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. The Image Book
    Our world, in The Image Book, has finally caught up to Jean-Luc Godard’s doom-laden dream of it. He seems to be saying that we all have a choice: to change it, or to sit back in our TV armchairs and watch.
  2. Happy as Lazzaro
    The film, for all its interest in fables, trades less in morals than in equivocal, irony-laced human observation. Rohrwacher deftly skirts sentimentality even as she risks big, expansive poetic gestures.
  3. Girls of the Sun
    Clearly the director’s positive impressions from her research made her want to create something that would generate popular sympathy for the cause, but writing a glorified TV movie wasn’t the way to go.
  4. Girl
    For Lara, dancing matters more than dating, more than anything, and as such, Dhont’s relatively modest film manages to encompass the themes of both “Billy Elliot” and “Tomboy,” and deserves the recognition of both.
  5. Donbass
    Corruption and humiliation are the guiding forces of Donbass, resulting in a scathing portrait of a society where human interaction has descended to a level of barbarity more in keeping with late antiquity than the so-called contemporary civilized world.
  6. Border
    An exciting, intelligent mix of romance, Nordic noir, social realism, and supernatural horror that defies and subverts genre conventions.
  7. At War
    The chief value of the impassioned but slightly flavorless At War is that it gives Lindon another opportunity to wear the undersung virtue of ordinary, rough-hewn decency the way a superhero might wear a cape.
  8. Asako I & II
    Hamaguchi extols his source for a compelling representation of love as a mystic experience. However, what gets transferred to the screen becomes more like banal indecision.
  9. Angel Face
    Filho obviously wants to convey the naive outlook an impressionable young girl would have on her own situation, but there’s far too much manipulation involved to take her selection of scenes seriously.
  10. Cargo
    Radiating not only paternal devotion but also a blunt matter-of-factness that amplifies as his situation becomes more dire, Freeman’s empathetic turn makes Andy an endearing center of attention, and the film — even for those who’ve seen its source material — a heartfelt entry in the overstuffed genre.
  11. Show Dogs
    Think of it as “Miss Congeniality” for dogs, replete with the sort of slapstick humor, puerile gags and for-adults-only pop-culture references required of such endeavors. Its frantic pace should make it a mildly amusing diversion for the younger set, but its juvenile imagination (or lack thereof) is likely to drive anyone over the age of 7 barking mad.
  12. Cold War
    Cold War may return to “Ida’s” meticulous monochrome aesthetic of “Ida,” but it’s a companion piece with its own tonal and structural energy: less emotionally immediate, perhaps, but immersively informed by the broken jazz rhythms beloved of its protagonist.
  13. Burning
    The degree to which Burning succeeds will depend largely on one’s capacity to identify with the unspoken but strongly conveyed sense of jealousy and frustration its lower-class protagonist feels, coupled with a need to impose some sense of order on events beyond our control.
  14. Whitney
    Macdonald’s multi-faceted portrait of Houston allows us to touch the intertwined forces that did her in.
  15. Under the Silver Lake
    Under the Silver Lake gets its hooks in you, but it’s a good-bad movie: an academic stab at making the darkness visible.
  16. Book Club
    Really, it’s sad that the best Hollywood can come up with for so much seasoned talent is this stale shake-and-bake combining upscale-lifestyle porn with some tepid smirky humor.
  17. The House That Jack Built
    The House That Jack Built, however, only rarely achieves that level of disturbing poetic awe. The film lopes along in a way that’s grimly absorbing yet, at the same time, falls short of fully immersive.
  18. Solo: A Star Wars Story
    It has a kicky, kinetic heist movie at its heart, and its action sequences are machine-tooled spectacles of the first order. Its performances, starting with Alden Ehrenreich as the young Han Solo and extending to the film-stealing Donald Glover as his wily frenemy Lando Calrissian, are consistently entertaining.
  19. Deadpool 2
    In almost every respect, this sequel is an improvement on its 2016 predecessor: Sharper, grosser, more narratively coherent and funnier overall, with a few welcome new additions. It’s a film willing to throw everything — jokes, references, heads, blood, guts and even a little bit of vomit — against the wall, rarely concerned about how much of it sticks.
  20. BlacKkKlansman
    Lee’s latest is as much a compelling black empowerment story as it is an electrifying commentary on the problems of African-American representation across more than a century of cinema.
  21. Birds of Passage
    Few films have captured quite so powerfully the tension between the old and new worlds — a feat Birds of Passage accomplishes while simultaneously allowing audiences to channel the Wayuu’s surrealistic view of their surroundings, where spirits walk the earth, and wise women interpret their dreams.
  22. Ash Is Purest White
    The work has its intellectually ponderous moments but is ultimately saved by Jia’s muse and wife, Zhao Tao, who surpasses herself in a role of mesmerizing complexity.
  23. El Angel
    Ortega shows more interest in the how than the why. He mines the scenes of violence for black comedy, rendering the bloodletting anticlimactic and the victims largely irrelevant, and Ferro’s baby-faced, bright eyed disingenuity suits that agenda perfectly.
  24. Arctic
    Penna works in what you might call a gratifyingly prosaic style. He doesn’t wow you (though the film, in its level way, is elegantly shot). But he doesn’t cheat you, either, so you come to trust the gravity of his nuts-and-bolts storytelling.
  25. Climax
    Climax works, at least when it’s willing to be a human drama. But then it sinks in that you’re watching “Fame” directed by the Marquis de Sade with a Steadicam.
  26. Pope Francis - A Man of His Word
    Few popes in living memory have seemed as recognizably human as Francis — for all its access, and for all the inherent empathy of its director, Wenders’ film is never able to completely connect the dots between the man and the figure.
  27. Get the Gringo
    Gibson knows how to play to the camera, and Grunberg is savvy enough to maximize what the star gives, spinning a slick package around the crazy scenario.
  28. Measure of a Man
    The conflicts come to no interesting fruition, and occasional comic flourishes (Bobby dancing to a “Soul Train” broadcast, vomiting after drinking alcohol) fall flat.
  29. Lu Over the Wall
    In terms of craftsmanship, the film has a scrappy, sometimes cheap look to it (characters look flat, like thin-lined Etch-a-Sketch drawings, superimposed over more colorful hand-painted backgrounds), for which it more than compensates via other strengths — namely, a trio of relatable, well-written human protagonists and Lu, who can change form and bend water at will.
  30. Never Goin' Back
    Inspired at least in part by stunts Frizzell pulled when she was her characters’ age, this raucous parade of humiliation and embarrassment packs all the appeal of an outrageous anecdote hilariously retold by someone who can scarcely believe they ever did something so stupid.
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