. The Breaker Upperers
    It’s a terrific showcase for the duo and their entire cast, which, besides a pop-up bit from Clement, is curated from a local talent pool that Hollywood has yet to spelunk. After this, it should.
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