Variety's Scores

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For 17,786 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: 9,137 out of 17786
  2. Mixed: 7,013 out of 17786
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17786
17786 movie reviews
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  1. The Sitter
    This ostensibly wild-and-crazy romp plays things too close to the book to feel genuinely wild or crazy.
  2. 30 Minutes or Less
    "Less" has trouble framing simple action, yielding clumsy car chases that put the burden of generating excitement on the music and editing. As a result, pic looks cheap and feels clipped.
  3. Conan the Barbarian
    The well-executed picture solves the biggest challenge facing those hoping to breathe new life -- however nasty, brutish and short -- into the 79-year-old franchise by finding an actor capable of filling Ah-nuld's shoes.
  4. Contagion
    Without fully rounded characters, it's hard to care who lives or dies in what amounts to an extended procedural on how disease prevention organizations might respond to such a scenario.
  5. The Ides of March
    Intriguing but overly portentous drama, which seems far more taken with its own cynicism than most viewers will be.
  6. We Bought a Zoo
    We Bought a Zoo is an odd bird, warm-blooded but largely lifeless.
  7. Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked
    As impressive as the CG elements are in "Chipwrecked," they're a mixed blessing: The more lifelike the techies make the critters -- Alvin (voiced by Justin Long), Theodore (Jesse McCartney) and Simon (Matthew Gray Gubler) -- the more we're reminded they're rodents.
  8. Happy Feet Two
    Though it retains the buoyant musical stylings and splendid visuals that made its predecessor so distinctive, this chatterbox of a sequel loses its way with a raft of annoying side characters for which the slender narrative framework provides far too indulgent a showcase.
  9. Straw Dogs
    Though competently crafted, Rod Lurie's wholly unnecessary 2011 remake is a film with few notions of its own, and representative of its time only in the commercial sense that home-invasion thrillers are now more prevalent at the multiplex.
  10. The Thing
    Far less chilling than versions from 1951 and 1982, Universal's latest take on The Thing at least has a strong lead thesp in Mary Elizabeth Winstead, recruited for the studio's bid to turn a tale of ice-cold macho paranoia into a beauty-vs.-beast shocker a la "Alien."
  11. The Three Musketeers
    A very 2011 take on Alexandre Dumas' classic that feels weirdly dated already. Although adequately entertaining thanks to lavish production values and game supporting perfs, this anodyne adaptation lacks a killer hook that would help it cross over to a demographic beyond action buffs and fanboys.
  12. xXx: Return of Xander Cage
    Rarely do five minutes elapse between some sort of laugh-out-loud absurdity, and the distinction between the film’s intentional and unintentional comedy grows hazier as it goes.
  13. Win Win
    A disappointing domestic comedy in which all but the audience get what they want.
  14. The Possession
    A ho-hum exorcism chiller that tries to spice up a formulaic screenplay by converting a predominantly Catholic-fixated horror subgenre to Judaism.
  15. Abduction
    Aside from such dutiful fan service, the film is a haggardly slapdash "Bourne Identity" knockoff, never rising above the level of basic competence.
  16. Brighton Rock
    Joffe's first feature never shakes off the feel of a telepic with above-average production values, and its unsteady lead performances and often garish stylistic touches make a muddle of the source material's psychological acuity.
  17. London Boulevard
    The result is a superficially handsome crime thriller that doesn't tick, although it's got a pretty, jeweled face, and some clever scripting by William Monahan (scribe of "The Departed"), making his directorial debut here.
  18. The Big Year
    Director David Frankel's picture delivers sweet and (more rarely) amusing moments, but this odd duck never completely gets off the ground.
  19. Tower Heist
    During the heist itself, the suspense is palpable, if only because Christophe Beck's funky score blares its horns so insistently, one can't help but feel anxious. But the laughs don't follow.
  20. Wanderlust
    Despite some amusing moments, everyone simply works too hard at providing rambunctious zaniness, until one grows painfully aware the inevitable outtakes reel will be superior to the movie.
  21. Albert Nobbs
    It's a career-crowning role for Glenn Close. Too bad the film is such a drag.
  22. Amigo
    Good intentions can't breathe fresh life into cliches or dispel the overall impression of schematic didacticism.
  23. Iron Man 3
    Iron Man 3 is more perfunctory and workmanlike than its two predecessors, but this solid production still delivers more than enough of what fans expect.
  24. Snow White and the Huntsman
    Handsome but hollow, Snow White & the Huntsman is easily among the stranger additions to a roster of rebooted fairy tales.
  25. Elektra Luxx
    Despite the fine thesping seen in this innocuous piece of fluff, the whole amounts to less than the sum of its parts.
  26. Super
    Waiting for Super to deliver the funny is an experience as long as the film itself.
  27. Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen
    This superhero spin on a largely Eastern legend will appeal primarily to Asian genre aficionados on homevid.
  28. Joyful Noise
    A routinely plotted competition drama in which Queen Latifah and Dolly Parton (playing her first bigscreen lead in 20 years) vie for control of a small-town Georgia church chorus.
  29. Safe House
    In contrast with the fragmented kineticism of Paul Greengrass' "Bourne" movies, there's no existential dimension to the shattered-glass aesthetic here; it's just raw, chaotic action, inelegantly shot and staged but no less unnerving for it.
  30. Loveless
    Loveless exerts a low-energy, dread-tinged fascination that intrigues rather than wows.
  31. Battleship
    Overlong and underwritten even by the standards of summer f/x extravaganzas, this Battleship will nonetheless float with many on the strength of its boyish, eager-to-please razzle-dazzle.
  32. The Bourne Legacy
    Subbing character actor Jeremy Renner into a franchise that requires Matt Damon-caliber magnetism, series scribe Tony Gilroy takes over the helming duties with an overlong sequel that features too little action and an unnecessarily complicated plot.
  33. Ouija
    This silly but straight-faced supernatural thriller manages to elicit an occasional shudder in between cheap jolts and false scares, emerging as a feat of competent direction (by debuting helmer Stiles White) over derivative scripting (by White and writing partner Juliet Snowden).
  34. Henry's Crime
    While the absurdity builds, the intensity never does -- a problem shared by director Malcolm Venville's previous feature, "44 Inch Chest."
  35. Dylan Dog: Dead of Night
    Dylan Dog isn't a terrible movie, just one that feels like a tepid mishmash of secondhand concepts, never developing a distinctive atmosphere or unique personality of its own.
  36. Blank City
    The major draw of Blank City lies in its generous glimpses of rare, virtually lost Super-8 and 16mm films.
  37. 0s & 1s
    This spectacular orchestration of visual elements seems wasted on a threadbare, inanely repetitive plotline.
  38. Drawing with Chalk
    Chalk suffers overall from a lack of subtlety, as problems abruptly get thrust into the foreground with little buildup or internal consistency.
  39. Mia and the Migoo
    Mia and the Migoo boasts a handsome, folkloric look that is often undermined by a ham-handed script.
  40. One Hundred Mornings
    Though never intended to match "The Road" for gruesome veracity or Michael Haneke's "Time of the Wolf" for full-on mysterious dread, this Irish production doesn't cut much of its own niche in an overworked genre.
  41. Rise of the Guardians
    Even tots may emerge feeling slightly browbeaten by this colorful, strenuous and hyperactive fantasy, which has moments of charm and beauty but often resembles an exploding toy factory rather than a work of honest enchantment.
  42. Rock of Ages
    Absent the infectious live-audience energy of Chris D'Arienzo's legit hit, this affectionate glam-rock-a-thon reps a visually bland staging of frankly insipid material, never tapping into the raucous, go-for-broke energy that would spin the show's cliches into gold, let alone platinum.
  43. Prometheus
    Elaborately conceived from a visual standpoint, Ridley Scott's first sci-fier in the three decades since "Blade Runner" remains earthbound in narrative terms, forever hinting at the existence of a higher intelligence without evincing much of its own.
  44. Jack the Giant Slayer
    Jack the Giant Slayer feels, unsurprisingly, like an attempt to cash in on a trend, recycling storybook characters, situations and battle sequences to mechanical and wearyingly predictable effect.
  45. The Bang Bang Club
    Club's entertainment value suffers at the expense of trying to capture the events as they happened -- an ill-advised endeavor, considering everything.
  46. The Big Bang
    A borderline unintelligible, scattershot attempt at Lynchian neo-noir that takes intellectual and aesthetic risks it has no reasonable hope of pulling off. And yet train wreck that it may be, it's completely watchable, at times garishly eye-catching, and certainly the only film in theaters that features Snoop Dogg comparing himself to Alfred Hitchcock.
  47. Ice Age: Continental Drift
    Now, the action takes to the sea, where pirates, original songs and a minx-like Jennifer Lopez character make for harmless diversion.
  48. Ted
    A predictably irreverent satire that's sweeter and, sadly, less funny than you might expect.
  49. Total Recall (2012)
    Crazy new gadgets, vigorous action sequences and a thorough production-design makeover aren't enough to keep Total Recall from feeling like a near-total redundancy.
  50. Two Gates of Sleep
    Starts off promisingly but peters out as the story, told practically sans dialogue, heads nowhere consistent.
  51. Meeting Spencer
    Brit helmer Malcolm Mowbray's film assumes the constrictions of a stagebound farce, taking place on a single set in real time, and swept along in magisterially broad strokes by Jeffrey Tambor's playfully theatrical perf.
  52. Our Idiot Brother
    Picture needs every ounce of goodwill it can wring from Rudd's likable lead performance to offset a sour, borderline misogynistic streak for which scattered snickers offer only modest compensation.
  53. I Don't Know How She Does It
    Sarah Jessica Parker's myriad fans will doubtless appreciate her frazzled warmth in a part she energetically inhabits, but the picture at times feels out of step with contemporary reality and humorless in its adaptation of a comic bestseller.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Croods
    Although state-of-the-art in its rendering of textures, movement and stereography, The Croods, adopts a relatively primitive approach to storytelling with its Flintstonian construction of stock, ill-fitting narrative elements.
  55. If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front
    Lacks the passion of previous Marshall Curry films ("Racing Dreams," "Street Fight") -- something mirrored in his principal character, but also something that keeps the documentary from being as sharp as it might have been, or as up-to-date.
  56. They're Out of the Business
    The two still rely on their run-on, Woody Allen-ish interlocking rhythms to smartly propel the desultory plot forward, but after countless mumblecore and slacker indies, the sense of newness is gone.
  57. Mysteries of the Jesus Prayer
    Though initially fascinating, this two-hour travelogue soon becomes repetitive as it forsakes stark desert isolation for icon-festooned churches and overcrowded ceremonies.
  58. Dumbstruck
    It's only natural that audiences should root for such characters to succeed, but since human nature also harbors a mean streak, it's peculiar that Dumbstruck doesn't better exploit the obvious humor of its eccentric subject.
  59. Footprints
    Exhibits stray instances of intrigue and wit, and makes nostalgic hay with its enshrinement of old-timers Pippa Scott and H.M. Wynant, but ultimately suggests a too-writerly, over-padded "Twilight Zone" episode.
  60. The First Beautiful Thing
    Occasionally affecting but unremarkable, the picture's emotional moments are designed to pluck local heartstrings.
  61. A Better Life
    Director Chris Weitz's problematic new picture, which, despite Demian Bichir's affecting lead performance and a strong feel for Los Angeles' Mexican-American communities, emerges an earnest and overly programmatic heart-tugger.
  62. Kidnapped
    A technically proficient and aggressively unpleasant suspenser about sadistic home invaders.
  63. What on Earth?
    Inoffensive but mostly undistinguished "Ancient Aliens"-type concoction.
  64. St. Nick
    Virtually dialogue-free, the film opts for an almost perverse minimalism; even the camera is limited to the topography within the kids' purview.
  65. The Myth of the American Sleepover
    A movie that tries and fails to channel the indelibly dreamy mood of Sofia Coppola's "The Virgin Suicides." Well-intentioned but derivative and only intermittently engaging, the suburban Michigan-set indie hits at least as many false notes as true ones.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    That's What I Am
    Benefits from sensitive, restrained thesping, most notably by Ed Harris, and leaves one feeling blandly inspired.
  67. Janie Jones
    There's never any doubt where the picture is headed. If it finally achieves a modicum of poignancy, the impact surely would have been greater if the whole felt fresher.
  68. The Devil Inside
    Despite the palpable air of deja vu that hangs over it like a light fog, The Devil Inside generates a fair amount of suspense during sizable swaths of its familiar but serviceable exorcism-centric scenario.
  69. The Five-Year Engagement
    It puts Emily Blunt in a wedding dress, which will appease the hopeless romantics in the house, even while making the institution of marriage seem ridiculously obsolete.
  70. Man on a Ledge
    This cloddishly contrived suspenser is too busy to bore, but too farfetched to thrill, combining routine heist-thriller machinations with dialogue that often thuds like a body hitting asphalt.
  71. Harvest
    A venerable cast of Broadway vets interminably wanders through the clan's Connecticut mansion with no apparent goal, carrying the remains of never fully explained resentments.
  72. Safe
    What starts out crisp and promising gives way to a conventional shoot-'em-up in Safe, a fast-paced but extremely familiar vehicle for Jason Statham, who can only carry the material so far on his brawny shoulders.
  73. Free Birds
    A cute but disposable item were it not for the story’s weird racial undertow.
  74. Reagan
    This is hagiography, not history. If you accept it as such, you may find yourself mildly engrossed from scene to scene, regardless of your political persuasion, without ever viewing “Reagan” as anything more substantial than a small-budget docudrama series on cable TV.
  75. Dark Shadows
    This bizarre but weirdly bloodless retro-camp exercise is neither funny nor eerie enough to seduce the uninitiated, and will court bemused reactions at best from the series' still-estimable fan following.
  76. Littlerock
    Well-crafted picture has a nice sense of place and rudderless youth, though in the end, simply too little happens for the story to have much resonance.
  77. Mr. Nice
    Mildly amusing but overly discursive.
  78. In the Land of Blood and Honey
    Though sufficiently well made to suggest a viable career behind the camera for debutante writer-director Angelina Jolie, In the Land of Blood and Honey seems to spring less from artistic conviction than from an over-earnest humanitarian impulse.
  79. The Guilt Trip
    A timid, modestly pleasant time-passer distinguished mostly by its unexplored potential.
  80. G.I. Joe: Retaliation
    Offering a more straight-faced brand of idiocy than its cheerfully dumb 2009 predecessor, G.I. Joe: Retaliation might well have been titled “G.I. Joe: Regurgitation,” advertising big guns, visual effects and that other line of Hasbro toys with the same joyless, chew-everything-up-and-spit-it-out efficiency.
  81. We Are the Night
    "Night" trades politics for acrobatics, the film's kinetically edited action sequences filling the void left by sketchy character development.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Resident Evil: Retribution
    Even devoted fans may wonder whether this installment is actually a haphazard patchwork of outtakes from previous "Resident Evil" pictures.
  83. Flypaper
    Strenuous and just fitfully amusing.
  84. Good Deeds
    Good Deeds is relentlessly unsurprising in its plotting and borderline comical in its melodramatic flourishes.
  85. Reindeerspotting: Escape from Santaland
    With an obvious nod to "Trainspotting," Joonas Neuvonen's junkie documentary Reindeerspotting combines the greasy immediacy of that Danny Boyle parable, the naked candor of Larry Clark's "Tulsa" and the laconic poetry of William S. Burroughs' "Junkie."
  86. The Iron Lady
    Fuzzy-headed biopic, which glosses over the former British prime minister's politics in favor of a glib, breakneck whirl around her career and marriage.
  87. Polytechnique
    A weaker "Elephant," Quebecois director Denis Villeneuve's school-shooting drama Polytechnique nevertheless distinguishes itself by endeavoring to comprehend the 25-year-old man who murdered more than a dozen female students at Montreal's Polytechnique School in 1989.
  88. The Chameleon
    Like last year's "All Good Things," this fictionalized take on a still unresolved true-crime case of deception and disappearance can't help but intrigue, though the execution falls short of its full potential.
  89. Farmageddon
    Racks up damning anecdotal evidence without substantially altering the discussion.
  90. The Host
    Extravagantly silly but undeniably entertaining sci-fi soap opera.
  91. Romeo and Juliet in Yiddish
    Hearing the majestic iambic pentameter rendered in the sharply rising and falling cadences of colloquial Yiddish proves wackily charming, but the lack of correlation between the two plots makes the result feel unfocused.
  92. Girlfriend
    The bittersweet Girlfriend features Down syndrome actor Evan Sneider in its starring role, and he gives one of the better performances in writer-director Justin Lerner's obviously well-intended and affectionately made first feature.
  93. The Weird World of Blowfly
    Hanging out with a 1970s cult figure of raunchy R&B "party records" is less fun than one would expect in The Weird World of Blowfly.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    3-D Sex and Zen: Extreme Ecstasy
    Audiences get an eyeful of flesh, served with sadistic, spasmodic laughs.
  95. Carnage
    The real battle in Roman Polanski's brisk, fitfully amusing adaptation of Yasmina Reza's popular play is a more formal clash between stage minimalism and screen naturalism, as this acid-drenched four-hander never shakes off a mannered, hermetic feel that consistently betrays its theatrical origins.
  96. The Last Stand
    [The Director] is especially good at integrating his New Mexico locations into the action, from a key combat scene on a bridge to a car chase that unfolds, with limited visibility, in a cornfield...Kim's handling of his first English-speaking cast isn't quite as assured, although everyone more or less gets by
  97. Burke and Hare
    The film struggles to match the original Ealing's quality benchmark, and its unapologetically old-fashioned sensibility may have trouble connecting with contempo audiences.
  98. Gun Hill Road
    Earnest and well cast, but less involving than it should be.
  99. Walking with Dinosaurs
    Visually, “Walking With Dinosaurs” dazzles with its combination of Animal Logic-animated CG creatures...and beautiful practical backgrounds... Less dazzling is the constant stream of jokey banter, which thwarts the pic’s educational potential and caps its target age awfully low.
  100. Margaret
    This unwieldy drama of conscience in the wake of tragedy is hyperarticulate but rarely eloquent, full of wrenchingly acted scenes that lack credible motivation or devolve into shrill hectoring.
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