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. Return of the Living Dead III
    A pedestrian and gruesome, but never really scary, story of how the undead zombies interact with the living.
  2. Fatal Instinct
    Director Carl Reiner and writer David O’Malley simply cast their nets too far and wide in this grating sendup, which proves crude without being clever or, for that matter, even remotely funny.
  3. The Nightmare Before Christmas
    If it were a normal holiday animated film, The Nightmare Before Christmas would be an entertaining, amusing, darker-than-usual offering indicating that Disney was willing to deviate slightly from its tried-and-true family-fare formula. But the dazzling techniques employed here create a striking look that’s never been seen in such sustained form, making this a unique curio that will appeal to kids and film enthusiasts alike.
  4. Rudy
    Rudy is one of those beating-the-odds tales that no one does better than Hollywood. A film that hits all the right emotional buttons, it's an intelligent , sentimental drama that lifts an audience to its feet cheering. In the current filmgoing climate, this is an easy winning touchdown that should score big returns.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Ordinary Magic
    While the actors work hard, script’s overall facile characterizations and predictable plot development detract from real tension.
  6. The Beverly Hillbillies
    It’s thin stuff, but the ingratiating naivete of the characters and the aw-shucks friendliness of the cast are disarming, and it becomes easy to just let this go down as a country tune with some moonshine on the side.
  7. Judgment Night
    This is an exceedingly well directed, cleverly filmed and edited, tension-filled affair. It is also a wholly preposterous, muddled, paranoid's view of the inner-city nightmare where the slightest misstep is sure to have a fateful result.
  8. Farewell My Concubine
    A seductively lensed but emotionally uninvolving drama about two male Peking Opera stars and the ex-prostie who comes between them, Chen Kaige's fourth feature, Farewell to My Concubine, reps a stylistic U-turn compared with his earlier abstract parables like Life on a String and Yellow Earth.
  9. Totally F***ed Up
    This ultra-low-budget, Godardian "homo movie" feels like a step backward to his earlier group mopes rather than an advance beyond his provocative last film, The Living End.
  10. Demolition Man
    A noisy, soulless, self-conscious pastiche that mixes elements of sci-fi, action-adventure and romance, then pours on a layer of comedy replete with Hollywood in-jokes.
    • Variety
  11. Mr. Nanny
    Cross Uncle Buck with Home Alone, stir in the Hulkster, and you've got Mr. Nanny, a gonzo comedy-actioner that should entertain the under-12 and couch-potato sets.
  12. Mr. Jones
    A high-energy performance by Richard Gere and an intensely brooding one from Lena Olin engage attentive viewer interest, but the stars are forced to overcompensate for a rather slow pace and lack of plot.
  13. Deadfall
    Watchable only for camp value, Deadfall is at its best when cameo-laden anarchy reigns. As a tribute to film noir, it won't make it to the late late show.
  14. Short Cuts
    Exploding Raymond Carver's spare stories and minimally drawn characters onto the screen with startling imagination, Robert Altman has made his most complex and full-bodied human comedy since "Nashville."
  15. M. Butterfly
    This butterfly just doesn't fly. Icy, surprisingly conventional and never truly convincing.
  16. Cool Runnings
    Director Jon Turteltaub has a fresh, uncluttered approach to the story that allows its natural warmth and humor to dominate. The classic underdog script provides a positive minority perspective without the usual downside, self-conscious righteousness.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Malice
    The immaculately crafted Malice is a virtual scrapbook of elements borrowed from other suspense pix, but no less enjoyable for being so familiar.
  18. For Love or Money
    Michael J. Fox has charm to burn in his latest screen outing "For Love or Money." A contemporary spin on bygone romantic comedies, the tale of an ambitious young man and the seemingly elusive woman in his life has a definite emotional pull. It falls short on story, however, and no amount of good humor can deter the thin tale from evaporating before the final clinch.
  19. Freaked
    Loud and flamboyant, pic takes a few shots at societal sacred cows but more often misses the target. The effort comes off much in the prankish manner of a student film. “Freaked” thumbs its nose at the status quo, but few will find themselves on the filmmakers’ side when the last laughs are counted.
  20. Dazed and Confused
    One-liners and dry sight gags still abound, but the ennui-sodden formlessness of "Slacker" doesn't fly as well in this $ 6 million, smoothly lensed package, which calls for shapelier narrative and resolution.
  21. Bopha!
    Bopha! is a heartfelt and anguished cry. Though moored in historic/geographic specificity, it is an easily understood and universal tale.
  22. The Good Son
    The bizarre prospect of Macaulay Culkin as a latter-day "bad seed" should prompt enough curiosity to generate initial box office visits, but this peculiar thriller doesn't deliver enough jolts to leave the audience screaming.
  23. The Program
    The Program starts in a fourth-down situation by being a sports movie with virtually no one for whom the audience can root — a major drawback, no matter how hackneyed those “Rocky”-ized finishes have become. Instead, Ward and co-writer Aaron Latham seek to indict big-time college football through a collection of cliches (money-doling boosters, steroid abuse, academic negligence , shady recruiting practices) and still want us to care about whether these players and coaches win the big game.
  24. A Bronx Tale
    A "GoodFellas" with heart, A Bronx Tale represents a wonderfully vivid snapshot of a colorful place and time, as well as a very satisfying directorial debut by Robert De Niro. Overflowing with behavioral riches and the flavor of a deep-dyed New York Italian neighborhood, the film also trades intelligently in pertinent moral and social issues that raise it above the level of nostalgia or the mere memoir.
  25. The Age of Innocence
    Scorsese has met most of the challenges inherent in tackling such a formidable period piece, but the material remains cloaked by the very propriety, stiff manners and emotional starchiness the picture delineates in such copious detail.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Into the West
    Byrne gives a credible, if low-key, rendering of the weak, illiterate father. Barkin downplays her looks and carries off an Irish accent with aplomb. The real stars are the two kids, notably Fitzgerald as the younger bro.
    • Variety
  27. Striking Distance
    Columbia apparently dragged the river to come up with the script for this Bruce Willis vehicle -- an OK action movie until it sinks under the weight of implausible plotting and over-the-top direction.
    • 28 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Airborne
    Kids might enjoy this teenage fish-out-of-the-surf comedy , but anyone approaching the high school age of the movie's characters will spot the obvious formula within 15 minutes of opening credits.
  29. Household Saints
    After building up some cockeyed charm through the first half, Nancy Savoca’s third feature peels off into obscure and particularized religious mysticism, leaving the viewer grasping in vain for a handle to hold onto for the second hour.
  30. True Romance
    It doesn't add up to enough, as preposterous plotting and graphic violence ultimately prove an audience turnoff.
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