Variety's Scores

For 17,847 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:
17847 movie reviews
  1. This is true 21st-century trash: a movie in which the action itself is expendable.
  2. The Storms of Jeremy Thomas persuasively makes the case for closer scrutiny of a producer’s career, though it leaves viewers with some homework to do.
  3. Jazz and animation make for strong bedfellows in They Shot the Piano Player, a film from Spanish directors Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal that represents an intriguing hybrid in all sorts of ways.
  4. Green is a storyteller with such control that we don’t leave the theater feeling patronized or hectored. She’s thought everything out, and planned it so that every scene in The Royal Hotel is as gripping as it is pointed.
  5. In addition to sterling work by the three young principals, Ian Hart gives a standout performance as the British High Commissioner’s ubiquitous righthand man, offering a supercilious, world-weary gravitas that seemingly epitomizes the official British attitude to the Mandate.
  6. The film is convincingly fashioned as a candid all-access documentary, a promotional puff piece curdling before our eyes into an unintended study of mental breakdown.
  7. Though the results aren’t terribly original or memorable, they do provide a creepy 90-odd minutes.
  8. In images tinged with the blue of sadness, the green of decay and the bilious yellow of institutional hallways, Nacar makes remarkably suspenseful drama out of one hyper-committed woman’s refusal to curry sympathy, as she crosses Rubicon after ethical Rubicon in one 24-hour period.
  9. While not as subversive as its predecessor, it delivers on the promise of a smart and salient sequel with bolder action, bigger stakes, and deeper resonance for all ages.
  10. It’s up to the individual whether to see this story as a miracle or a tragedy, Numa says in voiceover; Bayona’s film, for all its forceful feeling, doesn’t decide for us.
  11. Audiences want to see Diana Nyad succeed, but the pleasure of the experience comes from watching actors become these characters. No matter how tricky such feats must have been to re-create, you get the impression that everyone involved was having a blast.
  12. Sly
    Throughout the film, he’s so calmly but blazingly articulate, so candid about the processes of moviemaking and his strengths (and weaknesses) as an actor, so wise about the meaning of his own stardom, that I realized, with a touch of embarrassment, a prejudice I’ve been carrying around for 47 years. Deep in my reptile brain, I still think Sylvester Stallone is Rocky.
  13. It’s a highly entertaining movie that manages to pack in more or less every important thing you’d want to know about Tom Wolfe.
  14. Invisible Beauty will likely make you hungry for Hardison’s book. But in a twist, one might wonder, can it be as good as the movie?
  15. The new film nonetheless provides more than a few good laughs, even when it seems to be taking horse opera clichés a tad too respectfully, and showcases a fine cast of actors dedicated to both the silliness and the seriousness of the enterprise.
  16. Knox Goes Away doesn’t traffic in comedy — or exaggerated reality. In addition to being a noir that holds you exactly the way a noir should, it may be one of the best dramas about dementia I’ve ever seen.
  17. Pain Hustlers takes an off-putting mock-documentary approach to this tragedy, focusing on a handful of sleazebag salespeople who bent the rules to incentivize doctors to prescribe Lonafin (the film’s fictional Subsys substitute) first for treating cancer pain, and later for conditions as mild as migraines.
  18. Director Maggie Betts has a rousing old-school crowd-pleaser on her hands with this truth-based (albeit strategically embellished) drama featuring the most entertaining performance yet from Jamie Foxx, who makes a day in court feel like going to church.
  19. Although the film as a whole struggles to match the poignancy of its finale . . . it nevertheless serves as an urgent reminder of the importance of individual action at a time when the world refugee crisis is at a scale not seen since the Second World War.
  20. It’s striking proof of an original sensibility.
  21. The idea is to have a good time, and Waititi knows how to give audiences that.
  22. Is this a fantasy? A fable? A new kind of horror movie? Actually, Dream Scenario is all of the above and then some, for it also shares a certain postmodern DNA with two of Cage’s most boundary-pushing movies, “Adaptation” and “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.”
  23. The helmer trusts his audience to bring themselves to the material. Ultimately, that’s what makes reading “American Fiction” so rewarding.
  24. Memory invites debate, rather than imposing a specific interpretation. It’s also a film that lingers, shifting and expanding in significance, even as the details start to blur.
  25. Me Captain is surprisingly classical in construction and style, wisely guiding our attention away from its sure directorial touch and toward the story at hand — pieced together by a small army of screenwriters and collaborating contributors from first-hand migrant accounts.
  26. Playful turns from a shrewdly selected supporting cast elevate the case from just another murder mystery to suitably arch gothic horror.
  27. [A] smart, light-fingered, brashly entertaining finance-world docudrama.
  28. The director himself has described the film as a “genre story without a genre,” and as such Ena effectively mirrors its protagonist’s equal detachment from all facets and possibilities of his fabulously floundering life. In theory, this makes sense. Dramatically, however, it’s a dead end, unaided by sporadic, leaden stabs at farce and whimsy.
  29. While you’re still in the vice-like grip of its multilevel narrative it may not feel like it, but a film like Agnieszka Holland’s bruisingly powerful new refugee drama ultimately comes from a place of optimism.
  30. An overlong but enjoyable metaphysical thriller that delivers pastiche so meticulous it becomes its own source of supremely cinematic pleasure.

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