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. Lord of War
    Brimming with cinematic confidence, cynicism, chutzpah plus dramatic bungles, Andrew Niccol's ambitious Lord of War views today's international arms trade through its anti-hero.
  2. Corpse Bride
    An endearingly schizoid Frankenstein of a movie, by turns relentlessly high-spirited and darkly poignant.
  3. Thumbsucker
    Thumbsucker (like "Donnie Darko") is more likely to prosper in the long haul as a home-format cult fave than in its initial arthouse tour. Both offer eccentric humor within a fairly somber overall tone, support-cast surprises, and (to a lesser degree in Thumbsucker) fable-like, hyperreal elements.
  4. The Thing About My Folks
    Good-natured but only memorable as a platform for the amusingly feisty Peter Falk, The Thing About My Folks plies a light approach to the problems grown children face when their parents appear on the verge of divorce.
  5. One Bright Shining Moment
    "Too decent to be president" was the label stuck to former senator and 1972 presidential candidate George McGovern, the self-effacing subject of Stephen Vittoria's One Bright Shining Moment. If "decent" means "polite," then the movie makes no effort to emulate its subject.
  6. G
    A handsome, compelling drama, about the African-American elite settling in the Hamptons, that more than stands on its own.
  7. Venom
    Acquits itself well enough. Gratuitously gory and derivative to the core, Venom manages to deliver some effective frights in between large swaths of voodoo gibberish.
  8. Separate Lies
    With Separate Lies, Fellowes has made a truly adult film -- not because of its content or themes, but because it knows that real drama often lies in the accepted and unspoken realms of life.
  9. Hard Goodbyes: My Father
    An involving family drama about a young boy's dreams and personal loss, Hard Goodbyes: My Father brings a light touch -- and a full measure of unaffected charm -- to potentially downbeat material.
  10. Human Error
    Benefits from blend of live actors with computer-generated effects and backgrounds. Feature doesn't add up to much more than an enjoyable novelty.
  11. Finding Eleazar
    Will be of keen interest to fans but plays to the unwashed as cringingly pompous.
  12. I am Cuba, the Siberian Mammoth
    Pic's rediscovery in the capitalist U.S., and its reappraisal as a masterpiece of visual pyrotechnics, gives Brazilian documaker Vicente Ferraz's tale an upbeat final twist -- after some mid-film doldrums.
  13. Piggie
    Pic's quirky-for-quirky's-sake antics are neither particularly coherent nor enjoyably incoherent.
  14. The Future of Food
    Genetically-modified (or GM) fruits and vegetables are a topic of raging debate in scientific and ecological circles, so it's a shame writer-director Deborah Koons Garcia opts to show only one side of the argument.
  15. Trilogy: The Weeping Meadow
    The movie plays like a career summation in which the 68-year-old writer-director has simply run out new ideas.
  16. Chain
    Links narrative fiction filmmaking to avant-garde with vision and authority.
  17. The Man
    Functional if thoroughly uninspired movie. Because it clings to the comedy-action template of "48 Hrs.," pic feels like it could have been made 15 years ago.
  18. An Unfinished Life
    A film is in trouble when, despite the presence of an A-list cast and a well-regarded director, the best thing in it is a partly digitized bear.
  19. The Exorcism of Emily Rose
    Some genuine shocks punctuate The Exorcism of Emily Rose, an unusually intelligent genre item that manages to mix full-bore horror with courtroom drama.
  20. Keane
    Convincing as a portrait of a marginal man gone beyond the emotional pale.
  21. Steal Me
    A classic case of overreaching, Steal Me boasts unorthodox camera angles, dramatic shifts in its palette and a generally adventurous visual style. What it lacks is believable dialogue, credible relationships and a serious foundation for its overripe psychology.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Campfire
    Juggles several storylines that include the personal and political, but is unable to get beyond soap-opera shtick.
  23. Green Street Hooligans
    Unvarnished verisimilitude, visceral impact and vividly evoked emotional and physical extremes distinguish Hooligans, the impressive debut feature by German-born helmer Lexi Alexander.
  24. Kamikaze Girls
    Wears out its welcome at 100 minutes, but could find an audience in the West as a latenight attraction at gay fests.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Music from the Inside Out
    Words sometimes fail, but energy and enthusiasm triumph in Music From the Inside Out, a docu that quizzes members of the Philadelphia Orchestra about their relationship to music.
  26. Touch the Sound: A Sound Journey with Evelyn Glennie
    Fans of the Grammy-winning musician will revel in the proximity to their idol, though second pic from talented helmer Thomas Riedelsheimer plays a tad long to those unfamiliar with his, or her, work.
  27. Transporter 2
    Slick kidnapping yarn starts off like a bat out of hell and never sags.
  28. A Sound of Thunder
    A clunky and cheesy disaster.
  29. Underclassman
    So far-fetched as to make "Kindergarten Cop" look comparatively austere.
  30. Margaret Cho: Assassin
    Inspiration is running thin in comedian Margaret Cho's fourth concert film, a routine stand-up set that compares poorly to her oft-hilarious first two.
  31. Mind Game
    Brain-teasing, wildly unpredictable animated feature.
  32. The Constant Gardener
    Succeeds in capturing the book's essential themes and concerns, albeit in a hectic style that could not be more antithetical to that of the literary master of international intrigue.
  33. William Eggleston in the Real World
    Despite Almereyda's strong following in arthouse circles, William Eggleston in the Real World --which requires patient if not repeat viewing -- will probably not venture far into it.
  34. Call Me Malcolm
    Co-produced by the subject's church, this fine feature takes its cue from Malcolm's personality, treating material in a refreshingly earnest, straightforward terms sans flash or preachiness.
  35. The Brothers Grimm
    The tilt here toward a hyperactive, buddy-movie action-adventure with loud comic archetypes is a poor fit for a film that relies on fairy tale icons and themes.
  36. The Cave
    Refreshing strokes of science-fact in the early sections give way to action strictly from the Ridley Scott-James Cameron playbook, but without a powerful helmer behind the camera or a memorable cast in front.
  37. Undiscovered
    As a cautionary drama on the price of fame, Undiscovered could not tread on more exhaustively discovered territory, and the result is a reel-by-reel trail of cliches.
  38. The Baxter
    May find a following among those who stand in awe of the names Sandler, Ferrell and Spade. But Showalter pushes too far: Nerdiness, after all, can be only so attractive.
  39. Dirty Deeds
    A dispiritingly lazy high school comedy.
  40. Eternal
    A handsome package whose atmospherics outclass merely serviceable plot and character elements.
  41. Formula 17
    While it has about as much depth and nuance as the bubblegum Sino-pop tunes that pepper its soundtrack, Formula 17 is a fresh, sweet-natured affair with an attractive young cast that should play to the gay-teen niche.
  42. The Memory of a Killer
    A gripping,stylishly lensed thriller.
  43. Wall
    Helmer -- an Arab Jew who has lived on both sides of Jerusalem and is comfortable speaking idiomatic Arabic and Hebrew -- is particularly well qualified to tackle her subject.
  44. We Jam Econo: The Story of the Minutemen
    A suitably unfussy tribute to a band that disdained even the slightest rock-star flash, We Jam Econo tells the story of the Minutemen, whose regrettably brief but brilliant career did much to expand punk's parameters during the early 1980s.
  45. Matando Cabos
    A perfect example of the sad trend in contempo Latin American filmmaking to imitate old Tarantino with only a fraction of the stylistic cojones, frantic comedy dealing with two pairs of confused guys and one pair of kidnap victims is an empty exercise that loses its juice before first reel's end.
  46. The 40 Year Old Virgin
    Crude, sophomorically homophobic but frequently funny, pic also overstays its welcome a bit and indulges in some juvenile excesses. All told, though, The 40 Year Old Virgin delivers enough belly laughs.
  47. Red Eye
    Departing less from his horror bailiwick than he did with "Music Of The Heart" in 1999, Wes Craven retains shocks but dispenses with scares in the negligible Red Eye.
  48. Valiant
    Fails to get off the ground due to a by-numbers script and dodo-ugly character design.
  49. Now & Forever
    A preposterously convoluted and exasperatingly sappy saga.
  50. This Divided State
    As boisterous as it is sobering.
  51. Supercross
    Completely disposable yet rousing on its own crude, testosterone-saturated terms.
  52. Reel Paradise
    Although it will most readily appeal to cinephiles…offers sufficient reality-based incident and ponderable cultural issues to attract curious audiences.
  53. The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till
    Now, 50 years later, the Justice Department has decided to reopen the case, due largely to Keith Beauchamp's documentary, which contains testimony from hitherto unseen witnesses.
  54. Lustre
    Uneven but affecting.
  55. The Skeleton Key
    Stirring up a humid Gothic mood and amassing a gifted roster of actors, The Skeleton Key is unable to ward off the nasty spirits of formula screenwriting.
  56. Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo
    Rude, crude and, uh, cosmopolitan, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo waves the flag for R-rated politically incorrect studio comedy but doesn't top the laugh ratio of the first Deuce misadventure.
  57. Four Brothers
    With equal measures of rock-the-house vigor and in-your-face attitude, Four Brothers proves usually potent and consistently enjoyable as an old school approach to what might best be described as the urban-Western genre of slam-bang, balls-out action-revenger.
  58. The Great Raid
    This overlong march will bore all but the most nobly patriotic.
  59. Asylum
    Overly plotted erotic drama.
  60. The Goebbles Experiment
    A man whose name has become a byword for pure evil gets a disarming makeover in The Goebbels Experiment. Far from being the horror show expected from its title, Lutz Hachmeister's cool, almost anti-dramatic docu paints a portrait of an insecure manic-depressive solely through extracts from Joseph Goebbels' own voluminous diaries.
  61. Grizzly Man
    A brilliant portrait of adventure, activism, obsession and potential madness that ranks among helmer Werner Herzog's strongest work.
  62. Pretty Persuasion
    An exercise in bad taste that takes itself just seriously enough to be offensive.
  63. Chaos
    Chaos may not quite be "the most brutal, horrifying film ever made," as its garish ads promote. But it does contain moments as thoroughly sickening as any in Herschell Gordon Lewis' or Lucio Fulvi's bloody exploiters.
  64. Pulse
    Result is always watchable, occasionally creepy and teasingly pitched halfway between a genre riff and a genuine scarefest.
  65. The Century of the Self
    Consistently engaging due to the wealth of generally unfamiliar archival footage, which reveals social trends, sweeping overview should provoke healthy debate.
  66. 11:14
    A zippy and sardonic feast of bad decision-making under pressure, 11:14 artfully molds the seemingly unrelated misfortunes of 10 characters into a satisfying and consistently entertaining whole.
  67. Clean
    Dramatically pallid and unconvincing. Despite being written for her, the director's "Irma Vep" muse Maggie Cheung seems oddly miscast here and is ill-served by an emotionally underpowered screenplay that rarely gets beneath the surface of the character's problems.
  68. A State of Mind
    Admirably non-judgmental docu about life in "the least visited, known, understood country in the world," per Brit director Daniel Gordon, brings a refreshing balance to the usual blind vilification of the country.
  69. The Dukes of Hazzard
    Loud, silly but kind of lame-brained fun with car chases aplenty, "Dukes" faithfully plays like an extended episode of the series, albeit with an additional gallon or so of fuel-injected raunchiness.
  70. Broken Flowers
    Working in his typically idiosyncratic and episodic vein, Jim Jarmusch has nonetheless pitched the film slightly more toward mainstream tastes than usual for him, using excellent thesps in the service of accessible material.
  71. 2046
    The overall effect simply underlines the central weakness of the pic: that the neo-kitschy futuristic scenes don't add much to the real-life '60s relationships.
  72. My Date with Drew
    This maddening yet deftly made, and finally disarming, documentary comes through with enough heart and hilarity to sell its celebrity-stalking shenanigans to genuinely moving effect.
  73. Saint Ralph
    Even though it sprints along a well-trod path through familiar territory, Saint Ralph remains surprisingly compelling.
  74. Secuestro express
    Assuming the victims' point of view in the type of kidnapping that's now epidemic in Latin America, Jonathan Jakubowicz's Kidnap Express depicts a nocturnal Caracas with tense energy.
  75. Duma
    A superior all-ages adventure pic made by a filmmaker who knows more than a thing or two about the genre.
  76. The Chumscrubber
    An insufferable, self-conscious cult movie, The Chumscrubber smugly heaps on half-baked ideas about media violence, the homogeneity of suburbia and the disintegration of the American family.
  77. Proteus
    A stimulating scientific inquiry that may cause audiences to look at (and think about) the world around them in dramatically different terms.
  78. Junebug
    Has a washed-out look that may be off-putting to auds who might otherwise enjoy the pic's uncondescending view of Southern characters and customs.
  79. Darwin's Nightmare
    Somewhat haphazardly organized yet fascinatingly detailed and enriched by the candor and dignity of its shockingly deprived interview subjects.
  80. Young Rebels
    In striving simultaneously to cover the transplanted rap scene, sample a wide range of groups, and give an unbiased picture of Cuban society, helmers Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, who have hitherto worked in short-form, blur the overall shape of their picture.
  81. Must Love Dogs
    To properly appreciate Must Love Dogs, one must first love John Cusack. Thesp's maverick turn steals the show in this otherwise middling romantic comedy, which retools standard meet-cute elements for the Web generation in pleasant but uninspired fashion.
  82. Sky High
    Smartly written and sprightly played, Sky High satisfies with a clever commingling of spoofy superheroics, school-daze hijinks, and family friendly coming-of-age. dramedydramedy.
  83. Stealth
    Aiming to join the Jerry Bruckheimer/Michael Bay school of American movie war games, Stealth is just too dumb to make the grade.
  84. The Aristocrats
    A raucous insider documentary that invites the viewer to share a secret held exclusively by comics for untold generations.
  85. Edgar G. Ulmer - The Man Off-screen
    A definitive docu on the elusive Edgar G. Ulmer is a practical impossibility, which is why Michael Palm chooses to highlight questions rather than facts. But Edgar G. Ulmer -- the Man Off-Screen neither fully illuminates the tales nor finely sifts through the evidence to discover the truths behind the myth-making.
  86. Oyster Farmer
    A small, carefully composed film that rejoices in the parochial lingo and mores of its richly textured characters.
  87. Tony Takitani
    Ultimately, this is a striking-looking film -- consciously recalling the paintings of Edward Hopper in its architectural use of space -- which, like its protag, is a little short on real feeling.
  88. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
    A visually lush and very Westernized vision of life in a remote Chinese village in the early 1970s.
  89. Melancholian 3 huonetta
    Walloping gut punch The 3 Rooms of Melancholia offers a harrowing docu look at war and militarism's wounds, as seen through the eyes of Russian and Chechen children.
  90. Yat luk che
    An utterly charming retro romancer set against a background of '70s movie going. Full of lovely touches and well-etched performances, and flawed only by a bland male lead.
  91. The Devil's Rejects
    If you can stomach the violence -- and despite the R rating, that's a big if -- it's hard to deny that Zombie has made exactly the movie he set out to make, guaranteed to satiate his considerable fan base and sicken just about everyone else.
  92. Hustle & Flow
    Director Craig Brewer has given his second feature film a vibrant pulse amplified by an outstanding cast led by Terrence Howard.
  93. The Island
    Frenetic actioner about refugees from a genetic cloning plant starts off intriguingly, burns up its ideas in the first hour and pads out the rest with joltingly repetitive action sequences.
  94. Bad News Bears
    The new Bad News Bears has adopted a somewhat raunchier tone but delivers enough laughs to go the distance.
  95. 9 Songs
    A touching, often poetic, sometimes achingly real snapshot of a brief encounter related almost entirely through the bedroom.
  96. The Edukators
    Ambling drama shows an exasperating lack of economy and a weakness for diatribe dialogue, but becomes progressively more involving after a laborious start.
  97. Last Days
    Result is dead-on depiction of the hedonistic rock lifestyle, punctuated by sequences of haunting beauty but also quasi-religious imagery that borders on tacky.
  98. Monumental: David Brower's Fight for Wild America
    Stylish and substantial enough to prompt even a couch potato to action, Kelly Duane's Monumental: David Brower's Fight for Wild America delivers a stirring and visually dense account of the life and times of Brower.
  99. Yau doh lung fu bong
    A disjointed story of self-discovery, courage and redemption somewhat incongruously billed as a salute to Akira Kurosawa.
  100. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
    Entertaining and fabulously imaginative in many ways, this second bigscreen rendition of the late author's modest morality tale on the wages of unbridled excess sports excesses of its own.
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