Variety's Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
  1. Ghostbox Cowboy
    This original if sometimes befuddling vision blurs the line between fiction and documentary elements, conventional storytelling and improvisational collage, all to oft-bracing effect.
  2. Sicilian Ghost Story
    The filmmaking doesn’t simply tell a story but makes us feel its impact.
  3. Song of Back and Neck
    Because Lieberstein is an inherently likable actor, we identify with his plight, even if it takes a while to realize that he’s essentially brought this situation upon himself.
  4. Never Look Away
    One of the subtler strengths of Never Look Away is the canny evocation of a war-weary, defeated population who did not experience communism as a revolution but a substitution. The insignia and the catechisms changed, but the underlying attitudes remained grotesquely similar in their callous prioritization of dogma over decency.
  5. The Possession of Hannah Grace
    Viewers hooked on the spectacle of demonic possession tend to like their satanic tropes served neat. The Possession of Hannah Grace serves them sloppy, if not without a certain random soupçon of grisly style.
  6. Elliot: The Littlest Reindeer
    A would-be new “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” it’s energetic and polished enough to avoid feeling like a rip-off — “Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny,” this is not — but there the compliments pretty much end.
  7. Anna and the Apocalypse
    “Anna” picks itself up, dusts itself off, and comes home with a finale that’s so satisfying and sincere, it’ll make some viewers misty-eyed.
  8. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
    In the end, while the movie’s wit is its most satisfying selling point, “Spider-Verse” proves too clever for its own good. But in this universe, where audiences are suffering from the very real phenomenon of superhero overload, ambition and originality are to be encouraged, especially it broadens the mythology to include women, people of color, and yes, even that hammiest of scene-stealers, Peter Porker.
  9. The Great Buddha+
    This ballad of sad losers mixed with satire on parochial politics is convulsively funny yet uncompromisingly bleak, bridging art with entertainment.
  10. The Cleaners
    The Cleaners has the effect of scanning three dozen grim tweets. There’s not much to latch onto besides an overwhelming sense of helplessness; like the internet itself, it’s crowded with opinions but lacking in intimacy.
  11. Robin Hood
    Robin Hood is no classic, but if it sometimes seems like it’s trying to be “Baz Luhrmann’s Robin Hood,” more power to it. The movie is a diverting live-wire lark — one that, for my money, gets closer to the spirit of what Robin Hood is about than the logy 1991 Kevin Costner version or the dismal 2010 Russell Crowe version.
  12. Creed II
    Creed II has been made with heart and skill, and Jordan invests each moment with such fierce conviction that he makes it all seem like it matters.
  13. Mobile Homes
    This is a dour and deeply unpleasant film that wears its gritty realism as a badge of honor, while failing to recognize the motivations that explain such behavior in reality, which makes him neither an attentive journalist nor a particularly good storyteller (at least not yet).
  14. Of Fathers and Sons
    The result is as despairing as any portrait of close-knit family and dedicated parenthood can be, adeptly blending sensationalism with domestic intimacy, and sincerely eye-opening in its portrayal of inherited Islamist fervor.
  15. The Last Race
    This graceful, ruminative fragment of scrap-metal Americana marks a distinguished foray into feature filmmaking for renowned narrative photographer Dweck.
  16. Mary Queen of Scots
    Like an entire season of peak television crammed into the space of two hours, Mary Queen of Scots spares us not only the butchery but also a great deal of the drama that might explain how the misfortunate monarch came to find her neck on the line.
  17. The Clovehitch Killer
    This atypical serial-killer thriller distinguishes itself in resisting thrills — let alone any actual violence — till well past its halfway point, instead maximizing the quiet discomfort in a son’s rising suspicion that his outwardly Dagwood-type dad could be a notorious murderer.
  18. 55 Steps
    August, whose English-language films have seldom compared well to his distinguished Scandinavian ones, can’t elevate this material much above the flat, pat TV-movie earnestness it seems content to aim for.
  19. Possum
    If this wrap-up proves less than fully satisfying, Possum still casts an impressive spell.
  20. In Harm's Way
    In the end, In Harm’s Way struggles to please so many theoretical audiences that it winds up feeling like a film for no one at all.
  21. Don't Go
    All this adds up to a big “whatever.” Don’t Go isn’t sure whether it wants to be a frightening fantasy or a poignantly warm-and-fuzzy one.
  22. Thugs of Hindostan
    For all its recycled elements and predictable narrative stratagems, this diverting Diwali-timed extravaganza stands on its own merits as a lightly satisfying popcorn epic — provided, of course, you have a taste for such over-the-top amusement.
  23. Blue My Mind
    Having created a striking and potent allegory in “Blue My Mind,” and explored it with grace, seriousness, and exceptional craft, Brühlmann doesn’t seem to know quite what to do with it by the end, except to suggest that the cost of self-acceptance is vast, eternal, oceanic loneliness.
  24. The Christmas Chronicles
    With its saccharine score, saturated cinematography, and trite platitudes, the film is formulaic and forgettable except for Russell’s performance as the lovable legend.
  25. Ruben Brandt, Collector
    While Krstić is especially good at providing noir atmosphere (jazzy, smoke-filled dives, ominous shadows, and references to Mike Hammer films), he positively excels at high-octane action.
  26. Ralph Breaks the Internet
    It’s a poignant buddy movie that’s sincere in all the right places, but knows better than to take itself too seriously.
  27. Instant Family
    It redefines family craziness as normal in a way that those who seek it out will gratefully relate to.
  28. Amazing Grace
    The effect is ecstatic; she sounds like the holiest of trumpets, with every note piercingly bright yet as soft as velvet. Listening to Franklin, you feel like you could ride that voice into the heavens. She’s not just a singer, she’s a human chariot.
  29. Bird Box
    Heisserer’s script endeavors to give Bullock a rich psychological backstory to play — something to do with her reluctance to accept motherhood and the redemption she experiences in accepting that role — and the wonderfully self-reliant actress plays that arc earnestly enough. But there’s no getting around that this is a monster movie without a monster.
  30. Cam
    Reflective of its subject, the movie is content to exist on the stimulating surface, teasing us with the promise of something deeper while skirting around its delivery.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »