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 Bigger Splash
    For Guadagnino, it’s not the characters’ fates that matter so much as their dynamics, which Kajganich and the director manipulate with the sort of take-no-prisoners attitude typically reserved for theater, pushing the entire ensemble to their full potential.
  2. Anomalisa
    Anomalisa’s existence is a minor miracle on multiple levels, from the Kickstarter campaign that funded it (the credits give “special thanks” to 1,070 names) to the oh-so-delicate way the film creeps up on you, transitioning from a low-key dark night of the soul into something warm, human and surprisingly tender.
  3. Our Brand Is Crisis
    As played by Sandra Bullock, Our Brand Is Crisis political spin doctor Jane Bodine is easily one of the best female roles of the last 10 years.
  4. I Saw the Light
    Despite a thoroughly committed, impressive performance from Tom Hiddleston as Williams (and an even better one from Elizabeth Olsen as his first wife, Audrey), the film tackles the life of one of the 20th century’s most seminal musicians with all the passion of a stenographer, making for a dull, unfocused slog through what should have been an effortlessly cinematic story.
  5. The Martian
    An enthralling and rigorously realistic outer-space survival story.
  6. The Perfect Guy
    Despite an appealing trio of leads, it seems likely to entice only those with an unquenchable thirst for thriller cliches.
  7. Where to Invade Next
    There’s something undeniably sharp and buoyant about Moore’s globe-trotting, grass-is-greener approach that compels indulgence and attention.
  8. Demolition
    Gyllenhaal grounds Davis’ wildly unraveling psyche, finding both the humor and heart in a man who admits to having spent the past 10 to 12 years incapable of feeling.
  9. Prince
    A slender, morally simplified fable that makes up for its tonal and narrative imprecisions with considerable visual energy, musical pizzazz, and a panoply of colorful characters.
  10. The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution
    A sturdy recap of the titular organization’s short, tumultuous history.
  11. Assassination
    A sensationally entertaining mash-up of historical drama, “Dirty Dozen” style shoot-‘em-up, spaghetti Western-flavored flamboyance, and extended action setpieces that suggest a dream-team collaboration of Sergio Leone, John Woo and Steven Spielberg.
  12. Mateo
    It’s easy to see what drew filmmaker Aaron I. Naar to his eponymous subject in Mateo, but it’s almost impossible to share his enthusiasm or even feel much sympathy for a figure who, for a good chunk of this sluggish yet disconcerting documentary, comes across as a genuinely creepy person.
  13. Some Kind Of Beautiful
    From first frame to last, “Some Kind of Beautiful” is some kind of hideous, a perfect storm of romantic-comedy awfulness that seems to set the ailing genre back decades with the sheer force of its ineptitude.
  14. Contracted: Phase II
    The short running time means there’s nary a dull moment, but also that no new (or even old) ideas get explored in more than drive-by fashion, the occasion pause for gore aside.
  15. The Visit
    Shyamalan has long been criticized for serving up borderline (or downright) silly premises with a straight face and overtly pretentious atmosphere, but he basically abandons that approach here in favor of a looser, more playful dynamic between his fresh-faced leads.
  16. Breathe
    Melanie Laurent brings a sure, sensitive hand to tonally tricky material and draws superb work from relative newcomers Josephine Japy (“Cloclo”) and Lou De Laage (“Jappeloup”).
  17. The Beauty Inside
    The film reaches a narrative and emotional impasse once it gets past the will-they-or-won’t-they stage.
  18. Home from Home: Chronicle of a Vision
    Reitz maintains his visionary sweep through history, favoring plot over development of characters, except as embodiments of large themes.
  19. Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials
    The Scorch Trials offers virtually no character development and only hints of plot advancement, mostly just functioning to move a group of obliquely motivated characters from one place to another without giving much clue where the whole thing is headed.
  20. The Danish Girl
    There’s no denying that Hooper and screenwriter Lucinda Coxon have delivered a cinematic landmark, one whose classical style all but disguises how controversial its subject matter still remains.
  21. The Hallow
    The directorial debut of visual artist Corin Hardy is never less than arresting to the eye, but thin characters and a familiar story hold this Irish chiller back from entering the top tier of recent horror entries.
  22. Room
    It’s a testament to the story’s underlying integrity that, even when deprived of some of the elements that made Emma Donoghue’s 2010 book so gripping, director Lenny Abrahamson’s inevitably telescoped but beautifully handled adaptation retains considerable emotional impact.
  23. Suffragette
    Carey Mulligan gives an affecting, skillfully modulated performance that lends a certain coherence to this assemblage of real-life incidents, composite characters, noble sentiments, stirring speeches and impeccable production values — all marshaled in service of a picture whose politics prove rather more commendable than its artistry.
  24. Steve Jobs
    Writer Aaron Sorkin, director Danny Boyle and star Michael Fassbender have given their subject the brilliant, maddening, ingeniously designed and monstrously self-aggrandizing movie he deserves.
  25. Wolf Totem
    Despite its magnificent natural vistas and some pulse-pounding action in stunning 3D, Wolf Totem boils down to a familiar environmentalist allegory that doesn’t move or provoke too deeply.
  26. Black Mass
    If Johnny Depp’s mesmerizing performance — a bracing return to form for the star after a series of critical and commercial misfires — is the chief selling point of Black Mass, there is much else to recommend this sober, sprawling, deeply engrossing evocation of Bulger’s South Boston fiefdom and his complex relationship with the FBI agent John Connolly, played with equally impressive skill by Joel Edgerton.
  27. Break Point
    Undeniably likable in its own breezy, resolutely unambitious way, Jay Karas’ tennis laffer Break Point manages to generate decent laughs, even if its reliance on indie-comedy formula borders on the pathological.
  28. Before We Go
    [A] talky, contrived and ultimately tedious actors’ exercise.
  29. Meru
    Harrowing and ultimately moving.
  30. Addicted to Fresno
    A mean-spirited farce whose strenuous bad taste seldom translates into actual laughs.
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