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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    • 94 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Servant
    The Servant is for the most part strong dramatic fare, though the atmosphere and tension is not fully sustained to the end.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Seven Days in May
    The performances are excellent down the line, under the taut and penetrating directorial guidance of John Frankenheimer.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Sunday in New York
    Norman Krasna's screenplay, from his Broadway legiter, doesn't really get rolling until it has virtually marked time for almost an hour, but once it gets up this head of steam the entire complexion of the picture seems to change.
    • 97 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
    George C. Scott as the fiery Pentagon general who seizes on the crisis as a means to argue for total annihilation of Russia offers a top performance, one of the best in the film. Odd as it may seem in this backdrop, he displays a fine comedy touch.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Children of the Damned
    What weakens this sequel is the fact that, unlike the original, it is burdened with a "message."
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Sword in the Stone
    It emerges as a tasty confection.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    America America
    Elia Kazan gives a penetrating, thorough and profoundly affecting account of the hardships endured and surmounted at the turn of the century by a young Greek lad in attempting to fulfill his cherished dream - getting to America from the old country.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Charade
    Firsttime teaming of Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn, a natural, gives the sophisticated romantic caper an international appeal, plus the selling points of adventure, suspense and suberb comedy.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Incredible Journey
    Sheila Burnford’s book of the same title has been given a vivid translation in The Incred ible Journey, a live actioner exquisitely photographed in the Canadian outdoors.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    McLintock!
    Wayne is in his element, or home, home on the Waynge. O’Hara gives her customary high-spirited performance, although it’s never quite clear what she’s so darned sore about.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
    Being a picture of extravagant proportions, even its few flaws are king-sized, but the plusses outweigh by far the minuses. It is a throwback to the wild, wacky and wondrous time of the silent screen comedy, a kind of Keystone Kop Kaper with modern conveniences.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Tom Jones
    It has sex, Eastmancolor, some prime performers and plenty of action. Tony Richardson has directed John Osborne’s screenplay with verve, though, occasionally, he falls back on camera tricks and editing which are disconcerting.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Lilies of the Field
    Made on a modest budget and filmed entirely on location in Arizona, Lilies reveals Sidney Poitier as an actor with a sharp sense of humor.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The V.I.P.s
    This has suspense, conflict, romance, comedy and drama. Its main fault is that some of the characters and the by-plots are not developed enough. But that is a risk inevitable in any film in which a number of strangers are flung together, each with problems and linked by a single circumstance.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Haunting
    The artful cinematic strokes of director Robert Wise and staff are not quite enough to override the major shortcomings of Nelson Gidding’s screenplay from the Shirley Jackson novel (The Haunting of Hill House).
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Lord of the Flies
    The theme of young boys reverting to savagery when marooned on a deserted island has its moments of truth, but this pic rates as a near-miss on many counts.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Thrill of It All
    Ultimately it is in the design and engineering of cumulative sight gag situations that Thrill of It All excels.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Great Escape
    Producer-director John Sturges has fashioned a motion picture that entertains, captivates, thrills and stirs.
    • 93 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    8½
    With 8 1/2 Federico Fellini tops even his trendsetting La Dolce Vita in artistry. Here is the author-director picture par excellence, an exciting, stimulating, monumental creation.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Jason and the Argonauts
    The $3 million film has a workable scenario and has been directed resourcefully and spiritedly by Don Chaffey, under whose leadership a colorful cast performs with zeal.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Cleopatra
    Cleopatra is not only a supercolossal eye-filler (the unprecedented budget shows in the physical opulence throughout), but it is also a remarkably literate cinematic recreation of an historic epoch.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Donovan's Reef
    Donovan's Reef, for a director of John Ford's stature, is a potboiler. Where Ford aficianados will squirm is during that occasional scene that reminds them this effort-less effort is the handiwork of the men who made Stagecoach and The Informer.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Irma la Douce
    Two hours and 23 minutes is an awfully long haul for a frivolous farce.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Hud
    Hud is a near miss. Where it falls short of the mark is in its failure to filter its meaning and theme lucidly through its characters and story.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Dr. No
    First screen adventure of Ian Fleming's hardhitting, fearless, imperturbable, girl-loving Secret Service Agent 007, James Bond, is an entertaining piece of tongue-in-cheek action hokum. Sean Connery excellently puts over a cool, fearless, on-the-ball, fictional Secret Service guy. Terence Young directs with a pace which only occasionally lags.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sanjuro
    The charm of this fascinating Toho production, stylishly directed by Akira Kurosawa, is the personality of the hero, powerfully played by Toshiro Mifune.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Birds
    The premise is fascinating. The idea of billions of bird-brains refusing to eat crow any longer and adopting the hunt-and-peck system, with homo sapiens as their ornithological target, is fraught with potential. Cinematically, Hitchcock & Co have done a masterful job of meeting this formidable challenge. But dramatically, The Birds is little more than a shocker-for shock’s-sake.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    How the West Was Won
    It's a story [suggested by the series How the West Was Won in Life magazine] which naturally puts the spotlight on action and adventure, and the three directors between them have turned in some memorable sequences.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Days of Wine and Roses
    Miller’s gruelling drama illustrates how the unquenchable lure of alcohol can supersede even love, and how marital communication cannot exist in a house divided by one-sided boozing.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    To Kill a Mockingbird
    To Kill a Mockingbird is a major film achievement, a significant, captivating and memorable picture that ranks with the best of recent years.
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