Variety's Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
    • 91 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Breaking Away
    Though its plot wins no points for originality, Breaking Away is a thoroughly delightful light comedy, lifted by fine performances from Dennis Christopher and Paul Dooley. The story is nothing more than a triumph for the underdog through sports, this time cycle racing.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Dracula
    Director John Badham and Frank Langella pull off a handsome, moody rendition, more romantic than menacing.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Frisco Kid
    Director Robert Aldrich has always adroitly mixed comedic and dramatic aspects in his films, and Frisco Kid is no exception. For audiences expecting Mel Brooks belly-laughs amidst the Yiddishisms, however, there’s bound to be disappointment.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Wanderers
    Despite an uneasy blend of nostalgia and violence, The Wanderers is a well-made and impressive film. Philip Kaufman, who also co-scripted with his wife, Rose [from the novel by Richard Price], has accurately captured the urban angst of growing up in the 1960s.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Moonraker
    The visual effects, stuntwork and other technical contributions all work together expertly to make the most preposterous notions believable. And Roger Moore, though still compared to Sean Connery, clearly has adapted the James Bond character to himself and serves well as the wise-cracking, incredibly daring and irresistible hero.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Meatballs
    Scripters have managed to gloss over the stereotypes and come up with a smooth-running narrative that makes the camp hijinks part of an overall human mosaic. No one is unduly belittled or mocked, and Meatballs is without the usual grossness and cynicism of many contempo comedy pix.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Muppet Movie
    Jim Henson, Muppet originator, and Frank Oz, creative consultant, have abandoned the successful format of their vidshow, and inserted their creations into a well-crafted combo of musical comedy and fantasy adventure.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Escape from Alcatraz
    Screenwriter Richard Tuggle and director Don Siegel provide a model of super-efficient filmmaking. From the moment Clint Eastwood walks onto The Rock to the final title card explaining the three escapees were never heard from again, Escape from Alcatraz is relentless in establishing a mood and pace of unrelieved tension.
    • Variety
    • 61 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Rocky II
    Rocky II follows much the same theme as its predecessor – that is fighter Rocky Balboa’s path to a stab at the heavyweight crown. In its boxing and training scenes Rocky II packs much of the punch the original did, complete with an exciting pugilistic finale that’s even better than its predecessor.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Prophecy
    Director John Frankenheimer has made a frightening monster movie that people could laugh at for generations to come, complete with your basic big scary thing, cardboard characters and a story so stupid it's irresistible.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The In-Laws
    Under Arthur Hiller’s fast-paced and engaging direction, everything keeps moving quickly enough to stymie audience qualms about plotting, character developments and a rapidly-compressed time frame.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Phantasm
    Strong point of the feature is that it’s played for both horror and laughs.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Brood
    A horror entry which casts children in the role of malevolent little monsters, The Brood is an extremely well made, if essentially unpleasant, shocker.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Dawn of the Dead
    Dawn pummels the viewer with a series of ever-more-grisly events - decapitations, shootings, knifings, flesh tearings - that make Romero's special effects man, Tom Savini, the real 'star' of the film - the actors are as woodenly uninteresting as the characters they play. Romero's script is banal when not incoherent - those who haven't seen Night of the Living Dead may have some difficulty deciphering exactly what's going on at the outset of Dawn.
    • 22 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Beyond the Poseidon Adventure
    A virtual remake of the 1972 original, without that film's mounting suspense and excitement.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    La Cage aux Folles
    Though predictable, the film has one solid trump in Michel Serrault who makes the more feminine member of the happy couple a very shrewd limning of outsize campy gay attributes that avoid tastelessness.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Winter Kills
    If there's a decent film lurking somewhere in Winter Kills, writer-director William Richert doesn't want anyone to see it in his Byzantine version of a presidential assassination conspiracy [from a book by Richard Condon].
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Jubilee
    Derek Jarman's Jubilee is one of the most original, bold, and exciting features to have come out of Britain in the 1970s.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    A Little Romance
    Scripter Allan Burns has craftily kept the point of view of the youngsters, Diane Lane and Thelonious Bernard, while the adults, with certain exceptions, are seen as suitably grotesque and ridiculous, giving Romance a crest of humor on which to ride.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Love at First Bite
    Director Stan Dragoti keeps the chuckles coming, spaced by a few good guffaws.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Saint Jack
    Shot entirely on location in Singapore, the film (produced by Roger Corman, who gave Bogdanovich his start of The Wild Angels in 1964) is extremely well crafted, finely acted, and conjures up a positively intriguing milieu.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Champ
    Even those unfamiliar with the 1931 pic will feel resonances in the current Champ and in this edition Schroder projects a comparable emotional range and depth.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens
    This is the umpteenth in Meyer’s vixen series. But are they satire, as Meyer would have one believe, or fantasy, or both? If anything, they are funny and though a bit too long, Meyer, who does everything (directs, edits, photographs and produces), keeps the action fast and furious.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The China Syndrome
    A moderately compelling thriller about the potential perils of nuclear energy, whose major fault is an overweening sense of its own self-importance.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Silent Partner
    The Silent Partner is one of the films that run the gamut from intrigue to violence.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Hair
    The spirit and elan that captivated the Vietnam protest era are long gone, and what Forman tries to make up with splash and verve fails to evoke potent nostalgia.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Manhattan
    Woody Allen uses New York City as a backdrop for the familiar story of the successful but neurotic urban over-achievers whose relationships always seem to end prematurely. The film is just as much about how wonderful a place the city is to live in as it is about the elusive search for love.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Promise
    Kathleen Quinlan is pretty convincing as the painter/photographer and a new, very handsome, young leading man is added to the Hollywood scene with Stephen Collins as the architect.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Norma Rae
    Norma Rae is that rare entity, an intelligent film with heart.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Warriors
    Theme of the pic, based on Sol Yurick’s 1965 novel, is a variation on countless westerns and war films. Update the setting to modern-day New York, and the avenues of escape to graffiti-emblazoned subway cars, and that’s The Warriors.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »