Variety's Scores

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For 17,760 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: 9,121 out of 17760
  2. Mixed: 7,003 out of 17760
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17760
17760 movie reviews
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  1. The Assassination of Richard Nixon
    Penn's magnetism and hesitant line delivery create what interest there is, although the whole picture suffers from a central figure who can never get it together on any level.
  2. The Merchant of Venice
    Despite a series of disclaimers about the treatment of Jews in the 16th century, there's even less disguising onscreen than onstage that this is an uncomfortably anti-Semitic play and somewhat problematic for contempo audiences.
  3. In Good Company
    An often lively comedy-drama that lands some nice jabs at the mega-corp ethos, In Good Company makes for pretty good company until going soft when it counts.
  4. Fat Albert
    fFat-footed and ham-handed in its attempt to reconstitute a popular '70s TV cartoon show as a full-length, family-skewing feature.
  5. Darkness
    Though pic boasts decent perfs, potent atmospherics and eye-catching visuals, both psychology and plot are bargain-basement.
  6. The Woodsman
    A stunningly crafted work from first-time feature director Nicole Kassell.
  7. The Keys to the House
    Radiates a warm humanity and uplifts the spirit. Subtle rather than sentimental, it lacks easy tears though attentive viewers will find it lacerating enough.
  8. In the Realms of the Unreal
    Documentarian Jessica Yu employs everything from animation and voiceover thesping to archival documents and eyewitness accounts while examining Henry Darger, a self-taught artist who has been posthumously lionized as a visionary genius.
  9. The Phantom of the Opera
    Sumptuous pic version, which evokes the original show while working as a movie in its own right, is lit by a radiant, vocally lustrous perf by teenaged Emmy Rossum.
  10. Meet the Fockers
    Te laughs "Fockers" generates are the type you feel embarrassed about almost immediately afterward.
  11. Hotel Rwanda
    The genocide of some one million Rwandan Tutsis by their Hutu neighbors remains a disgraceful and too-little-known episode in recent world history. Alas, Terry George's ineffectual Hotel Rwanda only partly rectifies that problem, taking what ought to have been a complex, powerful inquiry and simplifying it to a story about the resilience of the human spirit.
  12. Imaginary Heroes
    The film sways awkwardly back and forth between prickly humor and pathos, rarely ringing true in either register.
  13. Open My Heart
    Has a perverse fascination, despite some technical clumsiness and stiff thesping.
  14. Beyond the Sea
    It's raffish, flashy, energetic, entertaining and not very deep.
  15. Flight of the Phoenix
    Shows both how far Hollywood's tech departments have advanced in 40 years and how shallow the pool of solid action thesps has become.
  16. The Sea Inside
    A dramatic triumph.
  17. Spanglish
    Short on real drama and incident and long on tedium.
  18. The Aviator
    An enormously entertaining slice of biographical drama, The Aviator flies like one of Howard Hughes' record-setting speed airplanes.
  19. Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events
    Snicket's macabre tale of three newly orphaned siblings has been lavishly visualized. But for all its elaborate splendor, production pic lacks the feeling and imagination that have distinguished the best recent kidpics.
  20. Million Dollar Baby
    Staying at the top of his game when most of his contemporaries have long since hung up their gloves, Clint Eastwood delivers another knockout punch with Million Dollar Baby.
  21. Santa Smokes
    A meandering, semi-improvised tale of a terminal Gotham loser who works as Santa when he bombs as an actor.
  22. A Talking Picture
    A film destined to divide Manoel de Oliveira's fans but also to win him new ones, A Talking Picture is his simplest, most linear story in memory.
  23. Dolls
    Despite an excessively meandering final act, the drama's three intertwined stories have a cumulative impact, their affecting sadness matched by meticulously composed visual poetry.
  24. Ocean's Twelve
    This smooth inside job benefits from heightened bonhomie among the players, fab Euro locations and a diminished obligation to stick to the heist genre boilerplate.
  25. A Tale of Two Sisters
    It manages to suspend disbelief without over-taxing the viewer's patience, and boasts at least one terrific performance, by actress Yeom Jeong-ah as a scary stepmom.
  26. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
    The effect is often soporific.
  27. Freeze Frame
    Signals a talented newcomer in writer-director John Simpson and boasts a gripping central performance from popular British comedian Lee Evans.
  28. Bandido
    The filmmakers seem split between doing it straight and gleefully ripping up the genre, and never make up their minds.
  29. Born Into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids
    Even if the film itself is relatively conventional, its exposure of a squalid city's most benighted neighborhood and its introduction of hope into nearly hopeless lives give it strong human interest value.
  30. Blade: Trinity
    Won't linger in the memory long, but gives pretty good action eye-candy while it's going.
  31. House of Flying Daggers
    The tangled tale of love and disguise is awesome in its action sequences but doesn't touch the heart to the same degree.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    After Midnight
    Ferrario has fun with antique footage and exhibits from the museum, but there's a lack of urgency or sufficient charm to engage.
  33. Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine
    Though it never disguises its sympathies for Kasparov and contempt for a powerful corporation's machinations, documentary is finally a speculation on the limits of the human mind and how truth can never be fully known.
  34. Conspiracy of Silence
    Deery lays out a story devoid of subtlety, in which characters are too easily pigeonholed and issues exist only in absolutes.
  35. The Deserted Station
    Compelling underlying oddness may be enough to distinguish Deserted Station from similarly excellent humanistic Iranian fare.
  36. Jesus, You Know
    Visually glorious and sometimes moving, but comes coated with a thick hoarfrost of irony.
  37. I Am David
    An unusually intelligent adventure film scaled for younger viewers, which never leaves adults behind.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Green Butchers
    Will be either a turn-on or turn-off, depending on one's sense of humor.
  39. The Aryan Couple
    Picture's dubious brand of heroism, half-baked historical sense, simplistic dialogue, flat staging and barely formed characters make for sluggish sledding.
  40. Closer
    The caustic wit and brute force of Patrick Marber's acclaimed play come across with a softened edge in Mike Nichols' bigscreen version of Closer.
  41. AmnesiA
    The brooding, well-constructed drama gets considerable mileage out of the schizoid twin dynamic.
  42. Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst
    Superbly researched and constructed, pic is an improvement over last year's "The Weather Underground," which backed away from judging political terror on the left.
  43. Purple Butterfly
    An often remarkable, often infuriating lateral spin on genre material that desperately needs another sesh at the editing table.
  44. Easy
    Increasingly complicated comic maneuvers turn what should have been a hip look at sexuality into an antsy pic too busy to settle down.
  45. A Very Long Engagement
    Told with a blend of visual mastery and emotional intimacy, ambitious venture sustains a special melding of romance and pragmatism that should engage discerning audiences.
  46. Ae Fond Kiss...
    The flatness of several of the key performances badly lets down this promising material.
  47. Straight-Jacket
    A fey and frisky farce with a fabulous fashion sense, Straight-Jacket artfully balances broadly campy humor and ironically overplayed soap opera.
  48. Paper Clips
    Patiently told and lovingly made.
  49. Notre musique
    Recognizably Godard with its playfulness and wordplays, but deeply human at the same time.
  50. Christmas with the Kranks
    Ultimately something of a softball satire, its climactic evocation of the "true meaning" of the holidays is surprisingly touching.
  51. Alexander
    At best an honorable failure, an intelligent and ambitious picture that crucially lacks dramatic flair and emotional involvement.
  52. Fear and Trembling
    Classy, funny cross-cultural adventure is Alain Corneau's most accomplished and entertaining film since 1991's "Tous les matins du monde."
  53. National Treasure
    Tries to combine the suspense of old Saturday morning serials with the gusto of producer Jerry Bruckheimer's action pics. Falling short on both counts, this long, and long-winded, series of middling cliffhangers won't pump the adrenaline of action aficionados or -- the family crowd.
  54. Bad Education
    Superbly orchestrated, visually impressive.
  55. The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie
    Possesses charm, as well as visual and musical appeal, on the bigscreen. But as with many short-form TV entities when sextupled in length, "SpongeBob" proves more palatable as scrumptious fast food than full-scale repast.
  56. Ya lyublyu tebya
    Clumsily drawn, poorly acted love triangle.
  57. Who Killed Bambi?
    Delivers only annoyance and impatience.
  58. Bright Future
    Occupies wavelengths too remote to be tuned in by audiences other than diehard Asian esoterica enthusiasts.
  59. Little Lili
    Works as both an adaptation and a movie in its own right
  60. Noel
    Goes down like sour eggnog on Christmas Eve.
  61. Seed of Chucky
    Simply isn't funny or frightening enough to expand its appeal beyond core fan base.
  62. After the Sunset
    While After the Sunset is never exactly dull and is smartly cut to a brief running time, it never quickens the pulse.
  63. Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason
    Second time round, Bridget is still fat, funny and endearing -- but "all a bit, um, familiar, actually."
  64. Kinsey
    Lively, sometimes funny and, inevitably, provocative.
  65. Veer-Zaara
    Though it doesn't quite match recent classics like "Kabhi khushi kabhie gham" in sheer technique and production sheen, in-depth star casting and thorough entertainment values make this a must-see for Bollywatchers.
  66. Finding Neverland
    An impeccably made and genuinely moving account of how Scottish author J.M. Barrie came to write "Peter Pan."
  67. Way Off Broadway
    Both extremely familiar and, despite frequent references to Stanley Kubrick and Orson Welles, cinematically and dramatically dull.
  68. Master of the Game
    There's a provocative premise at the heart of Master of the Game, but uneven acting, indifferent direction and melodramatic dialogue blunt pointed ironies.
  69. New Guy
    Does a lot with little, milking a single location and minimal dialogue for deadpan humor, tension, and macabre payoff.
  70. Overnight
    There's a stunning rags-to-rags morality tale hidden in this two-hour mess of a movie.
  71. The Polar Express
    This visually impressive yet emotional frigid fable could perhaps more accurately be tagged "The Bipolar Express."
  72. Callas Forever
    Main body of the movie is weighed down by flat, expository dialogue and a lot of pedestrian filming. However, Zeffirelli's shooting of the "Carmen" sequences, which make up a sizable chunk of the film and are far and away the pic's most exhilarating sections, are graceful and fluid.
  73. Fade to Black
    Smartly directed by Pat Paulson and Michael John Warren and nicely lensed.
  74. Brother to Brother
    The film's transitions between periods are not entirely seamless and its discourse often becomes didactic. However, the depth and intelligence it brings to issues of black politics and sexuality could help carve an appreciative theatrical audience in upscale gay and/or urban niches.
  75. Intoxicating
    After a long, glum slide, pic becomes an unconvincing story of redemption.
  76. Cachorro
    Taking a seed of an idea and nurturing it into a fable about moral hypocrisy, Bearcub substantiates prolific Spanish helmer Miguel Albaladejo's rep for well-observed, character-based dramas with an offbeat twist and a potent emotional undertow.
  77. Alfie
    A breezy, sexy romp with a conscience that reflects in obvious but interesting ways on societal changes over the intervening 38 years.
  78. The Incredibles
    As deliriously smart escapist fare, The Incredibles is practically nonpareil.
  79. Scumrock
    Actors who can't act, musicians who can't play, and storylines that go absolutely nowhere.
  80. Ali G Indahouse
    An extremely silly, grossly scatological but often amusing picture that plays like Dumb & Dumber meets Spike Lee in London.
  81. Farmingville
    Sincere but unexceptional.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Violet Perfume: No One Is Listening
    Has a poignant emotional core in the truthful description of its characters' despairing lives.
  83. A Silent Love
    Largely plays down the ethnic stereotyping to deliver a carefully observed, fundamentally human roundelay about the wonders and horrors of looking for someone to love.
  84. Voices of Iraq
    With Iraqis pointing cameras at each other, the result is cheerier than might be expected.
  85. It's All About Love
    The director doesn't display the spirit of a natural entertainer; while intellectual notions abound, he never grabs the audience by the hand to pull them into the tale emotionally.
  86. Malevolence
    Eventually pic turns into a formula slasher over-indebted to the usual "Texas Chainsaw" and "Halloween" models. But until then, Mena's direction (if not his script) suggest he's ready for bigger-budget assignments.
  87. Enduring Love
    Adaptation of Ian McEwan's 1997 novel takes a surprising number of liberties with the text, given the author's stature, but his name on the credits as associate producer would suggest his stamp of approval.
  88. Birth
    While it veers heavily toward pretentiousness, this striking metaphysical mystery is intensely compelling, conjuring a mood between European high-arthouse and the unsettling psychological horror of "Rosemary's Baby."
  89. Saw
    A crude concoction sewn together from the severed parts of prior horror/serial killer pics.
  90. Ray
    Bursting at the seams with music, Taylor Hackford's ambitious film provides a good sense of the pioneering entertainer's extraordinary journey and brings it to life with plenty of colorful detail.
  91. This Girl's Life
    May not be a complete success, but it is in some ways that rarest of commodities in American movies: It is a movie about sex and sexuality, in its many perversions and permutations, done without falling back on an exploitatively comic or violent scenario.
  92. 800 Bullets
    An uneven but exuberantly anarchic comedy homage to the spaghetti Western.
  93. Magnifico
    A wholesome family movie with a moppet star and tearjerker ending, Magnifico milks the sentiment like an industrial dairy machine on overdrive.
  94. Home of the Brave
    di Florio emerges with a serenely powerful, handcrafted film that navigates into a place Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once called "the tangled discords of our nation."
  95. Sideways
    A beautifully observed, small-scale study of personal foibles, romantic uncertainty and two sides of the sadly predictable male animal.
  96. Stella Street
    A hip comic curio.
  97. Happy Hour
    Fortunately bypassing a re-run of "Days of Wine and Roses" but finding little inspiration to freshen an old concept, this tragedy about a lover and a friend helplessly watching the writer's fade-out comes up short of its potential impact.
  98. Undertow
    A deep-fried piece of Southern Gothic that wears its unpleasantness like a merit badge.
  99. The Manson Family
    Its own mythology aside, this flamboyant, graphic and disturbing quasi-docu reenactment of a notorious chapter in U.S. counterculture life is a fascinating if peculiar accomplishment.
  100. Lightning in a Bottle
    Undeniably powerful on the bigscreen.
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