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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    • 38 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo
    Together again, Jones finds once more he is at the mercy of Herbie, who time and again takes matters into his own hands for often slapstick and mirthful effect as they roar toward their destination.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Rescuers
    There’s real terror in the story, and the Gothic setting of the swamp where the girl is held captive; the maudlin pitfalls of the plot are avoided through deft use of humor, and the plucky character of the young captive.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    New York, New York
    In a final burst from Old Hollywood, Minnelli tears into the title song and it’s a wowser.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Deep
    Efficient but rather colorless...It’s possible that inside this slick piece of engineering there is a genuinely mordant satire of human greed struggling to get out, but it never quite gets to the surface.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Exorcist II: The Heretic
    Since any title containing Roman numerals invites comparison, the answer is: No, Exorcist II is not as good as The Exorcist. It isn't even close. Gone now is the simple clash between Good and Evil, replaced by some goofy transcendental spiritualism.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    A Bridge Too Far
    Futility and frustration are the overriding emotional elements in A Bridge Too Far, Joseph E. Levine's sprawling Second World War production [from the novel by Cornelius Ryan] about a 1944 military operation botched by both Allied and German troops.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    For the Love of Benji
    Only a heart of steel can resist this pooch...The tale itself is slim, and while the plot is a bit contrived, and all of the loose ends tied up a bit too neatly in the film’s last five minutes, it should be remembered that For the Love of Benji is merely a star vehicle. The idea is to watch the dog act.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Smokey and the Bandit
    There is a parade of roadside set pieces involving may different ways to crash cars. Overlaid is citizens band radio jabber (hence, the title) which is loaded with downhome gags. Field is the hottest element in the film.
    • Variety
    • 90 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope
    A magnificent film. George Lucas set out to make the biggest possible adventure fantasy out of his memories of serials and older action epics, and he succeeded brilliantly.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Cross of Iron
    Cross of Iron more than anything else affirms director Sam Peckinpah's prowess as an action filmmaker of graphic mayhem.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Citizens Band
    The CB dialog exemplifies the good-natured horsing around that marks those channels, at the same time the serious emergency traffic that often saves lives.
    • 25 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    The White Buffalo
    Production features arch scripting by Richard Sale (from his novel), stilted acting by the cast and forced direction by J. Lee Thompson.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Annie Hall
    In a decade largely devoted to male buddy-buddy films, brutal rape fantasies, and impersonal special effects extravaganzas, Woody Allen has almost single-handedly kept alive the idea of heterosexual romance in American films. Annie Hall is a touching and hilarious love story that is Allen’s most three-dimensional film to date.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Demon Seed
    Excellent performances and direction (Donald Cammell), from a most credible and literate screenplay [from a novel by Dean R. Koontz], make production an intriguing achievement in story-telling.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Rabid
    Rabid, as the dictionary explains means both ‘affected with rabies’ and ‘extremely violent’. Using both definitions, Rabid, is so accurately titled that this one word tells all. Here is an extremely violent, sometimes nauseating, picture about a young woman affected with rabies, running around Montreal infecting others.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Eagle Has Landed
    Most performances [in this adaptation of the Jack Higgins’ novel] are first rate with Sutherland exuding great credibility as the Irishman, and Caine thoroughly convincing as the Nazi commander. Pleasence gives a standout lifelike interpretation of Himmler.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Black Sunday
    John Frankenheimer’s film of Black Sunday is an intelligent and meticulous depiction of an act of outlandish terrorism – the planned slaughter of the Super Bowl stadium audience.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Airport '77
    The story’s formula banality is credible most of the time and there’s some good actual US Navy search and rescue procedure interjected in the plot.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Slap Shot
    Like the character played by Paul Newman in Slap Shot, director George Roy Hill is ambivalent on the subject of violence in professional ice hockey. Half the time Hill invites the audience to get off on the mayhem, the other half of the time he decries it.
    • 19 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    The Sentinel
    The Sentinel is a grubby, grotesque excursion into religioso psychodrama, notable for uniformly poor performances by a large cast of familiar names and direction that is hysterical and heavy-handed.
    • 30 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    The Cassandra Crossing
    The Cassandra Crossing is a tired, hokey and sometimes unintentionally funny disaster film in which a trainload of disease-exposed passengers lurch to their fate.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Freaky Friday
    Freaky Friday is certainly one of the most offbeat films Walt Disney Productions has ever made, but it isn't one of the best. A promising concept - quarreling mother and teenage daughter switch personalities for a day - has been bungled by a talky, repetitive screenplay and overbroad direction. Barbara Harris and Jodie Foster salvage some scenes through sheer behavioral charm.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Pumping Iron
    The most fascinating aspect of this film is the dedicated training that turns average-built young men (frequently they refer to themselves as weaklings in their early youth) into superbly-created physical edifices.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Enforcer
    The spitball script [from a story by Gail Morgan Hickman and S.W. Schurr] lurches along, stopping periodically for the blood-lettings and assorted running and jumping and chasing stuff.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Voyage of the Damned
    Fact that the story is based on an actual, and shocking, incident makes all the more disappointing its transfer to the screen. The action zigs and zags between the cluttered set of characters.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Nickelodeon
    Peter Bogdanovich's film is an okay comedy-drama about the early days of motion pictures. Story begins with a group of barnstorming filmmakers in the pre-feature film era, later segues to the adolescence of the industry.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mikey and Nicky
    The interplay between the stars is excellent, Cassavetes slowly but steadily digging his own grave as he reveals his shallowness in dealings with Falk, girl friend Carol Grace (a beautiful performance) and estranged wife Joyce Van Patten (a brief but excellent characterization).
    • 59 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    A Star Is Born
    The new A Star Is Born has the rare distinction of being a superlative remake. Barbra Streisand's performance as the rising star is her finest screen work to date, while Kris Kristofferson's magnificent portrayal of her failing benefactor realizes all the promise first shown five years earlier in Cisko Pike.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    King Kong
    Faithful in substantial degree not only to the letter but also the spirit of the 1933 classic for RKO, this $22 million-plus version neatly balances superb special effects with solid dramatic credibility.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Shaggy D.A.
    Jones is a pleasant light comedian whose style is perfectly suited to the WASPish world of Disney. As his wife, Suzanne Pleshette has her first film role in five years, and her beauty and intelligence livens a part that might have been dull without her.
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