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. Blumenthal
    A limp facsimile of a Woody Allen ensembler set in a familiar world of New York Jewish intellectuals — minus only the wit, and the intellect.
  2. Locker 13
    Only those scared of being bored to death need fear Locker 13, an omnibus of horror stories that could hardly be more tame, talky and tepid, both individually and as a whole.
  3. Boys of Abu Ghraib
    The film has a very good idea in using a single soldier’s perspective to explore how tension and boredom can lead to such extreme misconduct, but it doesn’t go far enough, in the end leaving a disgraceful chapter just dimly illuminated in psychological terms.
  4. Greencard Warriors
    For all its sincere intentions, Kruishoop’s script feels cobbled together from newspaper headlines and bits of other movies rather than real, lived experience.
  5. The Quiet Ones
    The 1970s setting offers a retro feel that should strike appealing chords for fans of old-school horror, but there’s little here that’s exactly new or fresh.
  6. Queen
    The film could easily be a half-hour shorter; shot in a loose, handheld style that involved some improvisation, it feels unfocused and repetitive at times, to the point of aimlessness.
  7. Island of Lemurs: Madagascar
    A pleasant if fairly pedestrian viewing experience, one that more or less gets the job done in terms of balancing the requisite ooh-ahh moments with another unsurprising reminder of man’s capacity for selfishness and destruction.
  8. Hasee Toh Phasee
    It makes the regeneration of an overweight and complacent commercial format look easy.
  9. A Night in Old Mexico
    Scripter Wittliff and Spanish helmer Emilio Aragon (“Paper Birds”) hit the sweet spot between galloping and sauntering while unfolding the movie’s plot, an interlocking chain of coincidences, encounters and colorful supporting characters that often recalls the twisty storylines of Elmore Leonard.
  10. Tom at the Farm
    It’s an improbably exciting match of knife-edge storytelling and a florid vintage aesthetic best represented by Gabriel Yared’s glorious orchestral score.
  11. The Retrieval
    Equal parts suspenseful road movie, persuasively detailed period drama and emotionally resonant coming-of-age story, The Retrieval is an outstanding example of regional indie filmmaking accomplished with limited resources and an abundance of skill.
  12. Sabotage
    The rest of Sabotage rarely rises to Schwarzenegger’s level, in large measure because the other characters (of which there are far too many) aren’t nearly as sharply drawn by Ayer and co-writer Skip Woods.
  13. Cheap Thrills
    The performances are perfectly attuned to the material, with Koechner dominating his every scene as a kind of demented ringmaster, and Healy adroitly demonstrating the potential for both humor and horror in a character with nothing left to lose.
  14. Geography Club
    The idea here isn’t to titillate with tawdry teen hormones, but to offer an outlet for all that mental distress young people take on while trying to find their place in the world.
  15. Manakamana
    For all its manipulations and self-imposed restrictions, Manakamana is expansive, intricate and surprisingly playful.
  16. Rio 2
    This hyperactive toon extravaganza has color, flair and energy to burn. But it’s the sort of relentless juggling act that finally proves more exhausting than exhilarating.
  17. Hide Your Smiling Faces
    Assisted by the superb performances of his two young, refreshingly unaffected leads, Carbone has a profound understanding of the close but conflicted bond that exists between brothers on either side of the puberty divide.
  18. Mistaken for Strangers
    Mistaken for Strangers, a documentary about indie group the National, comes off like an exercise in self-deprecation. As much a diary film as a rockumentary, it almost compulsively veers away from its ostensible subject.
  19. Brothers Hypnotic
    Lively, funny and at times philosophical, Brothers Hypnotic tackles the challenges of maintaining an independent music career, as well as some knotted generational conflicts, and handles it all with great sensitivity.
  20. God's Not Dead
    Even grading on a generous curve, this strident melodrama about the insidious efforts of America’s university system to silence true believers on campus is about as subtle as a stack of Bibles falling on your head.
  21. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
    It etches a sweet, sad and solemnly fatalistic love story between feeding times.
  22. Noah
    It is never less than fascinating — and sometimes dazzling — in its ambitions.
  23. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
    It’s to the credit of the Russos that they give the characters such room to breathe in a movie that easily might have been about rushing from one gargantuan setpiece to the next.
  24. The Art of the Steal
    Once the script is done playing its belabored game of who’s who, it becomes a sleek and moderately clever exercise in narrative misdirection, with at least one or two twists sly enough to pull the wool over even an attentive viewer’s eyes, as the climactic rush of “gotcha!” flashbacks makes duly apparent
  25. Anita
    Anita may be a tribute doc, but it’s one with real heft.
  26. American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs
    97-year-old Detroit fixture Grace Lee Boggs doesn’t just explode the docile-Asian-female stereotypes Lee set out to question with her earlier pic; she makes an inspiring case for self-determination and intellectual fortitude regardless of background.
  27. Space Station 76
    Aiming more for bemused chuckles than for convulsive laughter, Plotnick and his actors deftly evoke a faux Me Decade ambiance throughout Space Station 76.
  28. Starred Up
    The pic owes its believability to Asser, who served as a therapist similar to Oliver’s character, drawing from his experience to shape the world. Asser brings more than just realism, however, crafting the central father-son relationship on the foundation of classical Greek tragedy.
  29. A Birder's Guide to Everything
    The constant, genial comic undercurrent of teenspeak exchanges, penned by the writing team of helmer Meyer and Luke Matheny, contrasts satisfyingly with Kingsley’s wry musings and the more serious treatment given to David’s evolving maturity.
  30. Rob the Mob
    Unexpectedly but effectively cast in a role that plays to his sullen strengths, Pitt has a palpable, playful rapport with Arianda, a Tony-winning Broadway ingenue whose warm, expressive features and tinderbox comic timing recalls the young Marisa Tomei.
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