Variety's Scores

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For 17,757 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: 9,120 out of 17757
  2. Mixed: 7,002 out of 17757
  3. Negative: 1,635 out of 17757
17757 movie reviews
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  1. Blue Moon
    Like a backstage pass for Broadway buffs, it’s one hell of a show for those in the know, and a sparkling introduction for the uninitiated.
  2. Mickey 17
    Though it earns points for sheer oddity (and the nearly monochromatic, future-noir look established by DP Darius Khondji and production designer Fiona Crombie), too much of “Mickey 17” turns out to be sloppy, shrill and preachy — ironically, the same things that make Mark Ruffalo’s deliberately Trump-styled villain so grating in this movie.
  3. An Unfinished Film
    By entwining reality with dramatization to such an inseparable degree, An Unfinished Film runs the emotional gamut, with a pulsing naturalism that few films about the recent pandemic (or any real disasters) have ever managed to achieve.
  4. The Gorge
    It’s an audacious feat to combine multiple genres into one compelling feature, but The Gorge does just that.
  5. Captain America: Brave New World
    It’s superhero meatloaf and potatoes served with just enough competence and dash not to feel like reheated leftovers.
  6. Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy
    It’s not another unhinged Bridget bash — more like a hearts-and-flowers finale.
  7. Suze
    This is a smart and emotionally immersive comfort movie where you get the happy with a side of sad in the same way that the messiness of our own lives often unfolds, with laughter and tears served as a pair in a package deal.
  8. Love Hurts
    Most audiences want action to feel like action, whereas Eusebio makes it look too much like choreography: No matter how dynamic, every fight scene seems rehearsed to within an inch of its life.
  9. Mad Bills to Pay (or Destiny, dile que no soy malo)
    Steeped in both unfaltering and pleasant humanity, Vargas’ characters are what some might deem “problematic.” But they ultimately depict complicated mentalities, with shades of true-to-life negative and redeeming traits.
  10. Mr. Nobody Against Putin
    Through the eyes of its delightfully brave, yet utterly relatable subject (also the de facto cinematographer), this terrifying, revelatory and poignant exposé offers an unseen human angle on an ongoing conflict that’s continues to be widely addressed in documentary cinema.
  11. One to One: John & Yoko
    The rare rock doc that’s a must-see.
  12. Seeds
    Although there are urgent economic and political challenges facing these families, this isn’t muckraking cinema. Instead, the filmmaker hews to the quotidian, the weekly, the annual. Shot in black and white, this portrait of a people is affecting and achy.
  13. André Is an Idiot
    The film is most enlightening and affecting when it settles into a perceptive, finely detailed examination of everyday domesticity lived under the weight of rushing mortality.
  14. Move Ya Body: The Birth of House
    While there’s more people talking than dancing and we never hear a full song, the editing adds a lively pulse to the storytelling that keeps it all moving forward entertainingly. That’s because the story itself is so amusing.
  15. The Librarians
    Filmmaker Kim A. Snyder’s illuminating documentary — premiering at the Sundance Film Festival — offers a rattling look at coordinated efforts to ban books. More importantly, it introduces viewers to the everyday and increasingly vital heroes pushing back: the librarians who sound the alarm to both legislative and grassroots attempts to pull books from school and public libraries.
  16. Green and Gold
    To put it bluntly, Nelson gives this clichéd indie a lot more than it ever gives him.
  17. Valiant One
    An unpretentious B-movie made with A-grade effort, “Valiant One” packs decent action and mostly sturdy drama into the tale of U.S. soldiers whose mission near the DMZ goes haywire and leaves them stranded in North Korea.
  18. OBEX
    More contained than “Strawberry Mansion” but with similarly expansive ideas, “Obex” feels opportune for the modern era.
  19. The Thing with Feathers
    The whole thing is oppressive and, in an odd way, not very interesting.
  20. Rabbit Trap
    The film’s barely-hidden secrets float just beneath the surface of a pool with no ripples — without meaningful texture to complicate or disguise its themes, or turn their unveiling into an emotionally-driven experience.
  21. Prime Minister
    As a portrait of struggles in the seat of power, the film presses all the right emotional buttons.
  22. Two Women
    The best that can be said for Robichaud’s film is that her two leads, Karine Gonthier-Hyndman and Laurence Leboeuf, give committed performances
  23. The Things You Kill
    With The Things You Kill Khatami turns in an absorbing and twisty take on introspection.
  24. Ricky
    Ricky is a movie that plunges into the depths and also lifts the spirit honestly.
  25. Plainclothes
    Plainclothes builds to an intense and ultimately cathartic climax, but there’s something retrograde about the shame Lucas feels. Emmi wants us to experience his protagonist’s sense of suffocation, when looking back from the present, we just want to shout: “It gets better!”
  26. Heart Eyes
    Thoroughly self-aware (perhaps to a fault), stocked with self-reflexive gags and gorily-orchestrated kills, the picture is endearing with its delightfully zippy charms.
  27. Oh, Hi!
    Gordon and Lerman are two committed performers with excellent chemistry and comic timing during these scenes, and much of Gordon’s physical work as the crazy soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend is genuinely impressive and funny. But the seams of Brooks’ writing show often, becoming impossible to ignore.
  28. Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore
    Directed by Shoshannah Stern, who is hearing impaired, the documentary — made for the “American Masters” series and premiering at Sundance — is both straightforward and subtle.
  29. Lurker
    A tight, nifty, and unsettling little parable of the pathology of fame in our time.
  30. Last Days
    Even Yang, whose commitment is admirable, struggles to convey what’s inside John’s head — which, of course, is the whole point of this project.
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