Variety's Scores

Select another publication »
For 17,765 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: 9,125 out of 17765
  2. Mixed: 7,004 out of 17765
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17765
17765 movie reviews
view
per page
  1. Saving Face
    The film's appealing characters and amusing situations prevail over its general shortage of energy.
  2. A Common Thread
    Thoughtful cross-generational portrait is full of familiar building blocks rendered fresh by first time feature helmer Eleonore Faucher.
  3. Genesis
    Eye-poppingly intimate footage of various critters evolving from the fetal stage or eating, strolling, fighting and courting that can only be obtained via infinite patience with special equipment in exotic locations.
  4. Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist
    Result is hardly a diabolical failure, if not quite a heavenly masterpiece. Schrader's intelligent, quietly subversive pic emphasizes spiritual agony over horror ecstasy, while paying occasional lip-service to the need for scares.
  5. Fixing Frank
    Full of bold dramatic strokes and complex character shadings.
  6. Second Best
    While Second Best is mildly engaging thanks largely to an appealingly self-effacing turn from Joe Pantoliano, writer-director Eric Weber's script could have used an extra polish or two.
  7. 2009: Lost Memories
    More often a noirish action drama, a melancholy meditation on history and nationalism, than the high-tech thriller promised by its hype and artwork.
  8. 6ixtynin9
    The film goes more and more off-kilter, with its jumble of black comedy and bloodshed and its mild-mannered protagonist embroiled in violent crime making it an unsophisticated foray into Coen brothers territory.
  9. Stolen Childhoods
    In its reliance on emotionally loaded voiceover and its disconcertingly direct appeals for support, Len Morris' old-fashioned docu seems more designed for fund-raising pitches than theatrical release.
  10. Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
    Emerges as the best in the overall series since "The Empire Strikes Back."
  11. Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire
    The overall effect makes for a far more resonant film than that offered by concurrent narrative feature "Hotel Rwanada."
  12. Mindhunters
    Ridiculous would-be thriller.
  13. Kicking & Screaming
    An immensely likable, funny comedy that finds a novel approach to that familiar combo of kids and sports.
  14. Monster-in-Law
    Shrill, undermotivated, feature-length catfight.
  15. Unleashed
    Slick transitions and punchy pace leave just enough time for Hopkins and Freeman to make dopey dialogue sound far smarter than it is. And as both pit bull and puppy dog, Jet Li convinces.
  16. Mad Hot Ballroom
    Perky and effortlessly smooth.
  17. My Mother
    Director Christophe Honore's respectable, tightly coiled, but ultimately unrewarding adaptation of Georges Bataille's posthumous novel.
  18. Layer Cake
    There's a proper lived-in believability about Layer Cake's depiction of how the worlds of the rich, the criminal and the criminally rich intersect.
  19. Kings & Queen
    This enjoyable French pic welds together drama, melodrama and comedy.
  20. Lost
    Schlocky yet resourceful.
  21. Modigliani
    Can't overcome a didactic script.
  22. Tell Them Who You Are
    A compelling look at the great cinematographer Haskell Wexler by his photojournalist son Mark.
  23. Crash
    The tense drama eventually becomes off-putting when it becomes clear almost every scene hinges on an unpleasant or ugly racial interaction.
  24. House of Wax
    Direly predictable, with candle-drip pacing and a pervasive unpleasantness.
  25. Kingdom of Heaven
    Genuinely spectacular and historically quite respectable, Ridley Scott's latest epic is at its strongest in conveying the savagery spawned by fanaticism.
  26. Fighting Tommy Riley
    The winner by a knockout is Eddie Jones...Without Jones, pic is a standard drama on the sweet science with the usual tropes and a slight tweak on the usual conflicts.
  27. Jiminy Glick in Lalawood
    Too often depends on salty, adolescent one-liners that provide shock value guffaws but grow cumulatively wearisome.
  28. Mysterious Skin
    By turns spiky and lyrical, this unsettling drama will be anathema to many audiences, but is bound to be a provocative, talked-about release.
  29. The Great Role
    Predictable yet charming, The Grand Role is a crowd-pleasing dramatic comedy about love, friendship, role-playing and Jewish pride.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Brothers
    The second collaboration between helmer Susanne Bier and scriptwriter Anders Thomas Jensen once again shows what skilled artists can do with a story that might have ended up filled with cliches.
  31. A Hole in One
    This oddball tale of a small-town gangster's troubled girlfriend hovers uncertainly on the edge of an absurdist universe.
  32. Up for Grabs
    A sly curve ball of a documentary best described as a sports-themed "Rashomon" with an O. Henry twist.
  33. Writer of O
    Hodgepodge of archival, re-enactment and staged fictive elements.
  34. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
    More smile-inducing than laugh-aloud funny.
  35. xXx: State of the Union
    You'd half expect the Xbox logo to pop up on the credit roll for XXX: State of the Union, since what's on view is closer to a videogame than a movie. While that will be music to the ears of young gamers, it's noise to anyone hoping for a coherent action movie.
  36. 3-Iron
    A rarefied love story, conducted with no dialogue between the principals.
  37. À Tout de Suite (Right Now)
    Strikingly crafted but rather empty drama.
  38. Death of a Dynasty
    The execution is so amateurish and the script so witless the filmmakers appear to be having a far better time than the audience.
  39. Funny Ha Ha
    A beautifully observant and wholly unpretentious film with roots more in Cassavetes than Sundance-style showbiz.
  40. The Holy Girl
    A mystifying film that holds the audience in suspense over where it's going and what it might mean for almost its entire running time.
  41. Ladies in Lavender.
    Full of delightful moments that throw into high relief the actors' craft.
  42. The Tunnel
    A cracking slice of old-fashioned, widescreen entertainment.
  43. Stalin's Wife
    Results are solid, if stylistically unspectacular.
  44. Another Road Home
    Fascinating.
  45. Casuistry: The Art of Killing a Cat
    Too underground in feel.
  46. The Interpreter
    Coolly absorbing without being pulse-quickening.
  47. A Lot Like Love
    In essence, British director Nigel Cole has brought a breezy arthouse sensibility to this tale of fated love.
  48. King's Ransom
    An innocuous abduction of viewers' time, if nothing else, King's Ransom is an appealingly cast but terminally bland farce.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Double Dare
    Viewers are left feeling that it's still a male-dominated profession, but that determined women like these might just effect some small change.
  50. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
    By turns amazing, amusing and appalling.
  51. The Game of Their Lives
    Picturesque pic, however, lacks even a penalty kick's worth of tension and is paradoxically inert for a movie about guys running up and down the pitch for the glory of the U.S.
  52. Madison
    Inspirational but uninspired sports movie.
  53. The Man Who Copied
    Intermittently amusing.
  54. One Missed Call
    Combines scares and chuckles with good production values.
  55. Erosion
    Shady mood-piece profits greatly from enigmatic performance by Emmanuel Xeureb.
  56. Dead & Breakfast
    Offers plenty of splat with its slapstick. But this strenuous zombie yukfest is no more sophisticated than its nail-on-head title -- making it a joke no smarter than the movies it riffs on.
  57. Save the Green Planet!
    Though certainly not to everyone's tastes, this looney-tunes pic about a deranged serial killer who thinks he's helping Earth by killing off supposed aliens works on a variety of levels, from gruesome slapstick comedy through social critique to genuinely chilling Grand Guignol.
  58. The Amityville Horror
    Begins slavishly faithful to its low-key 1970s predecessor then sledgehammers auds with a numbing succession of shock edits and over-the-top horror effects.
  59. House of D
    David Duchovny scores considerably higher as director than as screenwriter.
  60. Down and Derby
    A modestly amusing family-friendly comedy about a miniature car race that brings out the worst in overzealous fathers who compete with each other through their children.
  61. It's All Gone Pete Tong
    Colorful, sometimes endearing but highly uneven picture.
  62. Torremolinos 73
    Somewhat wacky tale, based on real events, is kept anchored in reality through attention to detail and by first-rate central perfs.
  63. The Year of the Yao
    Slickly entertaining documentary.
  64. The Girl from Monday
    Unconvincingly attempts to update the futurist dystopian traditions of Orwell, Huxley and William Gibson.
  65. Perlasca: The Courage of a Just Man
    Confusing lack of historical set-up considerably dims the potential luster of a great true story: Helmer Alberto Negrin relies instead on competently rendered but cliche-ridden melodrama of nasty Nazis and suffering Jews.
  66. Winning Girls Through Psychic Mind Control
    Track record of helmer Barry Alexander Brown, and scads of clever writing from scripting producer Dan Harnden, should help this little gem find a home, although it is probably too intimate and original to win more than a cult following.
  67. Palindromes
    Like the symmetrical word that supplies its title, the mordant comedy-drama recovers ground to become a boldly intriguing if not entirely satisfying subversion of American family values.
  68. State Property 2
    Slicker, funnier and more professional than its predecessor, State Property 2, with Damon Dash at its helm tones down the original.
  69. 15: The Movie
    15 is Asian Kid Rebels 101. So predictable it could almost be a parody of the genre -- though that would require a sense of humor above and beyond the self-reflexive comedy on display here.
  70. Sahara
    Saddled with more industry/celebrity baggage than a high-class safari voyage, Sahara is a rousing and only occasionally ridiculous adventure yarn.
  71. Fever Pitch
    The Farrelly brothers are growing up, which in this case isn't a bad thing. With a tacked-on ending made necessary by the Boston Red Sox's improbable World Series run last fall, Fever Pitch proves a charming romantic comedy against "A Beautiful Mind"-type framework.
  72. Kung Fu Hustle
    Devoid of genuine inspiration or involving character development.
  73. Eating Out
    Rude, heavily contrived, pretty funny, just remotely connected to real-world youth life.
  74. Winter Solstice
    Story of a still-grieving widower and his two troubled teenage sons is distinguished by its emotional integrity, sustained mood of aching melancholy and superbly understated performances.
  75. Smile
    Well-meaning but dramatically lopsided tearjerker bogs down in generic teen angst and domestic squabbling.
  76. ...And They Lived Happily Ever After
    Repetitive and needlessly prolonged tale does build to an inspired final scene, but it's too little, too late.
  77. The Friend
    After a tedious start building up the boys' lives and friendship, feature bow by Elmar Fischer becomes deeply engrossing in its second half, as the viewer learns of the hero's anguish and doubts.
  78. Major Dundee (re-release)
    More evident than ever the film is inherently a deeply flawed work that was far from fully realized in both script and shooting.
  79. Eros
    What might have been a cinephile's wet dream turns out instead to be seductive, stimulating and sodden, in that order, in the three-chapter reflection on love and desire.
    • 32 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    A Hole in My Heart
    Dark, provocative and disturbing, the new film by Lukas Moodysson is definitely not for all tastes but solidifies his standing as the most interesting director working in Scandinavia today.
  81. Voices in Wartime
    A history of verse is laid alongside that of warfare, and the ways in which they are braided together proves fascinating.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    First Love
    While engaging, pic eventually betrays itself as having a trivial attitude to its chosen subject, with a climactic scene that is genuinely, but inappropriately, amusing.
  83. David Hockney: The Colors of Music
    Hockney designed 11 operas, so buffs will be in seventh heaven here; but docu's potential audience extends to anyone interested in the creative process and life's ironies -- music lover Hockney has gone deaf from a genetic condition that surfaces in middle age.
  84. In Satmar Custody
    Potentially shocking expose is weakened by one-sided reportage that leaves too many questions unanswered.
  85. Sin City
    For geeks, action freaks and sensation-seeking teenage boys of all ages, the price of admission will provide a one-way ticket to hard-boiled heaven.
  86. Dust to Glory
    With its exceptional multicamera coverage and dynamic editing, pic provides an amazing ride across the dusty roads and stunningly varied terrain of what could be the world's most demanding vehicle race.
  87. Girl Play
    The live event was hopefully more engaging than this dull adaptation.
  88. Control
    Crowd-pleasing, darkly comic joyride.
  89. Look at Me
    Punchy dialogue, excellent thesping and a real feel for the universal tuning fork of great classical music make this a prime candidate for international arthouse play.
  90. Beauty Shop
    A sunny and sassy comedy that somehow manages to breathe fresh life into familiar stereotypes and stock situations.
  91. Odessa... Odessa!
    Glacial in its pacing but beautifully, mournfully evocative of its subjects' ethnic/psychic exile.
  92. Oldboy
    A wild, intensely cinematic ride into two men's burning desire to get even.
  93. Guess Who
    If only as much thought went into the script for this listless comedy as its marketing calculus.
  94. The Ballad of Jack and Rose
    Well-wrought individual scenes and sharply focused acting provide Rebecca Miller's third feature with a measure of gravity, but too much abrupt, even melodramatic behavior and undigested psychological matter leave nagging dissatisfactions.
  95. Lipstick & Dynamite, Piss & Vinegar: The First Ladies of Wrestling
    Smart assembly of terrific archive footage is matched by spirited interviews with the tough old broads today.
  96. Nina's Tragedies
    An amiable, but cluttered dramedy.
  97. Miss Congeniality 2: Armed & Fabulous
    Lame and inoffensive.
  98. Mondovino
    Consistently fascinating material provides an uncommonly eloquent, provocative statement against globalization that's sure to stimulate thinking audiences.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Beyond the Sea
    Manages to be at once historically elucidating and personally compelling.
  100. Ice Princess
    The most sparkling aspect to Ice Princess is Juliana Cannarozzo, a real-life, nationally ranked skater.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »