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. A Boy Called Po
    Noble intentions alone do not a great movie make, as evidenced by Po, whose heart is in the right place but whose drama is woefully lacking in momentum.
  2. Mifune: The Last Samurai
    A dutiful and diverting but rather bare-bones documentary portrait.
  3. Bobby Sands: 66 Days
    This finely crafted docu may well long stand as the most balanced among such treatments, as it respectfully examines Sands’ folk-heroic legacy rather than simply amplifying it.
  4. Magnus
    Magnus, it turns out, is the anti-Bobby: a fascinatingly “normalized” prodigy.
  5. Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened
    Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened is a nimble documentary made with a personal touch of nostalgia, and it should prove nothing less than catnip to Sondheim obsessives.
  6. Seasons
    While it features some of the most breathtaking nature photography this side of BBC’s “Planet Earth” miniseries, this gorgeously cinematic docu ties said footage to a leaden all-purpose eco-consciousness message that nearly spoils the otherwise timeless experience.
  7. Fences
    Fences has passages of fierce and moving power, but on screen the play comes off as episodic and more than a bit unwieldy.
  8. The Founder
    Keaton plays Kroc as a man both pathetic and singularly possessed, cannily resisting lovability at every turn, while delivering the internalized self-help speak of his sales pitches with chillingly glib precision.
  9. 100 Streets
    While the film initially exercises commendable restraint in braiding its separate narratives, its second half grows increasingly reliant on pat connections and coincidences.
  10. Allied
    Allied is tense and absorbing, yet the film’s climactic act somehow falls short.
  11. Prevenge
    While not every tonal downshift here is entirely fluid, this remains a smart, risky one-off, unconcerned with those (and there will be many) who can’t acquire its taste.
  12. Patriots Day
    It’s genuinely exciting megaplex entertainment, informed by extensive research, featuring bona fide movie stars, and staged with equal degrees of professionalism and respect.
  13. Officer Downe
    Imagine Paul Verhoeven’s “RoboCop” stripped of its politics, its wit, its humanity, and its craft, and that only gets halfway down the bottom of the barrel scraped by Officer Downe, a hyper-aggressive and thoroughly repugnant piece of comic-book juvenalia.
  14. Split
    Shyamalan’s goal is to keep us guessing, and in that respect, Split is a resounding success — even if in others, it could have you rolling your eyes.
  15. Bad Santa 2
    It’s essentially a hangout movie populated exclusively with some of the worst people imaginable, rarely with any sort of solid scene-setting or straight-men to provide context.
  16. Uncle Howard
    This is no starry-eyed, heart-on-sleeve flashback but a low-key, respectful one, no less appealing for its relative reserve.
  17. Hunter Gatherer
    Deliberately steering clear of the usual gangland drugs-and-violence cliches, Josh Locy’s writing-directing debut features a welcome starring role for Andre Royo (“The Wire”), whose performance as a wily hustler trying to stay one step ahead of possible ruin sets the tone for this odd, occasionally mystifying but undeniably singular and imaginative work.
  18. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
    Maintaining Yates as director lends a consistency to the project, and yet, it would have been refreshing to get a completely new take on Rowling’s world with this series, especially considering how murky and self-serious they got in the final chapters. Still, Yates knows this world as well as anyone, and he excels at finding visual solutions for challenging ideas.
  19. Shut In
    As thrillers go, Shut In is conspicuously short of thrills. It’s an undistinguished and predictable hodgepodge, so blandly generic as to suggest that it was cobbled together by filmmakers referencing a how-to handbook who picked spare parts from other, better thrillers.
  20. The Comedian
    Even with a bona fide icon at its center, The Comedian doesn’t dig deep enough to add anything substantial to the subgenre.
  21. Miss Sloane
    Miss Sloane is a talky, tense political thriller, full of verbal sparring and fiery monologues, undone by a really dumb ending. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t smart for most of its running time.
  22. Rules Don't Apply
    Beatty tries hard to re-create the look and feel of late-’50s Hollywood as it existed both on-screen and off, aided by DP Caleb Deschanel and terrific costume and set contributions. And yet, it actually comes off too conservative for its own time, with stiff performances from Collins and Ehrenreich.
  23. Lazy Eye
    Lazy Eye makes you realize how rare it is to see a movie, even an indie movie, that gives you the privilege of listening to authentically smart conversation. The understated flow of talk makes us feel like we’re eavesdropping.
  24. Almost Christmas
    David E. Talbert, the writer-director of Almost Christmas, has assembled a gifted cast and given them a chance to stretch out and play with their roles. He has made a heartwarming gripe-and-grouchfest that pushes a lot of buttons, though with a vivacity that’s exuberantly funny and sincere.
  25. A Street Cat Named Bob
    Unpretentiously touching on the page, this material feels stretched a bit thin on film, with televisual production values and a samey song score doing little to enrich matters: Still, it’s sweetly hopeful .
  26. The Frontier
    An appreciably moody but dramatically stilted crime drama that exudes a certain retro appeal before collapsing into a series of empty neo-noir poses.
  27. Moana
    As princess movies go, this one broadens the studio’s horizons, and as Moana herself sings in the film, “no one knows, how far it goes.”
  28. USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage
    "USS Indianapolis” is a World War II “epic” that’s overscaled yet underimagined. It’s a tale of survival that never provides the audience with a basic entry point into how and why we should care.
  29. The Prison in Twelve Landscapes
    Story has made a potent political film without having to spray viewers with a fusillade of alarming numbers to back it up. She trusts viewers to intuit their way through fascinating anecdotes and detours that gain a cumulative power, one that data alone cannot possibly express.
  30. Your Name.
    This vividly realized and emotionally satisfying feature ought to make Shinkai a household name — certainly in Japan, and with any luck, in other countries as well.
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