Variety's Scores

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For 17,757 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: 9,120 out of 17757
  2. Mixed: 7,002 out of 17757
  3. Negative: 1,635 out of 17757
17757 movie reviews
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  1. On Becoming a Guinea Fowl
    Blending molasses-dark comedy with searing poetic realism to capture contemporary Zambian society at a generational impasse between staunch tradition and social progress, this is palpably new, future-minded filmmaking, at once intrepidly daring and rigorously poised.
  2. The Girl with the Needle
    The extremity of suffering on display here makes for difficult viewing, scarcely leavened by the expressionistic beauty of its presentation. But von Horn’s film never plays as empty miserablism, in large part thanks to its grave understanding of the moral and spiritual reasoning behind unimaginable acts of violence.
  3. Wild Diamond
    After all the despair, the piling up of glitzy delusion, there’s a feeling of redemption to it connected to what a good movie can do.
  4. Bird
    The film is Arnold trying to have the integrity of her severity and eat it too. Bird is a feel-bad movie that turns into a feel-good movie. What it never feels like is a totally authentic movie.
  5. Thelma the Unicorn
    Thelma the Unicorn avoids being rendered completely unoriginal by its overly familiar premise thanks to consistent splashes of acid humor and a plethora of wacky supporting characters.
  6. The Blue Angels
    Paul Crowder’s Imax documentary feels both more honest than most in its intentions and more effective in highlighting that organization’s excellence.
  7. Kinds of Kindness
    Lanthimos trades in discomfort, trusting his audience enough to take his brand of provocation as they please.
  8. Megalopolis
    To call this garish, idea-bloated monstrosity a mere “fable” is to grossly undersell the project’s expansive insights into art, life and legacy.
  9. The Strangers: Chapter 1
    "Chapter 1” can’t help feeling like an ersatz imitation at times, but it seems the franchise’s well hasn’t run dry just yet.
  10. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
    “Furiosa,” like “Beyond Thunderdome,” wants to be something loftier than an action blowout, but the movie is naggingly episodic, and though it’s got two indomitable villains, neither one quite becomes the delirious badass you want.
  11. IF
    Krasinski’s concept borrows generously from Pixar films like “Monsters Inc.,” but is so chaotic and half-considered that you don’t feel as inspired as you should be, making it hard to submit to the film’s alternate reality.
  12. The Second Act
    Dupieux’s strategy seems to be flipping or repeating certain punchlines for fresh effect, which is fine for a while, until you realize that neither The Second Act nor those second-degree readings have much to say.
  13. The Sales Girl
    It takes its time to get there, but in the end, The Sales Girl is about taking charge of one’s own life, where sex is just one dimension of a well-rounded process of self-discovery.
  14. The Last Stop in Yuma County
    It’s a lean, tight, and stylishly clever B-movie about a bank robbery gone wrong.
  15. Aisha
    While passive and/or helpless characters rarely make for the most engaging protagonists, the sensitivity with which this story is told coupled with Wright’s performance makes for an experience that’s never less than engaging.
  16. Treasure
    A film with heart but no real teeth, the commendable sensitivity of which turns too easily toward the sentimental.
  17. Mother of the Bride
    While a gentle, light-hearted romp is indeed welcomed in these taxing times, there’s much left to be desired from our journey with these likable but under-developed characters.
  18. The Grab
    The big picture here is so elusive and vast that it helps Cowperthwaite to have a few intrepid investigators to follow, letting their research drive the shape of the film (which, when you unpack it, must have been one hell of a task to structure).
  19. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
    Though the movie is too long, I was more gratified than not to sink into its relatively old-fashioned dramatic restraint.
  20. Unfrosted
    While broadly based in reality, the entire movie is a put-on, a wackazoid tall tale, a comedy that uses the breakfast wars as the jumping-off point for a high-camp exercise in nostalgic lunacy.
  21. Mars Express
    A gripping, heady and refreshing 2D animated take on the perils of man and machine coexisting, Périn’s first feature as a director inserts the necessary exposition in a mostly natural manner so we incrementally become aware of how this reality functions.
  22. Prom Dates
    Unlike this teen raunch-com’s brilliantly conceived inspirations, its main friendship dynamic and ensuing shenanigans fail to resonate due to sloppy character construction and a cadre of cringe-worthy circumstances.
  23. The Contestant
    Titley consistently anchors her unfolding chronicle to the kind of backstage emotional truths often hidden from the audience, and in the process, she crafts something halfway between sensationalist exposé and intimate confessional — a remedy to reality TV based on its own format — co-authored by her subjects
  24. Tarot
    Set in a world where every door creaks and there isn’t a single well-lit location, Tarot is little more than a clearinghouse of horror clichés.
  25. Never Look Away
    Never Look Away gives us as complete a portrait as seems humanly possible, for which Lawless merits abundant credit.
  26. Slow
    Slow reveals itself to be quite a tender portrait of love and companionship, of what our bodies yearn and want in others, and how we could do well to upend the stories we tell each other about living and loving another.
  27. Lost Soulz
    Inspired by Sidle’s experience as a musician on the rise, Lost Soulz tells a raw personal story in a fragmented structure deriving its strength from the original music composed and performed by its talented cast.
  28. Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story
    Michael Mabbott and Lucah Rosenberg-Lee’s documentary “Any Other Way” combines archival materials, interviews and animated reenactments into a compelling investigation of an elusive life, as well as a talent so striking you’ll be amazed it remained forgotten for so long.
  29. Nowhere Special
    Nowhere Special is the kind of confident, understated film that doesn’t need to pound the audience with its sentiments in order to make us feel alive and human in front of it.
  30. In Our Day
    Neither switch-your-brain-off-escapist, nor the kind of arthouse filmmaking that makes heavy demands on your time or willpower, Hong’s cinema remains one of the most reliable sources of this particular pleasure.
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