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. Penguins of Madagascar
    The graceful camerawork, precise editing and high-quality animation still can’t disguise the lack of imagination that went into the overall conception and the repetitive sameness that creeps into every bind the penguins find themselves in.
  2. American Sniper
    Just as “The Hurt Locker” found revelatory depths in Jeremy Renner, so American Sniper hinges on Cooper’s restrained yet deeply expressive lead performance, allowing many of the drama’s unspoken implications to be read plainly in the actor’s increasingly war-ravaged face.
  3. The Gambler
    A movie of slick, surface-level pleasures that’s unpersuasive at its core.
  4. Before I Disappear
    Piling on the misery-laden subplots in scene after angry, overamped scene, Before I Disappear is the sort of movie that can’t stop reminding you how cruel the world is and how messed up its people are, to the point where its bludgeoning cynicism feels no more authentic or lived-in than the glimmer of hope that suddenly breaks on the horizon.
  5. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1
    For all its obvious smarts and mildly provocative ideas, Mockingjay doesn’t seem to trust its audience quite as much as it clearly trusts its heroine.
  6. A Merry Friggin' Christmas
    Neither warm and fuzzy in the best holiday movie traditions, nor edgy and irreverent a la “Bad Santa” (coincidentally also co-starring Graham, to better effect), it’s something of a mystery what audience A Merry Friggin’ Christmas intends to serve.
  7. The Way He Looks
    The pic has genuine appeal, though in truth the script and direction are little more than average.
  8. The Better Angels
    Apart from the heavy debt it owes to Malick’s oeuvre, Edwards’ entrancing debut is radically non-generic, either as history film and coming-of-age piece.
  9. Elsa & Fred
    For a movie that’s ostensibly about casting off the shackles of old age and embracing excitement in life, there isn’t a single moment here that feels original or spontaneous.
  10. 21 Years: Richard Linklater
    21 Years: Richard Linklater makes for a disappointingly hollow hagiography: gushy, superficial and strangely overdue — arriving significantly later than its title prescribes.
  11. A Most Violent Year
    In his third turn behind the camera, writer-director J.C. Chandor has delivered a tough, gritty, richly atmospheric thriller that lacks some of the formal razzle-dazzle of his solo seafaring epic, “All Is Lost,” but makes up for it with an impressively sustained low-boil tension and the skillful navigating of a complex plot (at least up until a wholly unnecessary last-minute twist).
  12. Missionary
    A luridly entertaining thriller that plays like “Fatal Attraction” for extreme religiophobes, or perhaps a very gory episode of “The Brigham Young and the Restless.”
  13. Comet
    Lapses in the screenplay are mitigated only slightly by the natural chemistry between Long and Rossum.
  14. Zero Motivation
    Beneath the strings of gags and wisecracks run parallel threads of ruthlessness and hysteria which bring “Motivation” a little closer to “Full Metal Jacket” than “Private Benjamin” as off-screen conflicts invade the closed-in encampment.
  15. Showrunners: The Art of Running a TV Show
    The producers, obviously, are good storytellers, and there is something to be said — touched on here — about their shifting roles as TV has embraced an auteur quality. Still, the resulting doc finally feels like less than the sum of its anecdotes.
  16. Revenge of the Green Dragons
    This crudely made thriller plays like a stilted Cantonese riff on organized-crime cliches, substituting blood and brutality for novelty or insight.
  17. Private Peaceful
    One more story about how the Great War’s casual disdain for human life planted the seeds for the social unrest that followed, the defiantly old-fashioned Private Peaceful nevertheless succeeds in hitting the right emotional notes, with a handy assist from Rachel Portman’s score.
  18. Interstellar
    An exhilarating slalom through the wormholes of Christopher Nolan’s vast imagination that is at once a science-geek fever dream and a formidable consideration of what makes us human.
  19. Trash
    Trash works in large part thanks to the infectious energy and sheer pleasure in comradeship exuded by the three young teen boys.
  20. The Heart Machine
    Thoroughly modern without being ostentatious about it, and featuring excellent performances from Kate Lyn Sheil and John Gallagher Jr., the film boasts pleasures more formal than narrative.
  21. Happy Valley
    For a film that is very much about the need to continually question our heroes and hold them to a higher standard, Happy Valley offers an unapologetic tribute to one man’s painful honesty and a tacit rebuke to those who couldn’t muster anywhere near the same courage.
  22. 23 Blast
    A fairly predictable yarn that’s lighthearted and well-acted.
  23. Exists
    Sanchez’s thoroughly conventional approach here does little to elevate a dismally generic script from frequent collaborator Jamie Nash.
  24. Ouija
    This silly but straight-faced supernatural thriller manages to elicit an occasional shudder in between cheap jolts and false scares, emerging as a feat of competent direction (by debuting helmer Stiles White) over derivative scripting (by White and writing partner Juliet Snowden).
  25. Big Hero 6
    After establishing its fresh and relatable origin story, the movie gets bogged down with a relatively generic villain’s power-hungry schemes. Still, there’s enough that’s new and different about Big Hero 6 to get excited about, especially for those still too young for Marvel’s more intense live-action fare.
  26. Glen Campbell: I'll Be Me
    Glen Campbell … I’ll Be Me blends intimate and unflinching medical details, poignant performance footage and a survey of its subject’s place in musical history through well-chosen archival footage and interviews with other iconic performers.
  27. 1,000 Times Good Night
    Deftly sidestepping both melodrama and family-values messaging, Poppe imbues the film with enormous emotional resonance, brilliantly grounded by his leading lady.
  28. Serena
    An arrestingly nihilistic Depression melodrama, marked by courageous performances and exquisite production values... The result is both problematic and fascinating, an unsympathetic spiral of human tragedy that plays a little like a hand-me-down folk ballad put to film.
  29. E-Team
    A dynamic and immersive piece of you-are-there verite.
  30. V/H/S: Viral
    While the scares are in short supply, there’s a surfeit of macabre, tongue-in-cheek creativity to be found here.
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