Variety's Scores

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For 17,758 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: 9,121 out of 17758
  2. Mixed: 7,002 out of 17758
  3. Negative: 1,635 out of 17758
17758 movie reviews
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  1. Unrest
    A gorgeously playful oddity glimmering with insight into ideology, photography, cartography, telegraphy, celebrity, solidarity, the flow of capital, the unruliness of time and the somehow noble lunacy of trying to tame such a massive concept into a brass doodad small enough to fit in a waistcoat pocket
  2. Ride On
    A sappy but enjoyable slice of family fun that has a nice horse doing wacky tricks for the younger viewers and for parents and older fans, is a gently meta, valedictory canter through the paddock of Chan’s previous achievements.
  3. Cherry
    Confronting that larger crisis directly is not the goal here. Though “Cherry” dips a toe in those troubled topical waters, it does so only gingerly, preferring instead to spin an uncomplicated, timeless tale about a woman coming into her own.
  4. Carmen
    This flamenco-inspired Carmen is often strangely shy about its terpsichorean impulses, with dance sequences functioning as isolated, somewhat haphazard setpieces rather than as a consistent storytelling medium.
  5. A Tourist's Guide to Love
    Funny, poignant and simultaneously progressive and regressive, it may not add up to five-star escapism, but it’s a jovial jaunt worth taking.
  6. Ghosted
    The movie is a romantic action comedy that starts off light and breezy but turns, before you know it, into a dead-weight spectacle of wretched excess.
  7. Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret
    This adaptation, written and directed by Kelly Fremon Craig (“The Edge of Seventeen”), seems uneasy putting funny, flawed and all-too-realistic Margaret on screen exactly as she is.
  8. Chile '76
    What begins as a muted marital melodrama slowly boils into a restrained political thriller, with an ease and skill all the more impressive in a first feature.
  9. Plan 75
    Plan 75 might have been a risible exercise in emotional manipulation if not for the sensitive tone with which Hiyakawa approaches all of her characters.
  10. To Catch a Killer
    The worst thing you can say about To Catch a Killer is that it’s so adeptly executed in all departments that one is disappointed it ends up feeling a tad generic. It’s engrossing, sometimes exciting, yet never fully free from an overall sense of derivation.
  11. Quasi
    Given that this project is piloted by Broken Lizard, it’s clear that “Quasi” is meant to be a comedy, but there are enough long stretches where no jokes are even attempted that you’d be forgiven for thinking that laughs were only an incidental goal.
  12. Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant
    In “The Covenant,” Guy Ritchie tells a story of two men, but he’s really giving this war that never succeeded a kind of closure. He uses the power of movies to coax out the heart that fueled our actions, and that made our loss so hard to bear.
  13. Hilma
    Hallström mostly strikes a nice balance between approachability and mystique, between the definitive and the abstract, getting a huge amount of help from his daughter Tora’s open and warm performance in her first leading role.
  14. Praise This
    Director Tina Gordon crafts a musical that’s carried through by a charming cast and highly entertaining ensemble performances.
  15. The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die
    Where “Seven Kings Must Die” is most interesting, however, is in its approach to religion, sexuality and culture. While it’s tempting to see our current era as unprecedented in its social blending of diverse faiths and identities, early medieval England gives contemporary Western society a run for its money in this respect.
  16. The Plains
    Skilfully creating an engaging and likable protagonist without fully showing his face until the three-hour running time has all but elapsed, David Easteal’s first feature is a thematically rich and quietly compelling portrait of a man at the crossroads.
  17. The Lost Weekend: A Love Story
    “The Lost Weekend” is a compelling movie and a valuable puzzle piece, but it’s only pretending to be the whole puzzle.
  18. Jason Isbell: Running with Our Eyes Closed
    Jones has come up with another gold-standard music doc, in the form of Jason Isbell: Running With Our Eyes Closed.
  19. Mafia Mamma
    A fun fish-out-of-water farce with “Godfather” DNA and a clever female-empowerment kick, Mafia Mamma makes inspired use of Collette, who’s never better than when playing women we oughtn’t to have underestimated.
  20. Wild Life
    Sidestepping thornier questions of optics and ownership, Wild Life ultimately takes the side of nature over politics, and most viewers will follow suit.
  21. The Pope's Exorcist
    The Pope’s Exorcist still exerts a lurid B-movie pull, in part because Australian genre stylist Avery demonstrates some command of fire-and-brimstone theatrics, but mostly thanks to Russell Crowe: As the film’s version of Father Amorth by way of Damien Karras, the slumming Oscar champ props up proceedings with just the right balance of gruff, paternalistic credibility and wry, self-mocking irony.
  22. Renfield
    Cage’s Dracula, sipping blood out of a martini glass, is so quick, so in thrall to his legend, that he’ll slice you with sarcasm. It’s a witty and luscious performance, unhinged but never out of control, and it deserved a movie that could serve as a pedestal for the actor’s seasoned flamboyance.
  23. Beau Is Afraid
    Three hours doesn’t feel at all reasonable for such an uneven collection of sketches.
  24. Chupa
    The director could use a bit more practice working with kids, who give stiff and slightly unnatural performances here (Ciarra seems the most comfortable on camera), to say nothing of the so-so visual effects, which favor cute over convincing where the CG chimera is concerned.
  25. The Innocent
    This film is a slightly slipperier customer than a topline summary would suggest, with tonal shifts that shouldn’t work, but somehow do.
  26. On a Wing and a Prayer
    Like “Soul Surfer” before it, On a Wing and a Prayer clearly aims to appeal to audiences seeking faith-based entertainment; but just because its story is based on events that are technically true, that doesn’t mean that ticket buyers should be subjected to a version of them that’s executed too predictably to believe.
  27. Wolf Children
    Embracing the patient, poetic style of such Japanese masters as Ozu and Mizoguchi, Hosoda sees no need for the manic energy and manufactured conflict of other recent toons.
  28. Somewhere in Queens
    Somewhere in Queens is a low-stakes slice of life for much of its runtime, with most of the actual conflict stemming from a questionable decision Leo makes to ensure his son’s success. That doesn’t necessarily make it feel slight, however, as the film is such an affectionate love letter to the Italian American families who populate the eponymous borough that you don’t mind simply sharing the dinner table with them.
  29. The Five Devils
    The “Ava” director is more ambitious than successful this time around.
  30. Judy Blume Forever
    Celebrating youthful experimentation and midlife renewal alike, Judy Blume Forever strips its subject’s work of any dated aura of danger, inviting everyone to the party.
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