Variety's Scores

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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:
  1. Positive: 9,172 out of 17847
  2. Mixed: 7,036 out of 17847
  3. Negative: 1,639 out of 17847
17847 movie reviews
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    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!
    Crass, broad, irreverent, wacky fun - and absolutely hilarious from beginning to end.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Tequila Sunrise
    There's not much kick in this cocktail, despite its mix of quality ingredients. Casually glamorous South Bay is the setting for a story of little substance as writer-director Robert Towne attempts a study of friendship and trust but gets lost in a clutter of drug dealings and police operations.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 10 Critic Score
    Scrooged
    Scrooged is an appallingly unfunny comedy, and a vivid illustration of the fact that money can't buy you laughs. Its stocking spilling with big names and production values galore, this updating of Dickens' A Christmas Carol into the world of cutthroat network television is, one episode apart, able to generate only a few mild chuckles.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Cocoon: The Return
    Not altogether charmless, Cocoon: The Return still is far less enjoyable a senior folks' fantasy than Cocoon. An overdose of bathos weighs down the sprightliness of the characters, resulting in a more maudlin than magic effort.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Land Before Time
    For the most part, pic is about as engaging as what's found on Saturday morning TV.
    • Variety
    • 47 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    High Spirits
    High Spirits is a piece of supernatural Irish whimsy with a few appealing dark underpinnings, but it still rises and falls constantly on the basis of its moment-to-moment inspirations.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
    This often hilarious, irreverent and offbeat comedy is the most coherent young Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar has limned thus far.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    A Cry in the Dark
    One of the oddest and most illogical murder cases of modern times is recounted in intimate, incredible detail in the classy, disturbing drama A Cry in the Dark [from John Bryson's Book Evil Angels].
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Child's Play
    Child's Play is a near-miss at providing horrific thrills in a tale of a doll come to murderous life, told with a knowing tongue-in-cheek attitude. Fun withers in stretching the thin material to feature length.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    They Live
    A fantastically subversive film, a nifty little confection pitting us vs them, the haves vs the have-nots.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers
    A no-frills, workmanlike picture.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Bat*21
    Glover turns in a solid job but, as with Hackman, he remains one-dimensional.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Lair of the White Worm
    Donohoe as the vampire seductress projects a beguiling sexuality that should suck the resistance out of all but the most cold-blooded critics. She is also hilarious, a virtue shared by everyone and everything in The Lair of the White Worm.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Mystic Pizza
    Genuine and moving... Script is remarkably mature in its dealings with teens.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Salaam Bombay!
    Director Mira Nair indulges in some melodramatic explorations, however, dangerously verging on a romanticized Oriental tearjerker mood.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Alien Nation
    Solid performances by leads James Caan and his humanoid buddy-cop partner Mandy Patinkin move this production beyond special effects, clever alien makeup and car chases.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Punchline
    It’s an uneven melodrama where Tom Hanks exhibits flashes of brilliance as a caustically tongued stand-up comic in a strange, undefinable romance with protege Sally Field.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Clara's Heart
    Buoyed by a beautifully measured star turn by Whoopi Goldberg and a smashing screen debut for young Neil Patrick Harris, Clara's Dream is a powerful, unabashedly sentimental drama.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Dead Ringers
    Cronenberg handles his usual fondness for gore in muted style.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Patty Hearst
    Patty Hearst puts forth much less than its pretensions. Frequently wrapped in surrealistic stylization, film manages only to tell Hearst's side of her kidnapping ordeal.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Crossing Delancey
    In an unexpectedly enjoyable way, Crossing Delancey addresses one of the great societal issues of our day - the dilemma of how the 30-ish, attractive, successful, intelligent and unmarried female finds a mate she can be happy with.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Distant Voices, Still Lives
    The film is full of singing, as the characters break into familiar songs at family gatherings or in the local pub. This isn’t a film based on nostalgia, though; its very special qualities stem from the beautiful simplicity of direction, writing and playing, and the accuracy of the incidents depicted.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Running on Empty
    A complex, turbulent tale told with admirable simplicity. Film successfully operates on several levels – as study of the primacy of the family unit, an anguished teen romance, a coming-of-age story and a look at what happened to some political radicals a generation later.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Eight Men Out
    Perhaps the saddest chapter in the annals of professional American sports is recounted in absorbing fashion in Eight Men Out.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Thin Blue Line
    A mesmerizing reconstruction and investigation of a senseless murder. It employs strikingly original formal devices to pull together diverse interviews.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Married to the Mob
    Fresh, colorful and inventive, Married to the Mob is another offbeat entertainment from director Jonathan Demme.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master
    Robert Englund, receiving star billings for the first time, is delightful in his frequent incarnations as Freddy, delivering his gag lines with relish and making the grisly proceedings funny.
    • Variety
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Tucker: The Man and His Dream
    Tucker represents the sunniest imaginable telling of an at least partly tragic episode in recent history.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Last Temptation of Christ
    A film of challenging ideas, and not salacious provocations, The Last Temptation of Christ is a powerful and very modern reinterpretation of Jesus as a man wracked with anguish and doubt concerning his appointed role in life.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    A Fish Called Wanda
    Curtis steals the show with her keen sense of comic timing and sneaky little grins and asides.
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