Variety's Scores

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For 17,765 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: 9,125 out of 17765
  2. Mixed: 7,004 out of 17765
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17765
17765 movie reviews
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  1. 99%: The Occupy Wall Street Collaborative Film
    A documentary as messy as the movement it tries to portray, 99%: The Occupy Wall Street Collaborative Film possesses energy, passion and about a dozen documentaries inside it yearning to breathe free.
  2. Prisoners
    A spellbinding, sensationally effective thriller with a complex moral center.
  3. We Are What We Are
    That We Are What We Are steers just shy of silliness even at its most outrageous is in large part thanks to a committed cast of non-disposable character actors.
  4. Getaway
    Easily one of the dopiest major studio releases since Elie Samaha got out of the business.
  5. Gravity
    The director’s long-overdue follow-up to “Children of Men” is at once a nervy experiment in blockbuster minimalism and a film of robust movie-movie thrills, restoring a sense of wonder, terror and possibility to the bigscreen.
  6. Closed Circuit
    [A] slick, smarter-than-usual conspiracy yarn.
  7. Willow Creek
    In angling for suspense, this low-budget stunt relies a bit too heavily on our suspension of disbelief.
  8. Devil's Pass
    It’s cheesy enough fun while it lasts, but in the Harlin pantheon, it isn’t a patch on “Deep Blue Sea.” Then again, few things are.
  9. Wampler's Ascent
    Resolutely sappy and sometimes amateurish, the briskly paced doc remains heartfelt and direct about the same admirable mission Wampler had in making the climb.
  10. Savannah
    Despite an effective Jim Caviezel, this anecdotal drama never rises above the level of lightly likable.
  11. Go Grandriders
    Hua Tien-hau’s sentimental, conventionally inspiring film offers good-natured insights on the importance — and the difficulty — of living life to the fullest at any age.
  12. Bastards
    Even at its most opaque, Bastards always exerts a dreamlike pull rooted in Denis’ rhythmic layerings of image, sound and music.
  13. The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
    A ludicrous, borderline-nonsensical supernatural concoction with a slightly redeeming sense of its own silliness.
  14. One Direction: This Is Us
    The film’s central fivesome prove charming pallbearers throughout the film, which alternates between inspired and insipid as it hits its hagiographic marks.
  15. Standing Up
    Director D.J. Caruso offers a practical solution to the issue of adolescent bullying, as its two young protags respond to a case of vicious hazing not with despair or retaliation, but through teamwork and character-building.
  16. Escape from Tomorrow
    Escape From Tomorrow is a sneakily subversive exercise in low-budget surrealism and anti-corporate satire.
  17. Drew: The Man Behind the Poster
    The director commissioned Struzan to paint the one-sheet for his debut, “Sexina: Popstar P.I.,” and while this sophomore effort is no masterpiece, it’s far more deserving of Struzan’s talent.
  18. The Happy Sad
    Full of warmth and refreshingly matter-of-fact sexuality, the film has its heart in the right place, yet it’s ultimately a bit blander than its subject matter ought to demand, and its chamber-piece intimacy and pileup of coincidences scan particularly awkwardly given its convincingly wide-open depiction of New York.
  19. Herblock: The Black & the White
    Stevens offers a couple of revelations that bring the documentary to a dramatically and emotionally satisfying conclusion — and, not incidentally, leave a viewer with the pleasing sensation of discovering a worthy individual.
  20. C.O.G.
    The source material may be David Sedaris (this marks the first time the essayist has allowed one of his pieces to be adapted), but the tone couldn’t be more Kyle Patrick Alvarez, who once again steers auds to some gloriously uncomfortable places.
  21. We the Parents
    While no doubt a more evenhanded documentary remains to be made on this issue, the Takatas’ effort is polished and convincing on its own terms.
  22. Paradise: Faith
    The constant juxtaposition of scenes showing the dark and light aspects of the characters endows the pic with a juicy moral complexity that will stimulate post-screening debates.
  23. Kick-Ass 2
    As diverting as this action-packed caper often is, it feels not just weightless but emotionally and morally stunted whenever it veers into grown-up dramatic territory.
  24. Spark: A Burning Man Story
    "Spark” remains a lovingly made and shot tease, designed to ensure that what really happens at Burning Man stays at Burning Man.
  25. The Patience Stone
    Sensual and horrifying, The Patience Stone plays like a mesmerizing, modern take on the tales of Scheherazade and a parable on the suffering of Afghan women.
  26. Tiny Times 2.0
    Though this sequel is just as glossy and shallow as its predecessor, the story gets juicier as the four femme friends transform from kittens to lynxes in the wake of boy troubles and corporate takeovers.
  27. Chennai Express
    Shetty’s need to maintain his characters’ romantic heroism constantly grates against his depictions of their ridiculousness.
  28. A.C.O.D.
    The ensemble’s crack comic timing can only go so far to compensate for uneven scripting.
  29. Paranoia
    Director Robert Luketic’s thriller Paranoia has a host of problems, but the biggest seems to be that no one in it is nearly paranoid enough.
  30. Lee Daniels' The Butler
    There’s no denying, though, that Daniels knows how to push an audience’s buttons, and as crudely obvious as The Butler can be...it’s also genuinely rousing. By the end, it’s hard not to feel moved, if also more than a bit manhandled.
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