Variety's Scores

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For 17,760 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: 9,121 out of 17760
  2. Mixed: 7,003 out of 17760
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17760
17760 movie reviews
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  1. Uncle Frank
    Uncle Frank recalls plenty of prior coming-out (and coming-of-age) sagas, but revisits their familiar terrain with a confident and skilled mix of humor and character-dynamic shorthand.
  2. Wendy
    What felt so revolutionary in 2012 is no less visionary today, but packs a disappointing sense of familiarity this time around, like tearing open your Christmas presents to find … a huge stack of hand-me-down clothing. Or else, like watching a magic trick performed a second time from a different angle.
  3. Downhill
    The story worked brilliantly before. In Downhill, it works…well enough. The new movie is a teasing trifle with something real on its mind.
  4. The Night House
    Though this tale of a new widow’s apparent haunting gets progressively lost in a narrative maze that’s complicated without being particularly rewarding, director David Bruckner suffuses the action with enough dread and unpleasant goosings to make this an above-average genre exercise.
  5. Shirley
    Rather than presenting another puzzle with important pieces missing, with this project, Decker provides more material than we know what to do with, and the resulting prism feels intellectually rewarding, no matter the angle from which we choose to approach it.
  6. Promising Young Woman
    Haphazard as “Woman” can seem, it all somehow pulls together at last with a satisfying smack.
  7. The Forty-Year-Old Version
    Better late than never, this film is Blank’s shot, and by staying so true to her voice, her aim hits home.
  8. On the Record
    On the Record presents a searing, at times shocking exposé of alleged criminal acts. Yet here, as in those earlier chronicles, what’s extraordinary is the disturbingly intimate communion the film creates between the audience and the survivors. Not just the facts but the meaning of these alleged crimes comes scarily alive in the emotional details of their telling.
  9. Mucho Mucho Amor
    The doc gives Mercado’s story back to Mercado. Better, it shows that Mercado is still the same spiritualistic, highfalutin’ fashion-plate as a retiree eating breakfast at home as he was on TV. The film’s biggest revelation is that Mercado’s mystical, magnificent, big-hearted shtick was no fraud — he was always the real deal.
  10. Kajillionaire
    In the end, Kajillionaire is less about the con than it is the connection, and we’re all the richer as a result.
  11. Jumbo
    Eventually, Jumbo clatters to a stop with a tinny cheer for acceptance, a sugar rush of Belgian new wave music, and the sense that the audience has been taken for a bit of a ride.
  12. Dick Johnson Is Dead
    At once a celebration and a lament, simultaneously jubilant and ineffably sad, it’s a film worth sticking around to see.
  13. Herself
    Many filmmakers mistakenly think that exploiting tragedy is the way to jerk tears from their audience, when in fact, gestures of spontaneous kindness shown by near-strangers can be most moving — something Lloyd understands, boosting the positive energy with anthems like “Chandelier” and “Bulletproof.”
  14. The Courier
    Ironbark’s hook is that it’s based on true events, and the underlying history deserves to be shared.
  15. The Fight
    America is so punch-drunk that The Fight often feels like it’s whacking old bruises. But that is the national psyche’s problem more than the filmmakers’. For their part, they have made a worthwhile record of the civil rights advocates combating the country’s backslide into stripping away rights for voters, immigrants, pregnant women and the LGBTQ community.
  16. The Dissident
    The Dissident is riveting, but it’s also a moving testament to a man whose courage burned too brightly to die with him.
  17. Cuties
    Cuties' job is to coil the contrasting messages and spin them until her lead falls down dizzy, which can make the film feel as subtle as a headache.
  18. Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution
    The movie succeeds in enlightening without ever coming across as an “eat your spinach” civics lesson.
  19. Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets
    It’s “The Bachelorette” wed to “The Iceman Cometh”: the setup is staged, but the tears are real.
  20. The Painter and the Thief
    To get the desired emotional reaction, The Painter and the Thief proves able to deceive in ways that are best discovered for yourself. It works: In a genius final stroke, Ree pulls back to reveal the entire canvas, putting key aspects of this unconventional portrait into startling new perspective.
  21. Never Rarely Sometimes Always
    At once dreamlike and ruthlessly naturalistic, steadily composed yet shot through with roiling currents of anxiety, Never Rarely Sometimes Always is a quietly devastating gem.
  22. Zola
    Sure, it’s fun to see a movie skewer the vapid soullessness of social media and the unregulated economy of male desire, but Zola ultimately rings hollow. The actors are fearless, and yet, how much do we know about these characters in the end? The answer: something of their values, but almost nothing of their lives.
  23. Bad Hair
    Costume designer Ceci’s ensembles and Scott Kuzio’s production design are spot-on. Just as impressive is Simien’s steady handle on his serio-comic tone, at once sly, resonant, and horrific.
  24. To the Ends of the Earth
    To the Ends of the Earth is not flawless — for one thing, it’s questionable whether a journey to as mild a shore as this one needs two hours to complete. But its rhythm is deceptive — the gentle currents of Kurosawa’s attention sluicing across the surface of the film like developer fluid, under which all the colors, dark and light, of the fulfilling but also contradictory experience of world travel come up true and sharp.
  25. Lucky Grandma
    Although the entire film runs just 87 minutes, as Lucky Grandma unspools, Wong’s predicament starts to feel increasingly outlandish, making it difficult for Sealy to sustain the offbeat humor and strong momentum of the opening stretch.
  26. The Australian Dream
    Gordon uses blockbuster tools — pairing bold visuals with the kind of thundering sound design that makes your joints rattle — to turn his well-organized sociology lesson into a more visceral cinematic experience. More than just a compelling TED Talk, it’s an urgent and engaging call to action.
  27. House of Cardin
    Lively as an overview of Cardin’s creative and commercial achievements, House of Cardin is considerably vaguer when it comes to his personal life and legacy.
  28. Disturbing the Peace
    It’s basic action entertainment of a somewhat old-fashioned ilk, giving viewers exactly what they expect in a borderline-hokey yet satisfying way.
  29. Zombi Child
    The film can feel worked-over and schematic, as if Bonello was too preoccupied with serving the thesis to trust his peerless intuition.
  30. Miss Americana
    Watching the movie, you know you’re getting a controlled and sanded-off confection of pop-diva image management, one that’s going to leave anything too dark or messy or random on the cutting-room floor. Yet what matters is that the things we do see ring true. In “Miss Americana,” the vision Taylor Swift presents of herself is just chancy and sincere enough to draw us in.
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