Variety's Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
  1. The Treasure
    Porumboiu’s particular brand of farce is always shot through with the pulse of everyday life and its Sisyphean struggles. He is, simply put, one of our great contemporary observers of the human comedy.
  2. Junun
    Favoring long, unbroken takes that allow the rhythmic, full-bodied songs to breathe as they ebb and flow from beginning to end, Anderson’s aesthetics unobtrusively capture the magic of Greenwood and company’s global partnership
  3. Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom
    Getting swept up in the immediate excitement is entirely understandable, but ignoring the less savory elements, such as ultra-nationalist rhetoric, is problematic at best.
  4. Xenia
    Brashly uneven and wildly overlong, this comedy of brotherly love and outsider acceptance nonetheless boasts a spirited, audience-pleasing core.
  5. Dukhtar
    A handsomely made, nicely modulated fugitive drama with forceful social overtones that decries the ongoing practice of marrying child brides in tribal regions of the country’s mountainous north.
  6. (T)error
    A vital expose of American law enforcement carried out with almost reckless zeal.
  7. Guilty (Talvar)
    Khan conveys equal measures of cynical wit and authoritative gravitas as Kumar.
  8. Goosebumps
    The ADD overload combined with an understandably kid-friendly approach to horror (no one’s ever in real danger, and the monsters are never too scary) results in a disposable product intended to appeal to everyone but likely to resonate with no one.
  9. Bridge of Spies
    While the helmer’s myth-making approach makes for great Capra-esque entertainment, younger auds may find it terribly old-fashioned — and they’d be right to think so, although Spielberg would be the first to admit it was his intention to play things classical.
  10. Sherpa
    This film from experienced Aussie documaker Jennifer Peedom packs an emotional punch to match its awe-inspiring imagery.
  11. Hitchcock/Truffaut
    While the interview-driven documentary may not adhere to Hitchcock’s cinematic ideal, it welcomes one and all into the medium’s embrace.
  12. Bone Tomahawk
    Bone Tomahawk may seem over-indulgent at 132 minutes, yet it’s the wayward digressions of Zahler’s script — navigated with palpable enjoyment by an expert, Kurt Russell-led ensemble — that are most treasurable in a film that commits wholeheartedly to its own curiosity value.
  13. A Christmas Horror Story
    None is particularly original (though there is one good final twist), but they’re all reasonably entertaining.
  14. The Forbidden Room
    Delightful and ingenious as much of this is on a moment-to-moment basis, it becomes somewhat wearying over the long haul.
  15. A Sinner in Mecca
    Sensationalizing every moment of his hajj (pilgrimage) while calling attention to his devotion, the helmer comes across as far too pleased with himself, though countering the demonization of Islam is a necessary goal.
  16. Going Away
    Garcia, co-scenarist Jacques Fieschi and the excellent cast (including a welcome Dominique Sanda as Baptiste’s regal mother) bring a sense of depth and shared history to even those figures we meet just briefly.
  17. Shanghai
    This derivative, ploddingly plotted WWII-set thriller goes through all the motions of an old-school wartime spy pic with plenty of technical competence but zero panache.
  18. This Changes Everything
    This Changes Everything is genuinely stirring as it details improbable victories and green-economy opportunities.
  19. Nostalgia for the Light
    Part of the beauty of Nostalgia is that the many metaphors and surprising parallels between the universe, archaeology and Chile’s recent past rise organically from the material.
  20. The Pearl Button
    What “Nostalgia for the Light” did for the desert, The Pearl Button is meant to do for water, but the deft melding of past and present that characterized Patricio Guzman’s earlier film becomes muddied here by the Natural Science 101 voiceover and an unsatisfying bridge between two rather disparate subjects.
  21. Northern Soul
    If “Soul’s” script errs on the side of simplicity, it does effectively downplay the cliches inherent in its unambitious story arc. And the foregrounded local culture is always engaging, with meticulous but unshowy attention to period detail on all levels.
  22. The Creeping Garden
    Good-humored but not campy in its regard of some genuinely fascinating research, and full of trippy visuals, this science-fair bonanza would have been a midnight staple in the era of “The Hellstrom Chronicles.”
  23. Labyrinth of Lies
    An intelligent and arresting fact-based drama.
  24. The Green Inferno
    Empty cynicism isn’t a substitute for well-reasoned critique, and Roth winds up looking more clueless than the so-called “social justice warriors” he’s trying to satirize.
  25. Deathgasm
    This amiably dumb feature debut for New Zealand writer-director Jason Lei Howden could have used some additional polish on the scripting side to bump its bad-taste humor up from the routinely to the inspirationally silly.
  26. The Walk
    What Zemeckis delivers here is an entirely different brand of spectacle from that which audiences have come to expect from recent studio tentpoles, sharing a true story so incredible it literally must be seen to be believed, as opposed to imaginary feats full of impossible CG creatures.
  27. Ashby
    McNamara’s second directorial feature (following 2003’s Aussie “The Rage in Placid Lake,” another teenage-misfits-make-good comedy) winds up a poorly mixed bowl of mismatched ingredients that is nonetheless tepidly, forgettably digestible.
  28. The Whispering Star
    In trying to make sense of an android’s point-of-view, Sono has sensibly turned repetition and routine into a narrative strategy, but the unrelieved tedium of The Whispering Star takes a toll. If anything, Sono’s past work has suffered from a an overabundance of jokes, digressions, and crazed visual flourishes, but their near-total absence here becomes a problem of another kind.
  29. The Boy and the Beast
    Though it piles all sorts of emotional baggage onto a series of already-tired believe-in-yourself cliches, Hosoda’s over-complicated script has the virtue of expressing itself less via words than it does through truly spectacular set pieces.
  30. Pay the Ghost
    This somnolent supernatural thriller is a low-energy wash from start to finish.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »