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. Everything's Gone Green
    Starring an excellent Paulo Costanzo (late of "Joey") as a twentysomething uberslacker who is nonetheless willing to fall into accidental success, pic is seasoned with fine perfs by JR Bourne as a charismatic, creepy hustler and Steph Song as Constanzo's sexy potential love interest.
  2. Lonely Hearts
    Todd Robinson constructs a riveting thriller.
  3. Year of the Dog
    A satisfying and funny, if ironic, comedy intended for lovers of both the beast and/or sophisticated laughs.
  4. Slow Burn
    What begins as a moderately interesting set of interconnected mysteries involving race and identity soon grows eye-rollingly laborious, not to mention increasingly derivative of Christopher McQuarrie's "Usual Suspects" script.
  5. Private Fears in Public Places
    Despite a perfect cast of Resnais regulars plus the master's own impeccable crafting, the characters fail to grip, and with approximately 50 short scenes, development comes in fits and starts.
  6. The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai
    If outrageous concepts were all, this latest fillip in the oft-eccentric history of Japanese "pink" (softcore sexploitation) cinema would be genius. But the crazy ideas in Takao Nakano's script just fitfully amuse under Mitsuru Meike's draggy direction.
  7. Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis
    An insightful and incisive portrait of a self-destructive paranoid artist whose importance is partly hidden by his own divisive nature.
  8. Rock the Bells
    At several points, Chang is the only thing standing between his event and total chaos, as frustrated ticket-holders rush the gates.
  9. Disturbia
    Squirmingly fun suspenser that brings Alfred Hitchcock's "Rear Window" into the era of vidcams and cell phones, serving up hearty, youth-skewing portions of PG-13 violence and bikini-bait along the way.
  10. Grindhouse
    Planet Terror delivers only momentary kicks...while Tarantino's Death Proof is a juicy, delicious treat, its pleasures stem much less from the play with genre conventions than from great dialogue and electric performances.
  11. The Hoax
    Lasse Hallstrom's breezy, fast-paced, somewhat loose-ended account of how he (Irving) did it offers a surprisingly layered vehicle for a maniacally conniving Richard Gere, backed up by a superb Alfred Molina as his accomplice.
  12. Ping Pong
    Very striking stylistic control is exerted in this absorbing if overlong tale of angst-ridden high school competitors.
  13. The TV Set
    Results are breezy though toothless, with too much repetition and not enough originality.
  14. Whole New Thing
    "Thing" suffers the familiar curse of Canadian seriocomedy -- just nice enough in content and stylistically like a telepic.
  15. Words of My Perfect Teacher
    Thoughtful, surprisingly fast-moving documentary.
  16. Hoboken Hollow
    With plenty of cheap shocks but little real suspense, Hoboken Hollow is nothing more than an uninspired cavalcade of carnage, much of it shamelessly gratuitous.
  17. Daratt
    Using a simple storytelling style that grows stronger with each passing scene, Dry Season draws the viewer into its small two-character drama set in post-war Chad, while it offers a deep reflection on injustice and frustrated revenge.
  18. The Reaping
    Revisiting the book of Exodus in a feverish Southern-gothic context, this lurid, often ludicrously entertaining slab of Biblesploitation builds an earnest case for spirituality in a skeptical age.
  19. Are We Done Yet?
    Supposedly based on "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House," but has about as much to do with that frothy Cary Grant confection as a Yugo has to do with a 1948 Buick Roadster.
  20. Firehouse Dog
    Leaving no heartstrings untugged and no doggie-fart jokes uncracked, scruffy pic reps a very mixed breed of obvious humor, gently moving father-son drama and sub-"Backdraft" trial by fire.
  21. Black Book
    Moves like an express train across almost 2½ hours without any sense of rush and with strong, empathetic characters etched en route.
  22. Blades of Glory
    This Will Speck-Josh Gordon-directed farce is the triple axel of comedy.
  23. The Lookout
    A stealthy neo-noir drama that isn't afraid to take its time developing characters on the way to the payoff of a neatly designed caper scenario.
  24. Meet the Robinsons
    A sharp-minded, plenty entertaining toon that will keep children of all ages wide-eyed and on their toes.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    After the Wedding
    Thanks to a tight script, sharp direction and excellent actors, new film by Danish helmer Susanne Bier manages to be both emotional and engaging.
  26. The Hawk Is Dying
    Already gasping for breath in its opening scenes, picture takes two bleak, unyielding hours to finally expire.
  27. Race You to the Bottom
    It's a bad heterosexual date movie (more a date-gone-wrong), has too limited a gay angle for that demographic, and is about characters who are not particularly likable as individuals or as a couple.
  28. Ten 'til Noon
    Paul Osborne's script delivers an intriguing structure, though dialogue tastes like something warmed over after 12 years in Quentin Tarantino's freezer.
  29. Live Free or Die
    Criminally short on laughs as it tries to wring humor from dull activity by dim bulbs.
  30. Sacco and Vanzetti
    Does a superb job of condensing an overwhelming mass of documentation, archival imagery and artistic representation into a concise yet passionate history lesson whose relevance could not be timelier.
  31. Summer in Berlin
    The modest splash made by Andreas Dresen's Dogme-styled 2002 drama "Grill Point" raised expectations his projects since haven't quite met, including the new Summer in Berlin.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    U-Carmen e-Khayelitsha
    This version of Georges Bizet's frequently reinterpreted "Carmen" is spoken and sung in the click-punctuated African lingo of Xhosa and adapted to fit yarn's shift south, with a semi-cinema verite style cleverly disguising the artifice of the work's legit origins.
  33. Shooter
    An immediately involving yarn of an ace Marine sharpshooter set up to take the fall for an attempted presidential assassination, picture saddles itself with stereotypical villains, hokey contrivances and too-expedient crisis solutions.
  34. The Hills Have Eyes II
    The politics of "Hills 2" won't enlist any new converts to the horror ranks, but existing fans will be drawn to the combination of visceral tension, violent payoff and the patented Craven gift for innovative gore.
  35. The Last Mimzy
    Kids will like Mimzy if for no other reason than it doesn't talk down to them.
  36. Pride
    Despite a second half that feels more routine than its first, Pride is a definite crowd-pleaser.
  37. Reign Over Me
    Sandler (never making a false step while maneuvering though vertiginous mood swings) and Cheadle (deftly commingling instinctive decency with quiet desperation) are individually excellent, and bring out the best in each other. And the picture itself transcends its real but relatively minor flaws to score a satisfyingly potent impact.
  38. TMNT
    Munroe's script denies fans the satisfaction of a decent story or amusing interactions. Rather than waiting for a screenplay that warranted their bigscreen return, TMNT feels like an attempt to exploit the phenomenon further.
  39. Air Guitar Nation
    With equal measures of showmanship, patriotism and irony, hundreds vie at NYC's Pussycat Lounge for the East Coast Division of the first-ever nationwide air guitar championship for the right to eventually represent the U.S. at the world championship.
  40. Boy Culture
    A strong cast, formal visual style and cynical voiceover that propels the action help elevate this Seattle-set gay romp from the ranks of the stereotypical.
  41. Color Me Kubrick
    A sly, enormously entertaining romp based on the antics of real-life Brit conman Alan Conway who rooked his way around '90s London posing as Stanley Kubrick.
  42. First Snow
    Engages but underwhelms.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Journey from the Fall
    A post-Vietnam War boat people saga is launched to compelling effect in Journey From the Fall, a sleek U.S. production.
  44. Offside
    In his most accessible and spontaneous picture, ranking Iranian helmer Jafar Panahi reveals unsuspected comic gifts barely visible in his dramatic festival winners "The White Balloon," "The Circle" and "Crimson Gold."
  45. The Page Turner
    Scripter-helmer Denis Dercourt's sixth feature is spare but classy, with an impressively controlled perf by Deborah Francois (the young mother in the Dardenne Bros.' "L'enfant") opposite popular and spot-on vet Catherine Frot.
  46. Memory
    It's actually considerably better -- and far more intriguing -- than most entry-level horror pics, marrying a retro B-movie setup with the ghostly obsessions of recent Asian extreme cinema.
  47. The Prisoner or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair
    The Prisoner is in many ways a justifiably angry film, simmering with moral outrage. But it is also -- surprisingly, maybe even amazingly -- hopeful.
  48. What Love Is
    Picture looks and sounds like an Off Off Broadway play.
  49. Iluminados por el fuego
    A watchable if none-too-penetrating analysis of the traumatizing effects of a war largely forgotten.
  50. Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon
    An ingeniously twisted mockumentary.
  51. Nomad
    Picture fits seamlessly together although it is somewhat generic in flavor, with an off-the-shelf narrative arch and characterizations drawn using broad brushstrokes.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Dead Silence
    Only those in a cold sweat for their weekly horror fix will bother with this formulaic and rather lazy exercise in booga-booga scare tactics.
  53. I Think I Love My Wife
    The main drawback is that under director Rock, actor Rock doesn't possess quite the chops to pull off this character, and the humor and flights of fancy are simply too low-key.
  54. Premonition
    This slick exercise about a housewife whose spouse might or might not be dead is effective until a downright maudlin close.
  55. Caffeine
    Nonsense, hysterics and many cuppas spill in Caffeine, an ensembler that serves up a menu's worth of forced and trite situations.
  56. My Brother
    A heavy-handed redemption story.
  57. The Wind That Shakes the Barley
    Though tastily lensed and with a convincing cast led by Cillian Murphy, essentially small-scale picture lacks the involving sweep of Loach's earlier historical-political yarn, "Land and Freedom."
    • 51 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Adam's Apples
    A funny, politically incorrect and, somewhere deep down, thoughtful black comedy, Adam's Apples is the third and final film in helmer-writer Anders Thomas Jensen's excellent trilogy centered on oddballs and misfits in Denmark.
  59. Tortilla Heaven
    As flat as a tortilla and considerably less nourishing.
  60. American Cannibal: The Road to Reality
    Fails to draw any conclusions and, thanks to legal issues, leaves too many questions unanswered.
  61. Blockade
    Told without voiceover, explanatory subtitles or any other contextualizing material, Russian docu Blockade looks unlikely to show up on the History Channel as it stands now. Nevertheless, this absorbing account of the 900-day siege of Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) during WWII, told entirely through re-edited archive footage with freshly made sound, reps poignant viewing as it focuses on the daily lives of the city's inhabitants.
  62. The Go Master
    Perhaps the least accessible of Tian's films, this serenely elliptical poser will elude all but the most devoted arthouse auds.
  63. 300
    A blustery, bombastic, visually arresting account of the Battle of Thermopylae as channeled through the rabid imagination of graphic novelist Frank Miller.
  64. The Host
    On almost every level, there's never quite been a monster movie like The Host. Egregiously subverting its own genre while still delivering shocks at a pure genre level, and marbled with straight-faced character humor that constantly throws the viewer off balance.
  65. Believe in Me
    Even with ties to the true story of high school hoops coach Jim Keith and his unlikely triumph with a 1960s Oklahoma high school girls' squad, the hackneyed, overlong Believe in Me is much too similar to a recent flood of inspirational basketball pics to distinguish it.
  66. Beyond the Gates
    Although in many respects a more stylish, authentic, tougher-minded film than "Hotel Rwanda," director Michael Caton-Jones' respectable and well-intentioned Beyond the Gates (aka Shooting Dogs) still falls into the trap of filtering an inherently African story through the eyes of a noble white protagonist -- in this case, two of them.
  67. Maxed Out: Hard Times, Easy Credit and the Era of Predatory Lenders
    Intelligent, informative and unusually entertaining documentary errs only when it yanks too insistently on heartstrings while focusing on worst-case scenarios involving desperate debtors driven to suicide.
  68. The Namesake
    A richly compelling story of family and self-discovery.
  69. The Ultimate Gift
    Although cynics likely will reject The Ultimate Gift as warmed-over Capra-corn, this predictable but pleasant drama based on Jim Stovall's popular novel may be prized by those with a taste for inspirational uplift and heart-tugging sentiment.
  70. The Exterminating Angels
    Brisseau trains his deft camera on the crescendo of female sexual pleasure and how women can heighten the intensity of already blissful sensations via transgressive flourishes. If exiting viewers could all be asked "Was it good for you?" the likely answer is "Yes."
  71. The Border Post
    A flashback to the playfully tender East Euro cinema of yore with a forceful if predictable punch in the closing reel, Rajko Grlic's Border Post marks a virile comeback for the Croatian veteran after his weak-kneed "Josephine."
  72. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time
    Animated combo of laughs and life lessons charts its heroine's adventures in such an accessible and cheery way, it's easy to imagine her leaping into a Stateside remake.
  73. Zodiac
    Conveying an astonishing array of information across a long narrative arc while still maintaining dramatic rhythm and tension, this adaptation of Robert Graysmith's bestseller reps by far director David Fincher's most mature and accomplished work.
  74. Wild Hogs
    Given his writer-producer credits on good-to-great recent sitcoms ("My Name Is Earl," "Arrested Development," "Grounded for Life"), one might expect more situational wit, or at least some snappy patter, from Brian Copeland's first bigscreen script. Instead, the humor rests primarily on slapstick wipeouts that have no physical consequence.
  75. The Cats of Mirikitani
    Always surprising documentary makes excellent use of its many serendipidities.
  76. Black Snake Moan
    Mix Brigitte Bardot in "And God Created Woman" with Carroll Baker in "Baby Doll," sex it up times 10 and you have a notion of the effect of Christina Ricci in Black Snake Moan.
  77. Full of It
    Hormonally charged comedy is bound to make parents uncomfortable, as writers Jon Lucas and Scott Moore add a sexual dimension to the kind of after-school-special premise that might appeal to 10-year-olds (but is here twisted to suit older teens).
  78. Into Great Silence
    With a painterly eye and a deep appreciation for the hermetic world set apart from, rather than at odds with, modern life, helmer Philip Groening takes the viewer into their cloistered world.
  79. Wild Tigers I Have Known
    Striking and self-indulgent in equal measure, Cam Archer's first feature, Wild Tigers I Have Known, is an impressive declaration of talent that nonetheless gets a little drunk and disorderly at the trough of High Art. Arresting visual and sonic textures frequently overwhelm sketchy narrative, leaving surface provocation too seldom ballasted by deeper psychological truths or emotional impact.
  80. The Astronaut Farmer
    Thornton carries the film with relaxed authority, though the earnest tone doesn't let him explore the nuttier aspects of a character who, from any reasoned distance ought look more screwy than heroic. Madsen is radiant.
  81. Reno 911!: Miami
    All of which goes to demonstrate that while it's easy enough to slap a colon on a lowbrow cable TV show, additional punctuation by itself isn't sufficient to actually transform it into a movie.
  82. The Abandoned
    Minimally plotted but beautifully atmospheric nightmare.
  83. Amazing Grace
    Picture reflects the no-nonsense storytelling skills of prolific helmer Michael Apted, whose career-long mix of feature and documentary work holds him in good stead once more.
  84. Gray Matters
    Scripter/helmer Sue Kramer's awkward freshman outing eventually coasts on the genuine charm of its leads. A strong vehicle for Heather Graham, who has never looked lovelier, "Gray" scores most convincingly in its reinvention of Carole Lombardian sexual screwiness as head-spinning gender confusion.
  85. Starter for 10
    Showcasing the considerable talents of ubiquitous thesp James McAvoy ("The Last King of Scotland," "Penelope") and several other up-and-coming Brit actors, picture garnishes fairly standard college-set plot with wit, warmth and unexpected turns.
  86. Glastonbury
    While one can appreciate helmer's resistance to a conventional, chronological overview, what emerges is a long, structureless muddle that does justice to neither the stellar acts nor changing countercultural times event has encompassed.
  87. Cocaine Angel
    Pitch-perfect central perf (by scribe and co-producer Damian Lahey), total lack of dramatic artifice and surreally situational humor make for a minor-key vignette of unmistakable, if unstable, authenticity.
  88. Breach
    Just as somber as "The Good Shepherd," the most recent domestic spy drama, but more tightly focused, Breach absorbingly zeroes in on how the FBI nailed the most damaging turncoat in American history.
  89. Bridge to Terabithia
    Some literal-minded attempts at magical realism are redeemed by the film's emotional texture, winning chemistry between the tyke leads and scrupulous adherence to a childlike point of view.
  90. Ghost Rider
    Though the superhero's fans have long awaited his close-up, the Devil's bounty hunter -- complete with a burning skull for a head and a killer motorcycle in flames --materializes in a movie that never measures up to his infernal potential.
  91. Antibodies
    Not content with a straight psychological police procedural, Alvart mixes in distracting -- and unconvincing --Biblical symbolism in a curious bid for weightiness.
  92. Avenue Montaigne
    A well-oiled script is nicely served by a multigenerational cast, a bittersweet and consistently entertaining mainstream comedy that tackles the big themes of Life and Art with unpretentious brio.
  93. Close to Home
    Mixes humor, tragedy, tenderness and political acumen into a well-observed coming-of-age format.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Grbavica: The Land of My Dreams
    Central performance by Mirjana Karanovic is instantly endearing. Unfortunately, film coasts on thesp's ability to evoke sympathy and leaves her stranded in this yarn that's all setup and little payoff.
  95. Eklavya: The Royal Guard
    The pic often plays like a Cliffs Notes version of a longer movie: Pacing and continuity aren't choppy, but there's enough material here for a full-length drama that would go deeper into the characters and their backgrounds. Eklavya is good as it is, but lacks tragic heft.
  96. Daddy's Little Girls
    Chockfull of cathartic moments, Perry's storytelling is best when it defies convention. Like the black man's Frank Capra, Perry tells stories in which every conflict is a test of faith and every victory a testament to the American underdog. Instead of following the proven formulas of screenwriting books, he earnestly shepherds his own messy structure.
  97. Music and Lyrics
    Grant carries the day as the fortysomething lad still living off his youth and just about getting away with it.
  98. Bamako
    Rather miraculously, picture succeeds in painlessly educating its viewers about global politics and economics while it describes contemporary Africa with freshness and clarity.
  99. Hannibal Rising
    This upmarket slasher is a well-produced but slow-moving thriller that never quite roars to life.
  100. Norbit
    Murphy's story lacks even the basic form that held most of "The Nutty Professor" together.
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