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. Mothers' Instinct
    Mothers’ Instinct doesn’t breathe: It hasn’t the grandeur of great melodrama, nor the savoir-faire of great noir. Like its mismatched heroines, it’s constantly, twitchily figuring itself out, as we sit tight, intrigued, tensely waiting for it to trip.
  2. Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2
    There may be a lot more going on “Blood and Honey 2,” but let’s not kid ourselves. It’s mostly a shambles.
  3. Against All Enemies
    A grim diagnosis of a fast-spreading cancer, Against All Enemies may provide much less reassurance than cause for alarm, but its wakeup call is certainly worth heeding.
  4. Transition
    Watching this steadfast person survive in such close quarters with those most unaccepting of his situation offers remarkable insight into issues of gender expression and acceptance, which might well translate to the social strictures back home.
  5. The Black Garden
    The Black Garden is more than just a chronicle of a conflict. With a probing camera conveying images both beautiful and intimate and observational filmmaking that coaxes real emotions, it manages to tell a story of four men who represent their village and people.
  6. Night of Nights
    Night of Nights is documentary filmmaking at its most raw. A journalistic endeavor that’s also concerned with human attitudes, it captures not just the facts but also the experience.
  7. Art Talent Show
    Whether you view this illuminating doc as a portrait of an institution, a snapshot of a generation or a sketch of the dedication and stamina shown by those in the teaching profession, Art Talent Show bears sprightly comparison to the various styles and modes of artistic expression it showcases.
  8. Sleeping Dogs
    Sleeping Dogs, starring Russell Crowe as a retired cop with Alzheimer’s disease, is a half-rusted scrap heap of a detective mystery. It’s patchy, it’s badly lit, it’s glum, it’s overloaded with suspects, and it’s almost proud of its contrivances. Yet in its logy, booby-trapped way, it keeps you watching.
  9. Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World
    Funny and furious, crude and subtle, unkempt and thoroughly disciplined, this deranged movie is also maybe the sanest film of the year: a multifaceted manifesto exposing the absurd internalized fallacy that one must work in order to live, when it’s work — as in, the pitiless daily grind — that will be the death of us all.
  10. Terrestrial Verses
    This is punchy first-person filmmaking, from the point of view of the last person you want to be.
  11. I Don't Understand You
    Things spiral wildly out of control for Dom and Cole, but the foundation feels real.
  12. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
    You might say that “Frozen Empire” has to work even harder to invent a reason for itself to exist. Yet it’s a livelier movie than “Afterlife.”
  13. The Greatest Hits
    “The Greatest Hits” feels like the remainder-bin version of better love stories.
  14. The Idea of You
    This is Hathaway’s movie, and she owns it: independent, desirable and never, ever desperate.
  15. Susie Searches
    Clemons’ strong performance provides enough of a center to propel the story to its conclusion.
  16. Shirley
    In “Shirley,” John Ridley’s sharp and lively inside-political docudrama, Regina King plays Shirley Chisholm with a quiet force you can’t look away from.
  17. Timestalker
    Timestalker may get a lot of mileage out of unrequited affection, but it still gives audiences plenty to love.
  18. Jacqueline (Argentine)
    Gets points for originality but quickly succumbs to terminal self-amusement.
  19. Snack Shack
    Armed with a talented cast, writer-director Adam Rehmeier’s 1991-set feature happily squares itself in a tradition of teenage hedonism and broad learning opportunities, settling into a generic but warm glow.
  20. Omni Loop
    Time may unravel in Omni Loop, but admirably, it opens up the space to think less about the secrets of the larger universe than to take stock of the smaller ones that exist around us.
  21. My Dead Friend Zoe
    Hausmann-Stokes’ message is simple, and his movie is a perfect place to start: Take an interest in our veterans.
  22. Magpie
    The first-time director, Sam Yates, working from a utilitarian script by Tom Bateman, slathers on mood, yet there’s a primitive charge to the film’s no-frills staging.
  23. Grand Theft Hamlet
    The infrastructure of the game leaves things wide open for human creativity to take it in directions that couldn’t be predicted and people foster connections without any superficial prejudices getting in the way as Crane and Oosterveen assemble a cast.
  24. Lovely Rita (2001)
    A deliciously observed, ironic take on middle-class Austrian life through an introverted teen's eyes, "Lovely Rita" reps a strong step up to the feature plate by 28-year-old Jessica Hausner after a couple of well-remarked shorts.
  25. Irish Wish
    As a rom-com, Irish Wish is more than willing to kiss the Blarney Stone. Yet the chemistry of Lohan and Speleers makes it watchable enough to get by.
  26. Civil War
    A literal shock to the system, Civil War is designed to be divisive.
  27. Copa 71
    As subjects share vivid memories of taking the field, their stories appear to stir back up the attitudes that made them great competitors.
  28. Much Ado About Dying
    Death isn’t an ending in this achingly funny-sad film, just an anxiety passed between loved ones.
  29. French Girl
    For every inventive or simply satisfying rom-com, there are dozens of clumsy, rote ones — French Girl falls among the latter.
  30. Stormy
    “Stormy” shows you what the scandal looks like from inside the sensationalist bubble of fame, and by the end of the film you may be a little bit ashamed of us all.
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