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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  1. Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant
    The Vampire's Assistant is too busy making impossible claims about just how spectacular its sequels will be to serve up a self-contained story with a satisfying finale.
  2. Saw VI
    A film so frighteningly familiar it could well be called "Saw It Already."
  3. Motherhood
    Though pregnant with possibility, Motherhood fails to deliver.
  4. Bam gua nat
    Very Korean in its emotional content, while also preserving a quizzical distance that is quite French, picture is one of his lightest and most easily digestible metaphysical meals to date.
  5. Killing Kasztner
    Frequently cutting away from storylines just before they peak and returning to them too much later, odd editing/structural choices never let the picture build up a satisfying head of steam. Overall look is just slightly better than homevideo.
  6. Rembrandt's J'Accuse...!
    An enthralling docudrama that examines the Dutch master's most famous painting, "The Night Watch," for proof that it was responsible for his dramatic fall from grace.
  7. Where the Wild Things Are
    Director Spike Jonze's sharp instincts and vibrant visual style can't quite compensate for the lack of narrative eventfulness that increasingly bogs down this bright-minded picture.
  8. Law Abiding Citizen
    True torture-porn aficionados will be disappointed, as editor Tariq Anwar cuts away right before blade meets flesh -- a move that feels a tad, well, gutless under the circumstances. But elsewhere, "Citizen" proves startlingly graphic, even by R-rated standards.
  9. New York, I Love You
    The results are, well, formulaic, hobbled by weak dialogue and absent any sense of texture.
  10. Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
    Will have to overcome an unfortunate title and competition from this year's other nutrition-oriented titles, though it's a natural for the crunchy crowd.
  11. The Stepfather
    McCormick's Stepfather boasts a decent script by J.S. Cardone, but it seems to have been made in a bubble, as if nothing had transpired in the world of slasher/horror since the late Donald Westlake ("The Grifters") wrote the much-respected original.
  12. The Little Traitor
    Sentimental and a bit too cute in evoking a child's-eye view, the picture, nevertheless will please its target Jewish auds.
  13. The Maid
    Saavedra is riveting as a servant whose unblinking focus on her routine masks a profound loneliness.
  14. Adela
    Artfully observed, it's content to let Linda be the sole, compelling focal point.
  15. An Education
    Carey Mulligan shines in a captivating performance.
  16. The Damned United
    Telling with a light, surefooted touch a legendary tale from British soccer history, The Damned United reps the latest collaboration in factual fiction between chameleon thesp Michael Sheen, screenwriter Peter Morgan and producer Andy Harries ("Frost/Nixon," "The Queen").
  17. Couples Retreat
    Those involved got to spend weeks at a Bora Bora luxury resort; all we get is this not lousy but unmemorable tropical-vacation comedy.
  18. Bronson
    Too smart/arty for the slasher set, and too violent for high-brows, Bronson may have a tough time finding its niche, although it has "cult hit" written all over it.
  19. Good Hair
    A raucous and rigorous inquiry into the subject of African-American hair -- the stigmas, the secrets, the shocking price of maintenance -- that gets at universal but rarely discussed truths about black femininity.
  20. Trucker
    Playing a negligent mother isn't usually the way to get ahead in the acting biz, but the elfin Michelle Monaghan must have seen Trucker as her vehicle out of the ingenue parking lot of sidekicks and potential hostages.
  21. Eating Out: All You Can Eat
    Eating Out: All You Can Eat somewhat departs from the series' gay spin on the raunchy teen sex comedy in favor of semi-sincere romantic comedy -- after a crass and abysmal first stretch, that is.
  22. Adventures of Power
    Absurdist underdog yarn that feels positively Martian in its brand of tom-tomfoolery. Like a "Saturday Night Live" sketch gone on too long, Ari Gold's feature debut will tax unsuspecting viewers, while sending those on Gold's special wavelength into seizures of delight.
  23. From Mexico with Love
    There's scarcely a boxing-movie cliche left unrecycled by the end of From Mexico With Love, an inaptly titled and thoroughly predictable indie drama directed by vet stunt coordinator and fight choreographer Jimmy Nickerson.
  24. Peter and Vandy
    An aggravating romance that runs only 78 minutes but ends not a moment too soon.
  25. The Yes Men Fix the World
    Finds its titular merry pranksters up to yet more capitalist-critiquing chicanery and fat-cat-fooling fun.
  26. After the Storm
    Feels like it was made more for the kids' sake than to communicate their story to outside audiences, who would likely prefer a condensed newsmag-style recap.
  27. Trick 'r Treat
    Trick ‘r Treat neatly apportions scary and campy elements while cleverly interlacing four storylines on Halloween night in an Ohio hamlet.
  28. A Serious Man
    One doesn't know how (auto)biographical any or all of this is, but there's a tartness to the telling of what amounts to a well-shaped series of anecdotes that bespeaks distant pain or, at least, wincing memory twisted into mordant comedy by time and sensibility.
  29. Whip It
    Laced with good-natured hipster kitsch and endearingly goofy girl power, director Drew Barrymore's roller-derby dramedy, Whip It, is a gas.
  30. Zombieland
    Benefiting from the very different but very appealing comedy styles of Woody Harrelson and Jesse Eisenberg even when the script's wit runs thin, this should be catnip to jaded genre fans.
  31. The Invention of Lying
    While it never tops the explosive hilarity of its first 20 minutes, The Invention of Lying is a smartly written, nicely layered comedy that, like last year's underappreciated "Ghost Town," casts Ricky Gervais as a mild-mannered schlub who manages, in spite of himself, to make the world a better place.
  32. More Than a Game
    A kind of classic of American sports history.
  33. A Beautiful Life
    A waste of a talented, earnest cast, this borderline offensive indie, set for an Oct. 2 limited release, shouldn't take up too much valuable theater space before fading away.
  34. Afterschool
    Unsettles without illuminating, marred by narcotic pacing and a blank lead performance.
  35. Chelsea on the Rocks
    A skittery, rambling but often absorbing portrait.
  36. Do Knot Disturb
    Vet helmer David Dhawan's big-budget sitcom is a major, slumdogging step in the right direction, with nosebleed-inducing production values, infectious musical sequences and some astoundingly beautiful actors.
  37. L'ennemi intime
    Visceral and engrossing.
  38. Surrogates
    Mostow's smart speculative suspenser imagines a time when people can live through ideal versions of themselves while they sit wired up at home.
  39. Paranormal Activity
    Paranormal succeeds in staying unnervingly "real."
  40. Pandorum
    Special effects are none too convincing, while sound effects are of the cheaply jolting variety favored by producer Paul W.S. Anderson in his films as director ("Resident Evil," "Event Horizon"). Other tech credits are, like the pic as a whole, lazily derivative.
  41. I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
    Distinguishes itself from such last-fling-before-the-wedding comedies as "The Hangover" with the grittiness of its Texas locales and the smug intelligence of its unapologetically narcissistic protagonist.
  42. Coco Before Chanel
    More sentimental than chic, Gallic biopic Coco Before Chanel nonetheless knits a convincing portrait of the designer's journey from her humble beginnings as a provincial seamstress to the halls of Parisian haute couture.
  43. The Boys Are Back
    This is polished yet authentically moving.
  44. Fame
    This PG-rated offering thus dances along a fine line -- one that suggests a shelf-life well short of its "I wanna live forever" anthem.
  45. Blind Date
    A sometimes hilarious, often wrenching pas de deux between actors Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson.
  46. The Blue Tooth Virgin
    Simultaneously insightful and idiotic.
  47. Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
    It's a very academic movie about academics that belongs in academia, not movie theaters.
  48. Mary and Max
    Has its share of deadpan amusements, but its combo of mordant whimsy and tearjerker moments winds up curdling in an unappetizing fashion.
  49. Capitalism: A Love Story
    Whether Capitalism matches "Fahrenheit 9/11" or underperforms like "Sicko" will depend on how much workers of the world are ready to unite behind the message.
  50. Irene in Time
    Breezy and indulgent, his is a style that lives or dies on the appeal of his characters and performers, and this time he is mostly let down by both.
  51. In Search of Beethoven
    Beautifully lensed and intelligently crafted.
  52. The Informant!
    Amusingly eccentric rather than outright funny.
  53. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
    Eye-popping and mouth-watering in one, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs spins a 30-page children's book into a 90-minute all-you-can-laugh buffet.
  54. Love Happens
    Excise the love story, and there's a pretty good movie buried within Love Happens struggling to get out, mostly to little avail.
  55. Jennifer's Body
    This high school horror romp tackles its bad-girl-gone-really-bad premise with eye-rolling obviousness and, fatally, a near-total absence of real scares.
  56. The Burning Plain
    Many of the weaknesses and few of the strengths of Guillermo Arriaga as a scripter are evident in his directing debut, The Burning Plain.
  57. Disgrace
    Anchored by another marvelously quirky yet deadly serious performance from John Malkovich, and likely to be relished by the fan base of J.M. Coetzee's Booker Prize-winning novel, this is a strong, perceptive, old-school arthouse picture.
  58. If One Thing Matters: A Film About Wolfgang Tillmans
    Kalmbach’s laid-back approach proves more likable than revelatory.
  59. Harmony and Me
    Bristling with wry wit and peopled with a rogue's gallery of disaffected losers.
  60. Bright Star
    Breaking through any period-piece mustiness with piercing insight into the emotions and behavior of her characters, the writer-director examines the final years in the short life of 19th-century romantic poet John Keats through the eyes of his beloved, Fanny Brawne, played by Abbie Cornish in an outstanding performance.
  61. 35 Shots of Rum
    Claire Denis’ latest may appear whisper-thin on the surface, yet it’s marvelously profound, illuminating the love between a father and daughter but also highlighting the difficulty of relinquishing what most people spend a lifetime putting into place.
  62. The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers
    Crams a wealth of material into 90 minutes without losing clarity or momentum.
  63. I Can Do Bad All by Myself
    Perry's latest emotional roller coaster starts with considerable promise and a high-wattage cast, including Taraji P. Henson and singers Gladys Knight and Mary J. Blige, before giving way to melodramatic predictability.
  64. Not Forgotten
    Despite teasing hints of supernatural influences throughout much of the storyline, Not Forgotten satisfies as a solidly crafted and persuasively acted thriller that relies more on dark secrets than black magic.
  65. No Impact Man: The Documentary
    Goes down far easier than, say, an all-natural, fiber-enriched peanut butter sandwich without a glass of soy milk. It's that rare doc (these days) that could go theatrical, largely because it's a film about a couple, more than a movement.
    • 24 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Sorority Row
    An average slasher picture that meanders indecisively between gore and gags.
  67. Donne-moi la main
    The bros are built, and "Hand," with its gorgeous shots of mist-shrouded woods and sun-burnished hay, plus a brief but rapturous foray into gay sex, may attract queer auds.
  68. White on Rice
    Its amusingly off-kilter humor underserved by pedestrian packaging, Dave Boyle's sophomore feature, White on Rice, is the kind of comedy that hinges on a protagonist near-imbecilic in all matters social, physical and especially romantic.
  69. 9
    Design aspects are arresting and the filmmaker's abilities are obvious, but the basic survival story remains slight, just as the general setting, no matter how artfully imagined, is by now pretty familiar.
  70. Crude
    Picture makes an engrossing case for justice.
  71. Gamer
    The audience gets played in Gamer. This latest eye-scraper from writer-directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor is as hopped up as their "Crank" pics, but with dour Gerard Butler as a soldier commandeered by a teenage gamer, it's considerably less interactive.
  72. All About Steve
    Sitting through the picture is an endurance test.
  73. Black Dynamite
    This film will delight both discriminating fans of the blaxploitation tradition and ordinary lovers of goofy, in-ya-face thrills.
  74. Extract
    The picture's attempts at comic portraiture feel sketchy at best, more or less assigning each character a single, belabored trait.
  75. Amreeka
    A culture-clash dramedy whose background in Middle-East conflict is leavened with vibrant energy, balanced politics and droll humor by first-time feature director Cherien Dabis.
  76. Carriers
    Carriers has moments of genuinely communicable horror.
  77. Rashevski's Tango
    Picture touchingly conveys the everyday closeness of the Rashevskis, who are wont to tango their troubles away, but spiritual upheavals and tonal shifts feel artificial and strained.
  78. Tickling Leo
    A radiant perf by Annie Parisse and a virtuoso turn by Eli Wallach are insufficient to lift this male intergenerational angst-fest out of the ghetto.
  79. American Casino
    The filmmakers' metaphor of the housing market as a casino, with hard-working people's homes used as chips, although apt, may lack the visual and visceral excitement.
  80. Unmade Beds
    An exquisitely tender tale of two young Euro immigrants trying to find themselves (but not each other) in contempo London, Unmade Beds has a lively, romantic spirit that recalls the playfulness and spontaneity of the French New Wave.
  81. The Final Destination
    With an array of gory mayhem only marginally enhanced by 3-D and a plot as developed as a text message, The Final Destination may finally sound the death knell for New Line's near-immortal horror franchise.
  82. Mystery Team
    A genuinely funny but amateurishly constructed laffer from Derrick Comedy, a troupe of YouTube-savvy NYU grads with promising writing careers ahead of them.
  83. The Open Road
    Boasting strong performances by Jeff Bridges and Justin Timberlake.
  84. The September Issue
    A dishy and engrossing peek inside the fashion world’s corridors of power -- every bit as slickly packaged as the publication it seeks to uncover.
  85. We Live in Public
    This astounding new documentary burrows into the thin and darkly funny spaces between artistry and vanity, isolation and community, collaboration and exploitation, sanity and madness.
  86. St. Trinian's
    Mildly amusing result, with plenty of slack in its 100 minutes, should work OK with its target audience of female Brit tweenies, who won't notice the pic's shoddy technical package, sloppy direction and the way the original films' antiestablishment tone has morphed into a celebration of dumbed-down "yoof" culture.
  87. At the Edge of the World
    A nonfiction pirate movie that tickles one’s inner eco-radical.
  88. Big Fan
    It's a small, peculiar film, one unlikely to appeal much to women, non-sports fans and mainstreamers, but its uncomfortable comic insights should win it a loyal following.
  89. Wolke Neun
    Overall tone lies somewhere between Mike Leigh and Ken Loach in performances and look, with a modest tech package.
  90. Play the Game
    The comedy's broad perfs, predictable story beats and pro but characterless packaging have a smallscreen feel.
  91. Halloween II (2009)
    Repellent not only in content but in visual style, writer-director Rob Zombie’s hatchet job on the series he revived so artfully two years ago plays like a violent act of euthanasia upon the huge, brain-dead body of work inspired by the 30-year-old “Halloween.”
  92. Taking Woodstock
    The picture serves up intermittent pleasures but is too raggedy and laid-back for its own good, its images evaporating nearly as soon as they hit the screen.
  93. Inglourious Basterds
    A violent fairy tale, an increasingly entertaining fantasia in which the history of World War II is wildly reimagined so that the cinema can play the decisive role in destroying the Third Reich.
  94. World's Greatest Dad
    The picture wobbles a bit before emerging a successful low-key satire of literary fraud and morbid personality cults.
  95. Post Grad
    As fiction characters go, Ryden seems as dull as they come, making it hard to muster much sympathy for her plight.
  96. Shorts
    More zippy, diverting fun from Robert Rodriguez's family filmmaking factory.
  97. The Baader Meinhof Complex
    An explosive performance by Johanna Wokalek gives some relief to an otherwise long and humdrum series of characters.
  98. Fifty Dead Men Walking
    A classic about the Irish "troubles." Despite the unavoidably convoluted facts of the real-life story, pic boasts plausibly written, solidly acted characters and a conflict that pushes the viewer's righteous-indignation buttons.
  99. Five Minutes of Heaven
    Powerhouse performances by Liam Neeson and James Nesbit make this an intense, ultimately moving tale.
  100. The Marc Pease Experience
    The finished product appears particularly stale, with an unfunny script that squanders its game cast, including a valiantly emotive Jason Schwartzman in the title role.
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