Variety's Scores

For 17,760 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:
17760 movie reviews
  1. A certain staleness hangs over the proceedings despite the best efforts of the cast and the fun-minded creative team.
  2. Feels like the most shameless effort yet in the renewed exploitation of the youth market.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Despite strategic references to Joan Baez and pot, pic's sense of time and place feels synthetic.
  3. An extremely enjoyable neo-screwball comedy about attractive opposites on the road.
  4. Essentially approaches its subject seriously, but does take stabs both at horror and grotesque comedy, neither with much success.
  5. Broadway musical purists will shudder in horror, but parents will be whistling a happy tune that there's at least one acceptable pic out there for their kids.
  6. Eastwood's latest picture boasts tight storytelling, sharp acting and an eye for unexpected, enlivening detail.
    • 21 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Formulaic, humdrum and sometimes unintentionally laughable.
  7. Michelle Pfeiffer and Treat Williams give such magnetic performances that they elevate the film way above its middlebrow sensibility and proclivity for neat resolutions.
  8. A largely affectionate look at the weird and the wonderful subculture that's ensued and endured since the sci-fi series first beamed up in 1966.
  9. As generic in every aspect as Brian De Palma's original was inventive.
    • 7 Metascore
    • 10 Critic Score
    A thoroughly misguided, unfunny film that proves you shouldn't beat a dead horse.
  10. It's to the filmmakers' credit that, as an actioner, The Corruptor is a character-driven movie, with several plot twists and turns involving the interactions among the gangs, cops, FBI and Internal Affairs.
  11. The perennially insecure world of two-bit character actors is humorously and knowingly explored in With Friends Like These.
  12. The gradual dilution of fresh humor is further undercut by a queasy sense that the picture, in the end, is quietly endorsing all the psychoanalytical mumbo jumbo that it has been poking fun at all along.
  13. Nasty, profane and wickedly entertaining for the most part.
  14. Though Ritchie’s screenplay scores a 10 for sheer complexity and cleverness, it rates much lower down the scale for comprehensibility and audience involvement.
    • Variety
  15. A skillful blend of fire and ice that subtly conveys the emotional extremes fraught in the relationship.
  16. Blurring the lines between cinema verite and fiction, writer-director Myles Berkowitz has created a winning entertainment.
  17. Dismally unfunny...It's clear from the first few minutes that the performers are fighting an uphill battle against lame material, and the situation never improves as pic labors on.
    • 28 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    A sweet, at times cloying confection enlivened by strong performances in the central roles.
  18. 8MM
    A movie that keeps jumping the gate and finally unravels all over the floor.
  19. Imagine a live-action version of the "Dilbert" comic strip with a touch of Hal Hartley's deadpan absurdism, and you're ready for the frequently uproarious "Office Space."
  20. Immensely entertaining and unabashedly inspirational.
  21. The strongest dimensions of this self-conscious but centerless film are four sexy actresses parading in colorful costumes and Amy Vincent's radiant lensing, which makes the picture seem hipper than it is.
  22. A time-warp comedy that starts out kinda "Pleasantville" and gets pretty Tepidsville, Blast From the Past expends scant imagination or style on a fun premise that seems an open invitation to both.
  23. Dreary, lachrymose and incredibly poky tear-jerker that makes its audience wait and wait and wait until nearly the last second for its jerking.
  24. Martian is loud, busy and altogether pointless. Worse, it’s simply not as engaging as the show that inspired it.
  25. Much like a botched souffle that fails to rise, Simply Irresistible is a bland confection that remains doggedly earthbound while attempting flights of romantic fantasy.
  26. Not an embarrassment, but it's not distinguished, either.

Top Trailers