Variety's Scores

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For 17,847 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: 9,172 out of 17847
  2. Mixed: 7,036 out of 17847
  3. Negative: 1,639 out of 17847
17847 movie reviews
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  1. Light From Light
    Neither thriller nor sentimental whimsy, Paul Harrill’s second feature (following 2014’s equally low-key “Something, Anything”) is a quietly matter-of-fact drama that utilizes a “haunting” story hook for non-religious yet affirming ends.
  2. Happy Death Day 2U
    Happy Death Day 2U is more complicated than the first “Happy Death Day,” but in this case more complicated means less fun.
  3. Isn't It Romantic
    While there’s virtually no risk that “Isn’t It Romantic” will make you to love your favorite rom-coms any less, Strauss-Schulson hasn’t figured out how to have his cake and eat it, too — to look down on the very confection he’s so busy peddling.
  4. The Amityville Murders
    The gap between good intentions and effective follow-through is maybe the distinguishing characteristic of this latest “Amityville” movie, which takes itself with admirable seriousness, yet in the end can’t itself be taken very seriously.
  5. Ask Dr. Ruth
    The irony at the core of the Dr. Ruth persona is that the maverick who made the bedroom public is herself incredibly private, and while she encourages women to get intimate with their bodies, she’s not in touch with her own emotions. Still, she is vocal about respecting boundaries, and White acquiesces, trusting that the facts of Westheimer’s life say plenty about her peppy workaholism.
  6. What Men Want
    But the thoughts she overhears don’t, for the most part, have the snap of comic surprise. They just fill in the walking alpha blanks we already know.
  7. The Prodigy
    While it lacks gripping, nail-biting tension, the unnerving horror that underscores the family drama brings it to life.
  8. The Lodge
    There are too many explanations dangled here, to ends somewhat frustratingly contradictory rather than usefully ambiguous.
  9. The Mustang
    It’s a touching and original piece of bare-bones sentimental humanism, and Schoenaerts is terrific in it.
  10. The Gospel of Eureka
    This cheerful small town portrait makes for an idealistic crowd-pleaser (after all, Eureka Springs is the rumored home of healing waters), but this beautiful, and beautifully shot, documentary is a cure for the angry headline blues.
  11. Native Son
    Native Son, after its promising first half, leaves you dispirited, because it’s a movie where hope gets snuffed by a stacked deck.
  12. Blush
    Admirably acted and powered by a loopy internal rhythm, the film nonetheless wears out its welcome long before it’s done inflicting indignities on its heroine, arriving at its main point early and then repeating it again and again.
  13. I Am Mother
    Mostly I Am Mother is exactly what it seems: a good-looking allegory that postures like it’s wrestling with more ideas than it actually is.
  14. The Hole in the Ground
    [Cronin's] trim, jumpy debut feature rewrites no genre rules, but abounds in bristly calling-card atmospherics. ... Only in the film’s muddy-in-all-senses finale — which leaves a few too many dots unjoined, even by forgiving genre standards — does its grip on proceedings slip a notch.
  15. Corporate Animals
    Corporate Animals is a character sketch in search of a plot.
  16. Share
    Share is fragmented and disorienting, though one suspects that confusion is perhaps Bianco’s point.
  17. Little Monsters
    The paradox of "Little Monsters" is that it’s so guileless in its story and execution, it could have been made for kids, except for the disembowelings. Still, Nyong’o not only survives the film with her dignity intact, the audience might exit admiring her more.
  18. Wounds
    Anvari has set out to make a mood piece that succeeds in scaring the audience senseless.
  19. Them That Follow
    In the last act, Poulton and Savage’s long fuse explodes, and they get to prove they’ve made a hell of a picture.
  20. The Sunlit Night
    Here, Wnendt suppresses his naturally provocative streak to deliver an aggressively cute existential comedy instead.
  21. The Souvenir
    Achingly well-observed in its study of a young artist inspired, derailed and finally strengthened by a toxic relationship, it is at once the coming-of-age story of many women and a specific creative manifesto for one of modern British cinema’s most singular writer-directors.
  22. The Report
    Burns, by trusting the audience, has created a darkly authentic political thriller that does exactly what a movie like this one should do. It leaves you chastened and inspired.
  23. Photograph
    For all the complex class politics and bottled-up desires at play in its narrative, Batra’s film is perhaps a shade too timid for its own good; it touches the heart, but hovers just short of the soul.
  24. Paddleton
    A movie about cancer has no right to be as consistently amusing as Paddleton — a triumph for which credit should be spread around, even if it most deservedly goes to Ray Romano.
  25. Official Secrets
    The crux of Gun’s struggle is that she risked everything to tell the truth, and the war happened anyway. Ultimately, her personal story was neither uplifting, nor tragic, which means the film surrounding her doesn’t hurtle toward a satisfying arc.
  26. Midnight Family
    Portraits of institutional dysfunction don’t come much more urgent, and quietly bleak, than this.
  27. Luce
    The film is sleek and shadowy, benefiting from the fact Onah chose to shoot on celluloid and driven by stellar performances across the board.
  28. Late Night
    The film wants to be a puckish media satire and an earnest workplace dramedy about “growing,” and the fusion doesn’t always gel.
  29. The Last Black Man in San Francisco
    While Talbot and Fails claim to have walk-and-talked their way all over San Francisco, the script — and especially the dialogue — is the most disappointing element of their first feature.
  30. Knock Down the House
    Knock Down the House has a clear political agenda. It wants to promote the hard work, courage and progressive policies of these women, who have all experienced financial hardship. Still, the film lets its subjects do the talking instead of cluttering things with statistics.
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