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. Blood Money
    This open-air thriller is decently crafted by director Lucky McKee (whose prior films have landed closer to horror terrain), and it eventually summons up enough seriocomic neo-noir perversity to comprise a fun, semi-guilt-free ride.
  2. 78/52: Hitchcock’s Shower Scene
    For a long time now, Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” has been two movies, and the hypnotic film-geek documentary 78/52 is an ingenious and irreverent master class in both of them.
  3. M.F.A.
    As admirable as its aims may be, however, M.F.A.’s themes call for a careful, consistent tone that it is rarely able to maintain, and an increasingly ridiculous third act squanders much of the empathy and engagement that Leite works so hard to build in the early going.
  4. Only the Brave
    It’s a gripping and powerfully emotional portrait of yee-haw heroism, pitting a squad of cocky, calendar-purty white dudes against an adversary with no creed or color, just an unquenchable appetite for destruction.
  5. Diamond Island
    this compassionate film is as much about its very specific Cambodian setting as it is the characters, with the film’s standout star its neon-pastel location work.
  6. The Snowman
    There’s a lot happening on the surface of Alfredson’s perplexing winter wonder-why, but considerably less going on inside.
  7. Happy Death Day
    Happy Death Day is “Groundhog Day” dipped in blood, and if the movie isn’t all that clever, it’s just clever enough to get by.
  8. The Foreigner
    The Foreigner amounts to an above-average but largely by-the-numbers action movie in which Chan does battle with generic thugs and shadowy political forces.
  9. My Little Pony: The Movie
    Beat by beat, My Little Pony: The Movie is at once clichéd and exceptional.
  10. Cold Moon
    Cold Moon is goofy, but juicy.
  11. Bending the Arc
    With the gripping appeal of a great epic novel, Kief Davidson and Pedro Kos’ documentary spans three decades of diligent work on the frontlines of global health crises to prove, in moving detail, the difference dedicated professionals can make in seemingly hopeless situations.
  12. Marshall
    By approaching Marshall as an idealistic young trial lawyer, the film stands on its own as a compelling courtroom drama, complete with surprising revelations — and while we hope things will go his way, this case could just as easily prove the one that motivated his future crusade.
  13. Paradise
    The film’s tone and outlook is changeable throughout — down to a striking, only semi-successful framing device of docu-style testimonies that hover deliberately between worlds.
  14. Leatherface
    This “origin story” is a somewhat mixed bag. But it’s also an earnest and well-crafted attempt at course-correction, straying from stock slasher recyclage to provide a different story that actually connects a few dots in the very tangled cinematic “Chainsaw” universe to date.
  15. Take Every Wave: The Life of Laird Hamilton
    Even at two full hours, “Take Every Wave” must do a lot of condensing. Still, as ample and awesome as Hamilton’s exterior doings are, one gets something of a classic “authorized portrait” vibe here in that he’s not about to let us get too far into his head.
  16. Flatliners
    As dull as it gets, Flatliners never sinks all the way into outright fiasco, and there’s enough talent both behind and in front of the camera to keep things on the right side of basic competence. The actors do what they can with the material, and Oplev happens upon a few decent visual ideas.
  17. Blade Runner 2049
    Villeneuve earns every second of that running time, delivering a visually breathtaking, long-fuse action movie whose unconventional thrills could be described as many things — from tantalizing to tedious — but never “artificially intelligent.”
  18. Blood Stripe
    While its storytelling wavers, there’s nothing unsteady about the movie’s overall packaging craftsmanship.
  19. Last Flag Flying
    The central reason that Last Flag Flying fails to take wing is that its characters don’t ring true. Not really. You never feel, in your bones, that you’re watching battle-scarred veterans.
  20. Heartstone
    Sympathetic as Thor’s journey to awareness is, Heartstone’s languid, rollingly repetitive storytelling never quite justifies its weighted focus on his character at the expense of his friend’s more active anguish; a more judicious edit could place both in sharper relief.
  21. Jane
    Jane provides as much insight as we might hope for (in visual media at least) into a personality whose life might seem well-documented to the point of redundancy.
  22. Clive Davis: The Soundtrack of Our Lives
    Clive Davis: The Soundtrack of Our Lives...is an example of how a movie can be flagrantly hagiographic, sentimental, and hypnotized by its own subject — and still make you want to keep watching it.
  23. Gerald's Game
    Taken strictly on its own terms, the film adaptation is an arrestingly and sometimes excruciatingly suspenseful psychological thriller lightly garnished with horror-movie flourishes...and driven by a compelling lead performance that is entirely worthy of a description too often misapplied to lesser work: tour de force.
  24. Window Horses
    Director-writer-animator Ann Marie Fleming creates an entertaining, educational, and poignant tale about identify and imagination that is filled with stories and poetry.
  25. Realive
    Realive ultimately aims to be all about matters of the heart, and in that realm Gil’s imagination proves disappointingly limited.
  26. Friend Request
    We might lament declining attention spans in general, but more chilling than anything in Friend Request is the idea that anyone’s whole attention could possibly be absorbed by so flimsy and forgettable a film, one that seems made with the sole aim of being perfectly adequate background noise for something else.
  27. Unrest
    Though the “Patient, film thyself” concept is starting to risk overexposure...Unrest is a high-grade example of the form that’s consistently involving, with content diverse enough to avoid the tunnel-visioned pitfalls of diarist cinema.
  28. Hissein Habre, A Chadian Tragedy
    [A] concise, clearly told and deeply effective documentary.
  29. Boston
    It’s a worthy tribute bound to illuminate and inspire.
  30. Elizabeth Blue
    Empathetic and yet ultimately too draggy to elicit much engagement with its paper-thin story, Elizabeth Blue proves at once well-intentioned and inert.
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