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. Kelly & Cal
    This disarming pic navigates tricky emotional territory to emerge as an impressive feature debut for helmer Jen McGowan and scribe Amy Lowe Starbin.
  2. Salvo
    After taking a couple of left turns following its thriller-like opening, Salvo unfortunately returns to a more conventional register in the closing reels, though the atmospheric picture does continuously fascinate on a visceral level.
  3. May in the Summer
    This warmly conceived but largely formulaic picture is by turns sensitive and shrill, culturally perceptive and overly broad in its dysfunctional-family melodramatics.
  4. Kink
    The consistently celebratory stance of “Kink” is commendable, but also feels somewhat limiting.
  5. When the Game Stands Tall
    An inspirational sports drama that goes long on rectitudinous sermonizing but comes up short on gridiron thrills or genuine love for the game.
  6. Sin City: A Dame To Kill For
    It takes at least a sliver of human interest to make a noir pastiche more than the sum of its influences, and anything resembling authentic feeling has been neatly airbrushed away from this movie’s synthetic surface.
  7. Another Me
    Stunningly unsuccessful on all levels, this gothic dud wants to play on the real and metaphoric anxieties of post-adolescents discovering who they are, but the ham-fisted script is incapable of a multilayered approach, while the helming and editing are at the level of mediocre TV.
  8. To Be Takei
    A unique blend of camp and conviction, To Be Takei deftly showcases George Takei’s eclectic personality and wildly disparate achievements.
  9. If I Stay
    The overall execution is so pedestrian that it’s possible to feel more moved by the filmmakers’ good intentions than by the actual emotional content onscreen.
  10. Metro Manila
    The screenplay (co-written with Hollywood scribe Frank E. Flowers) boasts the stock characters and situations, sentimentality, foreshadowing and melodrama of soap opera. Yet by cleverly blending these ingredients with those of an action caper, the pic presents a fresher appeal.
  11. Expedition to the End of the World
    With a mood and setting worthy of a murder story by Jack London, this audience-friendly, atmospheric work could be remade as a thriller, although that’s really what it is already.
  12. Rudderless
    Crudup does a lot to keep things watchable, playing with a slightly acidic wryness that suggests the character’s humor has only been heightened by his grieving hopelessness.
  13. Found
    Although not entirely successful, this intriguing, above-average genre effort still reps an ambitious and resourceful debut for helmer/co-writer Scott Schirmer.
  14. Mr. X
    Alluring if not especially illuminating.
  15. Mission Blue
    The majesty and imperiled status of the world’s aquatic life are vividly captured in Mission Blue.
  16. Fort McCoy
    Connor and co-director Michael Worth allow Fort McCoy to proceed at an unhurried pace, giving Stoltz ample opportunity to subtly convey undercurrents of guilt and anger percolating beneath his character’s affable exterior.
  17. The November Man
    Runs through spy-movie cliches with such dogged obligation that it often plays like a YouTube compilation of scenes from older, better thrillers, generating little overall tension and only occasionally approaching basic coherence.
  18. Cheatin'
    The writer-director-producer’s pulsing, pencil-etched, pastel-hued animation style is a pleasure to behold as ever.
  19. Coldwater
    Suitable for teens — lies somewhere between indignant expose and unusually tasteful exploitation picture, with shower scenes and sweaty young delinquents aplenty.
  20. Captivated: The Trials of Pamela Smart
    Zagar’s thesis — that overpowering media exploitation determined its legal outcome early on — is introduced in the very first shot, then hammered home harder the longer the pic goes on.
  21. Let's Be Cops
    The mix of raucous buffoonery and violent mayhem isn’t exactly seamless, and the laugh-out-loud moments come with conspicuously less frequency during a third act that suggests a rough draft for “Bad Boys 3.”
  22. The Giver
    The Giver reaches the screen in a version that captures the essence of Lowry’s affecting allegory but little of its mythic pull.
  23. 37: A Final Promise
    The film deserves more than just a passing grade, and is a good deal better than any plot synopsis might make it sound.
  24. About Alex
    Neither the script’s up-to-the-minute signifiers nor its cheekily self-aware humor can entirely dispel a formulaic feel.
  25. The Dog
    A spunky yet surprisingly sad portrait of a sexually liberated man held captive by his past, forever chasing and trying to rewrite his own legend.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Fifi Howls from Happiness
    Though shy on background info, the docu offers a fascinating portrait.
  27. Into the Storm
    Into the Storm can make it rain like nobody’s business, but when it tries to be smart, it comes out all wet.
  28. The Maid's Room
    After a seductively moody intro, Michael Walker's domestic thriller devolves into a cartoonish attack on the filthy rich.
  29. The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Her
    Even at its most purplish and highfalutin (mostly in the “Her” section), “Eleanor Rigby” always aims for something sincere, and when Benson pulls back a bit — and stops trying to show us how much Freud he’s read and how many Bergman films he’s seen — the movie becomes vastly more engaging.
  30. The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them
    At its core is a most affecting portrait of two people who love each other, but may no longer be able to live as one, and it is mostly a pleasure to spend two, or three, or five hours in their company.
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