Variety's Scores

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For 17,758 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 17758
  2. Mixed: 7,002 out of 17758
  3. Negative: 1,635 out of 17758
17758 movie reviews
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  1. Dual
    Dual is in fact a fairly astute comedy. The laughs come not from jokes so much as sharp jabs of truth — wince-inducing insights into the subjects most movies won’t touch, like our fear of death, intimacy and being forgotten.
  2. Call Jane
    The female empowerment message comes through loud and clear in “Call Jane,” especially in Banks’ performance. What’s missing from the picture is the threat of discovery, the dangling sword of Damocles that might chasten anyone taking so much responsibility on themselves.
  3. Sharp Stick
    Sharp Stick, in its quick verbal exchanges, its naked sexuality, its general air of busting taboos as if they were oversize balloons, is recognizably a Lena Dunham movie. But it’s the first one of her projects in which the parts don’t quite add up, because it seems as if what we’re watching hasn’t been so much created as contrived.
  4. Cha Cha Real Smooth
    Cha Cha Real Smooth works overtime to be an honest movie, and it also works overtime to ingratiate itself. In a sense, it accomplishes both aims, but I’m not sure that they entirely go together.
  5. Breaking
    Boyega is the most interesting thing about the movie — specifically, the way he portrays this tragic, psychologically damaged individual fighting for what matters to him — although it’s also noteworthy for featuring Michael Kenneth Williams’ final performance as the hostage negotiator.
  6. Fresh
    Fresh comes across as a carefree bit of bloody fun. But there’s considerably more going on beneath the surface, and the allegory is open-ended enough to hit a range of viewers on different levels.
  7. Fire of Love
    Fire of Love, which has been directed by Sara Dosa with a discursive, let’s-try-it-on lyricism, is like one of Werner Herzog’s documentaries about fearless outliers, only this one is touched with romance.
  8. When You Finish Saving the World
    To When You’re Finished Saving the World, being good is exhausting and miserable, and aspiring to be good is even worse. Joy exists only to be taken away.
  9. A Love Song
    A Love Song should resonate with those who seek truth more than incident from their movies.
  10. Emergency
    Emergency, in its racially aware way, turns into something that feels not unlike an ’80s comedy. It has winning flashes of wit, of observation, of telling satire. But it’s fundamentally about the situation.
  11. New York Ninja
    The on-screen actors’ raw hamming is nicely complemented by the voice performers’ relatively deadpan contributions, which only render the dialogue and situations even more absurd.
  12. The Tiger Rising
    Designed for maximum corniness, The Tiger Rising peppers its action with enough references to God, upturned-to-the-heavens gazes and warm enveloping light to make clear its function as a homily.
  13. WarHunt
    A wink here or a smirk there, and the whole kit-and-caboodle could have collapsed into laughable nonsense way before “Warhunt” finally does run off the rails. You still might chuckle from time to time, but not as often as any plot synopsis might lead you to expect.
  14. The Royal Treatment
    Takes expected genre trappings and infuses them with unexpected delights, creating an enlightened, enchanting and entertaining feature.
  15. Memory Box
    Through an ingenious blend of image and music, Memory Box opens channels that allow our own experience to empathetically blend with those of the characters in a mix of imagination and reality.
  16. The Laureate
    Well-acted, nicely crafted and a handsome period piece within modest means, this isn’t the most novel, memorable or intellectually deep enterprise of its type. But it will satisfy viewers looking for a slightly racier variation on “Downton Abbey” terrain.
  17. Courage
    Given ongoing developments, it’s no surprise the film concludes abruptly, and knowing that there’s been no power change in the country so far adds an inherent level of bleakness, yet Paluyan captures the hopes of a population that spans across gender and generations, and there will always be something uplifting about watching people fight peacefully for freedom.
  18. Scream
    The new Scream is about as good as “Scream 2” was — it keeps the thrill of the original “Scream” bouncing in the air like a blood-drenched balloon — but the film is basically a set of variations on a very old sleight-of-hand fear blueprint. Except that it’s now old enough to seem new again.
    • 96 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sansho the Bailiff
    Legend, adventure and poetry fuse to make this engrossing, if overlong, film material.
  20. Hotel Transylvania: Transformania
    The result is yet another wearisome tale that inelegantly depicts themes like acceptance, understanding and diversity within a saga that has always been rather clumsy with its messaging around such weighty topics.
  21. The Pink Cloud
    Gerbase’s thoughtful, precise little film would have marked an impressive enough arrival under normal circumstances. As it is, it might endure as more era-evocative than many of the intentional pandemic dramas to come.
  22. Poupelle of Chimney Town
    As rich as the visuals can be at times, the music has it beat: Chimney Town may be a small-minded, smoke-choked industrial prison state for most, but to an optimistic loner like Lubicchi, it sounds like a symphony and glitters with possibility.
  23. See for Me
    Skyler Davenport’s lead turn in director Randall Okita’s no-nonsense thriller (which debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival last summer) will be worth remembering well after the January doldrums have passed.
  24. Belle
    In a sense, movies aren’t so different from the virtual worlds a platform like U offers, and this one promises a special kind of escapism while going out of its way to keep it real.
  25. The Commando
    A talky and lethargic home-invasion thriller, The Commando amounts to an inept crime drama stuffed with banal dialogue and irrelevant supporting characters to pad its feature-length running time.
  26. The 355
    The 355” is a vigorous formula action spy flick with an out-of-the-frying-pan-into-the-fire plot that mostly holds your attention, periodically revs the senses, and gives its actors just enough to work with to put a basic feminine spin on the genre. I make a point of that because the film does too.
  27. Munich: The Edge of War
    Immersively crafted but never emotionally involving.
  28. Marx Can Wait
    Straightforward in concept yet psychologically profound, the film draws the audience in with a lingering sadness made more potent by the director’s clear yet unspoken sense of guilt.
  29. Jockey
    Jockey could be seen as a fairly conventional estranged-family drama. As sports movies go, it’s far more radical, showing relatively little interest in the outcome of any particular race. But in either genre, the movie stands apart from — and above — its peers. That’s a testament not only to the performances but also to Bentley’s approach, which begs to be seen on the big screen.
  30. American Underdog
    American Underdog is a thoroughly predictable yet hugely entertaining sports biopic that is bound to please almost anyone who’s not a sourball cynic or a snarky critic.
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