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. Brightest Star
    Brightest Star, has all the trappings of a contemporary romantic comedy, but also the good sense to strive for a deeper examination of a young man’s search for his place in the universe.
  2. Best Night Ever
    The four leads are nothing if not game, and actually earn respect, along with a fair amount of sympathy, for their uninhibited willingness to go to extremes. But there are limits to what they can do to dispel the overall sense of mounting desperation as the gross-out tomfoolery grows ever more tedious.
  3. At Middleton
    Adam Rodgers’ debut feature is a painless enough diversion, but novel ideas and humor beyond mild chuckles are in scant supply.
  4. The Monuments Men
    Clooney has transformed a fascinating true-life tale into an exceedingly dull and dreary caper pic cum art-appreciation seminar — a museum-piece movie about museum people.
  5. Somewhere Slow
    This tonally all-over-the-place drama fails to convince.
  6. That Awkward Moment
    The pic falls well short of its efforts to combine the raucous vulgarity of the “Hangover” movies with Cameron Crowe-ish depth of feeling.
  7. Happy Christmas
    Happy Christmas desperately needs some real jokes, rather than settling for the bemused chuckles that accompany its banal observations into human nature.
  8. Alive Inside
    Rossato-Bennett’s over-the-top narration often sounds cloying and banal... But the filmmaker succeeds in providing context, medical and historical, in between awakenings.
  9. Mercedes Sosa: The Voice of Latin America
    The pic nicely straddles a line between Sosa’s private and public personas, never quite delving deep although Vila covers all the bases.
  10. Rich Hill
    Everything about the three principal teens registers as deserving of “human interest” to Rich Hill’s two helmers, whose generous attitude draws us into this deeply empathetic film.
  11. Mitt
    This is neither an indictment nor an endorsement but simply a refreshing departure from the combative tone of contemporary politics and political coverage.
  12. Wish I Was Here
    The result is unquestionably an auteur film, but one festooned with so many bad and unnecessary ideas that one can’t help wondering if a more modest, hemmed-in version of the same project might not have proved more effective.
  13. White Bird in a Blizzard
    It’s naughty, campy and wildly uneven.
  14. The Trip to Italy
    Now and then, Winterbottom nudges the movie in the direction of narrative... But even when it’s just ambling about, The Trip to Italy casts a warm, enveloping spell.
  15. They Came Together
    A lively comic jamboree that’s sometimes smarter than it is funny and hits about as often as it misses, but is, on balance, a good deal of fun.
  16. Song One
    Perhaps the cleverest thing about Barker-Froyland’s delicately contrived debut is how uncontrived she manages to make it seem.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Skeleton Twins
    Sibling bonds are fertile territory for indie dramedies, but The Skeleton Twins distinguishes itself from the pack with a pair of knockout performances from “Saturday Night Live” veterans Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig.
  18. The Overnighters
    Lensed with a complete absence of frills that perfectly suits its honest, unvarnished tone, The Overnighters presents an indelible snapshot of a despairing moment in American history, as men abandon homes, families and dreams to stake their claim in an ever-shrinking land of opportunity.
  19. Low Down
    It’s a familiar story of music-world success, failure and addiction, admirably but unevenly told by first-time feature director Jeff Preiss, who certainly knows the music and the milieu, but proves less adept at shaping the material into a consistently compelling narrative.
  20. Love Is Strange
    Love Is Strange never feels anything less than authentic, like a true story shared by close friends.
  21. Life Itself
    James cuts — as in all of his best work — straight to the human heart of the matter, celebrating both the writer and the man, the one inseparable from the other, largely in Ebert’s own words.
  22. Land Ho!
    What gives the story its moment-to-moment buoyancy is the pleasure of watching two actors working brilliantly in tandem.
  23. Laggies
    If the narrative progression feels too tidy and circumscribed, Shelton’s talent for bringing out the best in her actors remains satisfyingly intact.
  24. Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter
    At every turn, we can sense what’s going on behind Kumiko’s doleful, downcast eyes; Kikuchi pulls us deeply into her world.
  25. Infinitely Polar Bear
    Forbes brings a marvelous warmth and specificity to this story of a mixed-race family struggling to survive, aided considerably by one of Mark Ruffalo’s richest, most appealing performances.
  26. Imperial Dreams
    Even in moments that don’t ring entirely true, Boyega’s grounded performance keeps the film headed in the right direction.
  27. 12 O'Clock Boys
    Using Baltimore’s dirt-bike groups as its entry point, the film offers a remarkable grassroots look at how the system is broken at the inner-city level.
  28. I Origins
    The film amounts to a lousy sort of magic show, schematically pulling strings to prove its own points.
  29. Camp X-Ray
    Camp X-Ray is most commendable for believably depicting the U.S. military from a female’s point of view.
  30. Boyhood
    With Boyhood, Linklater has created an uncanny time capsule, inviting auds to relive their own upbringing through a series of artificial memories pressed like flowers between the pages of a family photo album.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »