Variety's Scores

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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:
  1. Positive: 9,121 out of 17760
  2. Mixed: 7,003 out of 17760
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17760
17760 movie reviews
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  1. The Trigger Effect
    David Koepp's writing-helming bow is a bleak, highly stylized view of modern civilization. While The Trigger Effect maintains a potent mood of postmodern dread, even its proponents will be wondering what all the queasy fuss was about.
  2. First Kid
    The real strength of the Tim Kelleher script is its understanding that despite the two main characters’ considerable positive traits, they are misfits. Each appreciates the other for his qualities, not his station. The writer has effectively created an appealing fantasy and given it human dimension.
    • 15 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Carpool
    Arthur Hiller's pacing is crude, but that seems to be the point.
  4. Freeway
    Freeway is roadkill. The directorial debut of screenwriter Matthew Bright ("Gun Crazy") is a sophomoric and morally repellent mix of fractured fairy tale, juvenile social satire, bloody mayhem and overstated B-movie melodrama.
  5. A Very Brady Sequel
    Highly entertaining.
  6. She's the One
    There's charm to burn in "She's the One," Ed Burns' sophomore romantic comedy. Very much in the vein of his award-winning "The Brothers McMullen," outing is a decided step forward artistically and technically. Endowed with a refreshing honesty and poignancy, the film should score well with audiences and rack up upbeat theatrical returns.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Girls Town
    Lili Taylor...gives a superlative, gut-wrenching performance in "Girls Town," a powerfully raw, ultra-realistic drama about a trio of abused teenage girls and their struggle to survive in a rigidly defined, male-dominated society.
  8. Tin Cup
    Amiable and constantly amusing rather than uproarious, this mangy tale of a ne'er-do-well's fitful assault on personal and professional respectability benefits greatly from Kevin Costner's ingratiatingly comic star turn, his most appealing work in years.
  9. Kansas City
    For Altman, this is a major statement about American hypocrisy and society’s haves and have-nots, in line with many of his films, but issued in a kind of offhand way that delivers only glancing emotional impact.
  10. Tales From the Crypt Presents Bordello of Blood
    Neither funny enough nor scary enough to be satisfying as either a shocker or a spoof.
  11. Basquiat
    As writer and director, Schnabel should be commended for avoiding Hollywood's biopic cliches about artists, as Basquiat's meteoric rise to fame and tragic death at the age of 27 would have fit perfectly the timeworn formula.
  12. Jack
    Blandness and lack of daring characterize nearly every minute of the very long two hours, which are marked by a high degree of professionalism at the service of little content.
  13. Escape from L.A.
    Nocturnal setting, uneven tone, abrasive score and only fitfully successful attempts at humor create a generally grim atmosphere, occasionally leavened by goofy ideas and flashes of explosive action.
    • Variety
  14. Flirt
    Slight but sleek, Flirt is still fun.
  15. Emma
    A fine cast, speedy pacing and playful direction make this a solid contender for the Austen sweepstakes.
  16. Matilda
    A delightfully twisted fairy tale that artfully juggles broad tomfoolery and sly drollery, along with a generous serving of sight gags enhanced by special effects. Even though it's being pitched primarily at younger moviegoers and their parents, pic is exuberantly quirky enough to please almost anyone.
  17. Cyclo
    Made with the same jewel-like meticulousness and very Gallic sense of style that set Tran’s debut so far apart from other Asian offerings, the new feature again boasts boldly creative craftsmanship in every frame. The film is disappointingly compromised, however, by needlessly convoluted, often pretentiously enigmatic plotting, placing a considerable blight on its commercial potential.
  18. Manny & Lo
    Despite the imaginative setup and the original sensibility, pic ultimately suffers from a slight, rather contrived narrative and a lack of secondary characters.
  19. A Time to Kill
    As originated by Grisham and adapted by Akiva Goldsman, this is a story of elemental emotional and legal issues splashed across a large canvas, and director Joel Schumacher has done a solid job of keeping the many components in focus and balance.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Trainspotting
    Scabrous, brutal and hip, Trainspotting is a "Clockwork Orange" for the '90s.
  21. The Frighteners
    Story was originally conceived as an episode of Tales From the Crypt, and that is perhaps what it should have remained, as the thinness of the conceit shows throughout, painfully so in the first half.
  22. Walking and Talking
    Eventually, the impression is created of notes for good scenes full of pungent observations and sharp asides, but without fully developed drama or emotion, leaving a sketchy, wispy feeling when all is said and done.
  23. Multiplicity
    The picture provides hilarious complications to the arithmetic mayhem and will be one of the strongest performers in the second half of the summer, its inventive edge standing up to the barrage of flashier effects pics.
  24. Independence Day
    The cutting-edge perfection of effects in Cameron and Spielberg films is replaced here by work that looks more homemade, particularly toward the end in some faintly cheesy composite shots.
  25. Phenomenon
    Instead, director Jon Turteltaub has taken the easiest road, emerging with a soppy, soft-headed disease-of-the-week-style piece that sentimentalizes or opts out of every interesting issue the script raises.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Striptease
    Writer-director Andrew Bergman has good fun sending up the weak morals, outrageous hypocrisy and trashy lifestyles of many of his characters, but his satirical aim is wobbly, the jibes and potshots falling short of their mark more often than not.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Lone Star
    A richly textured and thoroughly engrossing drama that ranks with indie filmmaker John SaylesJohn Sayles' finest work.
  28. Eraser
    Compared with high-powered action specialists like James Cameron, director Charles Russell seems content to accomplish just one thing per shot, getting the essentials on the screen but creating no special dynamic or look.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Hunchback of Notre Dame
    The new film should further secure Disney’s dominance in animation, and connoisseurs of the genre, old and young, will have plenty to savor.
  30. Stealing Beauty
    A model of poise and restraint, the film flows in a way that is deliberately undramatic, but made no less involving by the dreamy gentleness of its approach.
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