Variety's Scores

For 17,777 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 2.4 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:
17777 movie reviews
  1. Develops into an endearingly scrappy and romantic romp that serves up some nice soul-searching moments alongside a steady stream of laughs.
  2. May not be great cinema, but its broad, crowdpleasing qualities should make it a welcome night out for femmes.
  3. It's one girl against the world in Lola Versus, a snappy yet sincere romantic comedy that begins where others end, with the proposal and wedding plans pointing toward happily ever after.
  4. "I had no conception of the depths of your emptiness!" a character shrieks in Bel Ami, and her words take on an unintended resonance as addressed to Robert Pattinson in the lead role.
  5. Covering a lot of ground in colorful, pacey fashion, the documentary is nonetheless somewhat compromised itself by co-director Ami Horowitz's insistence on playing the Michael Moore/Morgan Spurlock role of onscreen provocateur.
  6. Despite enough good intentions to pave a four-lane highway, the ardently sincere but dramatically unfocused For Greater Glory plays like a multipart miniseries that has been hacked down to feature length.
  7. Handsome but hollow, Snow White & the Huntsman is easily among the stranger additions to a roster of rebooted fairy tales.
  8. Turkel constantly undermines the feel-good with the ridiculous and vice versa, vacillating between infantile insults and professions of affection, a duality that ultimately wears thin.
  9. The story of a ragtag Native American team rediscovering the tribal roots of the game to defeat preppie champions is rife with tired tropes, and lacking in three-dimensional characters or colorful plot-twists. Happily for this Onandaga-financed production and vet director Steve Rash, gifted Native American lacrosse players lend hard-hitting impact to the game scenes.
  10. The performances are fun, if musically only adequate -- there are no evident virtuosi languishing within Angola's walls -- and Chiarelli's attempts to frame matters philosophically fall a little flat.
  11. Elaborately conceived from a visual standpoint, Ridley Scott's first sci-fier in the three decades since "Blade Runner" remains earthbound in narrative terms, forever hinting at the existence of a higher intelligence without evincing much of its own.
  12. Delightfully old-school on the animation side, but too old-fashioned on the story side, French 2D toon A Cat in Paris is easy enough on the eyes yet never quite justifies feature-length status.
  13. Though the focus is on one older woman (effectively played by Sonia Guedes) the film's spirit is embodied by the whole town, which lingers in the memory.
  14. An undeniably powerful record of the Palestinian village of Bil'in's course of civil disobedience from 2005 to the present...the pic is also shamelessly sentimental and manipulative in its construction.
  15. Filmmaker magazine editor/critic Brandon Harris' debut feature, Redlegs, puts its indebtedness to Cassavetes upfront -- or rather, in back, spelled out clearly amid the closing acknowledgements -- as three protagonists act out a junior version of "Husbands'" epic drunken wake.
  16. If Benicio del Toro designed Hallmark cards, or if "Lady and the Tramp" were lesbians, they'd have a lot in common with Jack & Diane, a well-constructed, well-intentioned but too deliberate attempt to provoke the unprovokable.
  17. Transcends mere torture porn -- though there's plenty for the squeamish to squirm over here -- in its deftly controlled mix of empathy, grotesquerie and sardonic humor.
  18. Good-humored and endearing, full of energy and color (sometimes neon) if not quite Pixar-level invention.
  19. Scattered stretches of suspense and a few undeniably potent shocks are not enough to dissipate the sense of deja vu that prevails throughout Chernobyl Diaries, a wearyingly predictable thriller about "extreme tourists."
  20. Departing from two decades' worth of domestic and personal dramas and returning to his roots as Japan's maestro of mayhem, Kinji Fukasaku has delivered a brutal punch to the collective solar plexus with one of his most outrageous and timely films.
  21. Though never known for their subtlety, French co-helmers/scripters Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache have never delivered a film as offensive as "Untouchable," which flings about the kind of Uncle Tom racism one hopes has permanently exited American screens.
  22. It's clear the filmmakers aren't simply expecting to coast on audience goodwill...Men in Black 3 is at its best when it simply owns its own absurdity.
  23. Showing deep appreciation for Wilson's influence, as well as for the obscurity in which he spent his career in the spiritual-rescue business, the helmers employ a motherlode of photographs, diary entries, correspondence and recorded speeches to tell a sensational story that many will think they know, but don't.
  24. Moonrise Kingdom represents a sort of non-magical Neverland -- that momentous instant when the world can seem so small and a naive crush can feel all-consuming.
  25. Puppy appeal nudges past some dramatic deficiencies -- if just by a nose.
  26. The picture scores big points by drawing a sharp distinction between corporate vidgame programmers and indies.
  27. Though rough edges are very much part of picture's fabric and charm, the current two-hour-plus edit is too choppy, with many sequences feeling rushed or underdeveloped.
  28. Dancy manages a few sly moments, and Everett is as ever a scene-stealer, if barely recognizable under a beard and altered features, and with a raspy voice. But the estimable Pryce and Jones are wasted, along with many other fine thesps, while Gyllenhaal works too gratingly hard in an already strained role.
  29. A textbook example of a movie that betrays its audience, Entrance begins as a mildly interesting slice-of-life look at a struggling Los Angeles cafe worker, then impulsively devolves into a manipulative slasher picture.
  30. Ups the self-parody so much that it's practically a Wayans Brothers spoof, albeit with fewer jokes.

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