Variety's Scores

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For 17,791 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 2.4 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: 9,139 out of 17791
  2. Mixed: 7,015 out of 17791
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17791
17791 movie reviews
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  1. Azumi
    Inevitable comparisons to Quentin Tarentino's femme-centered carnage extravaganza "Kill Bill" are not unwarranted insofar as both films featurefeature an abstract, self-conscious, and decidedly post-modern approach to a moribund genre.
  2. John Tucker Must Die
    Predictable developments are more or less redeemed by spirited execution and the pleasures of an able, good-looking cast.
  3. The Ant Bully
    Lovely to look at but a headache to listen to.
  4. The Night Listener
    Aiming for unsettling atmosphere over character definition, the dawdling mystery thriller manages to flatten two protagonists that had far more depth in the novel.
  5. America: Freedom to Fascism
    The strong case built in pic's first half is weakened by the vaguely argued contention in the second that the land of the free is becoming anything but. Attack focuses on the Federal Reserve, the Patriot Act, the abolition of the gold standard, and not-yet-ratified plans to introduce identity chips on currency and in citizens in the future.
  6. Another Gay Movie
    This is son-of-John-Waters with most of the grossness but none of the essential anarchism -- silly pop trash set for vid-classic status in gay households.
  7. Vacationland
    Marred by sluggish script and Verow's inability to either direct actors or cast ones whose thesping ability matches their good looks.
  8. Lunacy
    More moving animal parts and less human pontificating would make a stronger case for a tale already rich in imagery. Another drawback is Liska, too one-dimensional to stand against Triska's overpowering performance.
  9. Poster Boy
    Underproduced and compromised by an uneven script and a tendency to descend into melodrama, the DV-lensed feature nonetheless is well acted and directed with confidence.
  10. Material Girls
    It's less substantial than cotton candy, but Material Girls is as slickly produced as one of the Marchetta TV spots.
  11. Trust the Man
    For those who appreciate the Woody Allen view of New York but would prefer fewer neurotics, Trust the Man provides a loving take on bourgeois Manhattan contentment that's usually only found in episodes of "Will & Grace."
  12. 10th & Wolf
    A lackluster actioner.
  13. Beerfest
    Such fare plays better on DVD, where the best moments can be absorbed in bite-sized bits and the debris easily bypassed.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    How to Eat Fried Worms
    A decidedly old-fashioned family film that may prove too quaint for modern audiences.
  15. Queens
    A lively, well-packaged but meaningless amusement.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Bubot Niyar
    Distilled from a six-episode Israeli TV series, pic mostly fails to transcend its ramshackle structure or penetrate the inner-lives of its subjects.
  17. Man Push Cart
    An example of spare, slice-of-life indie cinema at its most unpretentious, Man Push Cart adeptly and subtly layers facts about the protag's history and character into his story.
  18. Red Doors
    A lightly feminist, good-naturedly comic sketch of a Chinese-American family in crisis. But despite pic's earnestness and obvious good intentions, narrative elements, carefully set forth though they may be, fall back on overfamiliar, underdeveloped tropes.
  19. Al Franken: God Spoke
    Despite these flashbacks, however, God Spoke never really delves into the reasons and/or motivations behind Franken's transformation from monologist and sketch-comedy performer to political pundit and liberal activist. Indeed, even during intimate moments, Franken rarely comes across as someone given to explaining himself.
  20. Everyone's Hero
    Neither a grand slam nor a strikeout, Everyone's Hero is minor-league animated entertainment.
  21. Feast
    Forgettable fun for the undiscriminating.
  22. Jesus Camp
    May shock many viewers, especially political liberals.
  23. School for Scoundrels
    Picture seemed certain to either fly high on outrageous humor or crash under the weight of tastelessness. Instead, the movie just sits there and never comes alive.
  24. Facing the Giants
    For those who felt insufficiently uplifted by "Invincible" and "Gridiron Gang," here comes Facing the Giants, an aggressively inspirational drama about a born-again high school football coach.
  25. ...So Goes the Nation
    Neither newly revelatory nor formally innovative.
  26. Kettle of Fish
    Pic contains its share of viable gags and stars generate a certain degree of convincing chemistry. But eventually, the seams in personality design and artificially stitched-together script construction begin to show.
  27. Man of the Year
    A curious hybrid -- a political/action/comedy/thriller in which Robin Williams becomes president of the United States. A movie as uneven as it sounds, "Man" is less laugh-out-loud funny than topical and suspenseful.
  28. The Marine
    Junky, jokey and sometimes both at once, pic marks yet another attempt by World Wrestling Entertainment to establish one of its burly superstars as a movie lead.
  29. Nearing Grace
    Without Smith's graceful presence, which more than once resembles Zach Braff's slightly older but observant New Jerseyite in "Garden State," Nearing Grace would be pure video fodder.
  30. Zerophilia
    Plays like a throwback to such transformative adolescent anxiety romps as "Teen Wolf" and "Just One of the Guys," this time aiming at a slightly less innocent crowd.
  31. Running with Scissors
    Writer-director Ryan Murphy strives mightily to capture the bracing hilarity, pathos and surreal incident of Burroughs' bestselling memoir, but this rudderless adaptation never gets a firm grip on the author's deadpan tone or episodic narrative style.
  32. Sleeping Dogs Lie
    A game and winning performance by Melinda Page Hamilton is the only saving grace.
  33. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
    Result: An undeniably clever commingling of a new cast (and spoken dialogue) with a silent classic. But pic fails to engage consistently on its own terms, and begins to coast on novelty value around the midway point.
  34. Conversations with God
    More polished and better acted than many "inspirational" biopics.
  35. Death of a President
    Disappointingly, Death of a President shrinks from its promise as a piece of genuinely radical or adventurous speculative fiction.
  36. The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause
    Not unlike the shiny snow globe at its center, The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause is a thing of consummate craftsmanship, a smoothly engineered and fundamentally lifeless object that's nevertheless capable of giving even the grinchiest moviegoers a brief attack of the warm-and-fuzzies.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Shottas
    Gangster tale Shottas feels like a Jamaican "Scarface," offering a vivid slice of the underground street culture of Kingston. Still, the violence is senseless and the plot full of holes.
  38. A Good Year
    A simple repast consisting of sometimes strained slapsticky comedy, a sweet romance and a life lesson learned, this little picnic doesn't amount to much but goes down easily enough.
  39. Come Early Morning
    Despite her (Judd's) efforts and those of a generally talented cast, picture just pokes along and offers nothing out of the ordinary in terms of drama, characterization or insight. Judd's presence notwithstanding, this one would be more at home on small than on big screens.
  40. Copying Beethoven
    Helmer Agnieszka Holland's Copying Beethoven joins 1994's "Immortal Beloved" in the ranks of mediocre dramatic interpretations of Beethoven's biography.
  41. Flannel Pajamas
    Visually, the film is without flair or ambition, conveying no sense of atmosphere or mood. But the performances put it over.
  42. Opal Dream
    From the first frames, when lollypops are offered to the camera, there's no escaping the saccharine miasma of whimsy enveloping Peter Cattaneo's Opal Dream.
  43. Eating Out 2: Sloppy Seconds
    Sequel is no more than a cheapo campy goof, but this edition does contain a higher quota of laugh lines and an unsubtle message that efforts to make gay youth "go straight" is destined to fail.
  44. The Nativity Story
    Memories of dreary Sunday school classes come flooding back courtesy of The Nativity Story.
  45. 3 Needles
    3 Needles is a great discussion tool for World AIDS Awareness Day that never achieves coherent shape as a three-paneled drama.
  46. The Good German
    For actor and director, the project seems like trying on a new coat, and it doesn't fit either of them.
  47. Screamers
    A noble cause does not a good movie make. Pic repeatedly drowns its impassioned message with music, creating an awkward hybrid between history lesson and concert documentary.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Good Shepherd
    Robert De Niro's second film as a director adopts a methodical approach and deliberate pace in attempting to grasp an almost forbiddingly intricate subject, with a result that is not boring, exactly, but undeniably tedious.
  49. Charlotte's Web
    Nowhere to be found is any dramatic surprise, heightening of the pulse or genuine pulling of heartstrings. Gary Winick's direction consists of button pushing, and the mechanics are palpable at every step.
  50. Factory Girl
    The wild, unhinged life of Andy Warhol's favorite "superstar," Edie Sedgwick, is refashioned in Factory Girl as a tame biopic with little feel for the 1960s New York Underground.
  51. The Flying Scotsman
    Helmer Douglas Mackinnon does what he can to make the most of emotional bullet points and gloss over the lack of connective tissue.
  52. Primeval
    It's not exactly good, but it's not bad, and far from boring.
  53. Stomp the Yard
    The dancing is more dynamic than the plotting in Stomp the Yard, an energetic if formulaic underdog tale about warring black fraternities specializing in an intensely competitive style of step dancing.
  54. Tears of the Black Tiger
    Fun, if finally too silly.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Catch and Release
    A so-so romantic dramedy.
  56. Seraphim Falls
    Aside from spasms of brutal violence, however, there's nothing rousing or new here.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Shockproof
    While never credible, story does point up the standard melodramatics and good playing to keep it all interesting. (Review of Original Release)
  58. The Messengers
    Though the Pangs prove culturally adaptive on a visual level, they seem completely clueless as to the tonal modalities of Mark Wheaton's admittedly undercooked, all-American script.
  59. The Situation
    Undeniably topical but the lack of emotional investment in its characters renders it more intelligent than engaging.
  60. Fired!
    Modestly amusing in fits and starts, Fired! proves most potent when on-screen interviewees are playing for keeps, not for laughs.
  61. Hannibal Rising
    This upmarket slasher is a well-produced but slow-moving thriller that never quite roars to life.
  62. The Last Sin Eater
    Michael Landon Jr.'s respectfully sincere but only fitfully involving film.
  63. Antibodies
    Not content with a straight psychological police procedural, Alvart mixes in distracting -- and unconvincing --Biblical symbolism in a curious bid for weightiness.
  64. 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.
  65. 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.
  66. 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.
  67. 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.
  68. 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.
  69. 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.
  70. 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.
  71. 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.
  72. First Snow
    Engages but underwhelms.
  73. 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.
  74. 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.
  75. 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.
  76. The TV Set
    Results are breezy though toothless, with too much repetition and not enough originality.
  77. Whole New Thing
    "Thing" suffers the familiar curse of Canadian seriocomedy -- just nice enough in content and stylistically like a telepic.
  78. Vacancy
    At the risk of spoiling anything, Vacancy, is one strange movie. It ends so precipitously, one can only assume it's a setup for the sequel (which, given all that happens, seems a mite unlikely).
  79. In the Land of Women
    A strong cast struggles valiantly to rise above Lifetime material in In the Land of Women, an appealingly scruffy if overly programmatic drama.
  80. The Invisible
    That rare mystery in which auds know everything upfront and the characters, rather than investigating, simply wait for the culprit to turn herself in. Previously adapted as Swedish thriller "Den Osynlige," Mick Davis' script brings out director David S. Goyer's emo side.
  81. Next
    What starts out as a mildly diverting thriller blows itself to smithereens in the final reel.
  82. Snow Cake
    Boosted by a delish performance from Carrie-Anne Moss as a local vamp who helps unthaw the Englishman, but holed beneath the waterline by a gratingly miscast Sigourney Weaver as the persnickety autistic.
  83. Wind Chill
    This intermittently effective thriller serves as a rickety vehicle for its two perfectly cast leads, working better as a slow-thawing two-hander than as a chilly ghost story.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Paris, je t'aime
    Uneven but quite pleasant as a two-hour experience that acknowledges the idealized Paris people carry in their heads while wisely veering off the beaten track.
  85. Delta Farce
    If three of "The Magnificent Seven" had been Gomer Pyle, the result might have looked like Delta Farce, a movie rife with fat, fart and Fallujah jokes, but with a subcutaneous wit that has a lot to do with Iraq war fatigue.
  86. Brooklyn Rules
    A sometimes funny, occasionally maudlin coming-of-age dramedy that wants to be "Goodfellas" but might have been called "Mild in the Streets."
  87. The Last Time
    Although this "Sopranos" writing vet delivers several flashes of that show's dark humor and irony, the pic leaves a hollow feeling at the end.
  88. Angel-A
    For his (Besson) fans, Angel-A is an achingly sincere but protracted effort to trade mostly action for mostly dialogue.
  89. Gracie
    Modestly engaging but thoroughly predictable.
  90. Day Watch
    Bursting with incident and FX, Day Watch will delight fans of its predecessor, "Night Watch," but further annoy those antipathetic to the Russkie-made supernatural franchise.
  91. Noriko's Dinner Table
    Although told through a cascade of flashes forward and back, the puzzle doesn't quite form a complete picture by the end, which may leave genre fans frustrated but the arthouse crowd intrigued.
  92. Evan Almighty
    It's mildly diverting for kids and families in a way that would be perfectly fine as an ABC Family cable project.
  93. All the Boys Love Mandy Lane
    A partly smart, mostly dumb addition to the teen horror sweepstakes -- smart in how it neatly catches the petty, hurtful, sexy and druggy aspects of high school life, dumb in how it makes absolutely no sense once its resolution is known.
  94. Fat Girls
    Wins no points for delicacy. Still, it does score some laughs.
  95. Cut Sleeve Boys
    No amount of Botox or false eyelashes can rejuvenate helmer Ray Yeung's Cut Sleeve Boys, which recycles way too many gay cliches.
  96. Underdog
    Falls somewhere between stale retread and half-hearted parody of superhero-movie formulas.
  97. Descent
    Pic's message is the one thing that's made clear: A victim can sink lower than her predator. Whether receiving that message justifies the cost of watching Descent is another question.
  98. Rush Hour 3
    The latest picture to feature one of the movies’ oddest crime-fighting tandems nevertheless stays true to the franchise formula of East-West fusion action, broad cultural comedy and international intrigue, this time largely in Paris.
  99. Dedication
    Individual scenes in actor Justin Theroux's directorial debut possess a certain flair, but the central issue on which the story turns -- how obnoxious and mean-spirited can you be and still get someone to love you? -- presents a forbidding obstacle.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Nanny Diaries
    Rarely rises above standard sitcom fare.
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