Variety's Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
  1. Così ridevano
    Problematically structured, overly protracted and lacking in narrative fluidity.
  2. Porn Star: The Legend of Ron Jeremy
    The Legend of Ron Jeremy is, at a brisk 75 minutes, long enough to get the job done.
  3. The Fluffer
    Distinguished by generally good performances and smart camerawork.
  4. Novocaine
    A Steve Martin vehicle that's not prankish or weird enough by half.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Simian Line
    Though picture is at times undermined by a lack of unifying perspective, its glimmers of greatness are a testament to the talent involved.
  6. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
    The script is faithful, the actors are just right, the sets, costumes, makeup and effects match and sometimes exceed anything one could imagine.
  7. Bombay Eunuch
    Flavorsome package vividly captures Bombay slum life, neither neglecting nor overemphasizing the bawdy, drag-queenish flamboyance hijiras bring to its mix.
  8. The Wash
    A sloppy and shoddy piece of work, filled with just about every cliche and caricature common to low-budget, low-brow comedies with predominantly African-American casts.
  9. Maze
    Morrow displays keen attention to physical detail, but starring both behind and in front of the camera looks to have been a mistake here.
  10. King of the Jungle
    Story's spurts of violence are designed to tear Seymour's world apart , but Rosenfeld's scripting and directing choices tend to lessen impact of a potentially gut-wrenching urban tale.
  11. Heist
    While staccato dialogue and edgy confrontations have always been the wordsmith's forte, the precision-tooled mechanics of an elaborate crime caper have not, and the physical direction here could use some muscle.
  12. Shallow Hal
    Could use a little extra comic poundage. The Farrelly brothers' latest sees the team tapping a sweeter, milder vein of humor than their outrageous norm.
  13. Otomo
    Not a cheerful watch: It's a shocking portrayal of rampant racism.
  14. Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV
    Any buyer who's had success with Troma fare in the past will find the makings to delight the self-selecting audience that generates grosses from gross-out humor.
  15. Tape
    Emphasis on its combustible emotions, suspense and surprising humor should help draw sophisticated audiences who, once lured, will quickly find themselves hooked for the duration.
  16. Domestic Disturbance
    Although decked out with a legitimate star and handsome production carpentry, pic takes no greater interest in creating three-dimensional characters or fleshing out a credible storyline than does the run-of-the-mill straight-to-video thriller.
  17. Everything Put Together
    Riveting, often haunting.
  18. Monsters, Inc.
    Clever and jokey in a vaudeville sort of way, but lacks the heart and sheer imagination of the company's best work for Disney, "Toy Story 2" and "A Bug's Life."
  19. Amélie
    Fresh, funny, exquisitely bittersweet tour de force.
  20. The One
    The combo of cheesy effects and martial arts choreographer Cory Yuen's unimaginative staging results in something that's martial artless.
  21. Punks
    Slick, ingratiating and high-spirited enough to win over gay men of all colors.
  22. Mysterious Object at Noon
    Result is a weird hodgepodge that has the audience doing mental somersaults in an attempt to keep up with this highly original festival head-scratcher.
  23. The Man Who Wasn't There
    The Coen brothers tread into James M. Cain territory with The Man Who Wasn't There, but with less tasty results than either Cain or the Coens themselves at their best.
  24. The Town Is Quiet
    Guediguian's seemingly sprawling but in fact quite precise picture takes a while to establish itself, but is eventually rewarding viewing.
  25. History Lessons
    Offers radical sexual politics in a jester's surprise package of impudent humor and Situationist-style found-footage monkeyshines.
  26. High Heels and Low Lifes
    An entertaining chick pic for all ages and sexes.
  27. Kill by Inches
    The atmosphere is properly bizarre and in moments even scary, but there's no involving story or characters to sustain the feature-length narrative.
  28. On the Line
    Perfectly harmless, often humorous, featherweight confection -- think "Serendipity" re-imagined as a teen-skewing Saturday morning sitcom.
  29. K-PAX
    Frustratingly fritters away what fascination it develops and bows to the basic conventions of a standard detective story mixed with the theme of a physician healing himself.
  30. Life as a House
    A family melodrama that becomes less authentic as it progressively takes itself more seriously.
  31. Better Than Sex
    Cheekily diverting, decidedly feel-good, tremendously sexy entertainment.
  32. Thirteen Ghosts
    The actors manage to keep from being upstaged by the sets, though just barely. Abraham goes over the top, then further still.
  33. Ginger Snaps
    A quietly subversive my-sister-is-turning-into-a-werewolf movie that doesn't wimp out at the end.
  34. Ouch
    Delightful comedy of manners.
  35. Donnie Darko
    Has plenty of problems. But most stem from a young filmmaker overswinging on his first time up to the plate and hitting a deep fly out rather than a home run.
  36. Bones
    A sly mix of haunted house melodrama, slasher pic mayhem and retro-blaxploitation iconography, spiced with dollops of grisly, dark comedy.
  37. Trembling Before G-d
    While seemingly insoluble divide between personal identity and collective belief lends the documentary an intense focus, it's also a narrow one.
  38. Dancing at the Blue Iguana
    An exercise in improv-derived filmmaking that simply proves once again that there's no substitute for a good script.
  39. Focus
    A stilted, heavy-handed parable about fascistic intolerance.
  40. Riding in Cars with Boys
    The result under Penny Marshall's direction is a film with genuinely serious intentions that falls considerably short of its intentions.
  41. Intimacy
    A tortured reflection on the complex relationship between love, sex, desire and obsession, distinguished by courageously raw performances from leads Mark Rylance and Kerry Fox.
  42. The Last Castle
    A disappointingly pedestrian prison meller that falls between stools artistically and politically.
  43. From Hell
    Surprisingly conventional Olde London Towne gaslight mystery, gussied up with some doctored visuals, and an eccentric performance by Johnny Depp.
  44. Waking Life
    Audiences looking for something fresh and different, not to mention a head trip, will find it in Waking Life.
  45. My Voyage to Italy
    Scorsese's heartfelt love letter to Italian movies up to 1961.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Operator
    A mostly slick, intelligent psychological thriller/modern morality tale flawed by occasional lapses of subtlety and a central performance that veers just to the wrong side of empathetic.
  47. My First Mister
    Lahti's feature directorial debut walks an innocuous middle line between the story's maudlin possibilities and its meaningful potential.
  48. Corky Romano
    Ranks as the most slapdash comedic star vehicle to hit screens since Harland Williams misfired with the career-stalling "RocketMan."
  49. Bandits
    The disparate but highly skilled leading trio of Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton and Cate Blanchett keeps this road movie engaging even when it veers giddily onto the shoulder.
  50. Mulholland Dr.
    A genuinely ominous and suspenseful thriller.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Jails, Hospitals & Hip-Hop
    There is no denying Danny Hoch's talent. A monologist in the tradition of Eric Bogosian, Hoch assembles a cast of urban types and explores their dysfunctions and angst with a winning combination of sympathy, ironic point and dead-on mimicry.
  52. Sobibór, 14 Octobre 1943, 16 heures
    Has a terrible fascination that glues viewers to the screen. At the same time, audience patience is tested.
  53. The Human Body
    It's the soundtrack, as much as the opticals, which makes this brief Imax trip a thoroughly sensory experience.
  54. Werckmeister Harmonies
    A stunning feature -- another hypnotic meditation on popular demagogy and mental manipulation.
  55. Fat Girl
    Despite the disappointing conclusion, it's hard not to be affected by the film, because of the director's frank approach to her subject and the sheer skill with which she tells her story.
  56. Grateful Dawg
    The music is fine, but there's little else here to hold the attention of non-Deadheads.
  57. The Strange Case of Señor Computer
    A retro sci-fi tale that takes its time stoking a low-key absurdism to high silliness. Initial slow going pays off in cumulative laughs.
  58. Joy Ride
    Hot-wired, white-knuckle thriller.
  59. The Debut
    A pleasant and polished first feature for director Gene Cajayon.
  60. Serendipity
    Will serve as an excellent gauge of any viewer's tolerance level for schmaltzy contrivance and manipulation.
  61. The Hidden Half
    The confused script makes this a tough film for audiences to dig into.
  62. Training Day
    Ominously atmospheric study of police corruption dangles danger and sinister motives at every turn.
  63. Max Keeble's Big Move
    Surprisingly amusing.
  64. Chop Suey
    Bids to whip homoerotic iconography into something palatable for those suspicious of the cuisine.
  65. La Ciénaga
    An atmospheric and cumulatively impressive feature-length debut from Argentine writer-director Lucrecia Martel.
  66. Va Savoir (Who Knows?)
    An entrancing ensemble piece, directed with calm assurance, acted by a fine ensemble, and structured and scripted with wit and precision.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Jabberwocky (re-release)
    Long on jabber but short on yocks.
  68. Won't Anybody Listen
    Richly satisfying both as subversive, music-biz primer and as gritty, true-life underdog story.
  69. Dinner Rush
    "Big Night" meets "The Sopranos" in Dinner Rush.
  70. Born Romantic
    Highly enjoyable when all its gears are clicking, but rarely as good as it should be.
  71. Hearts in Atlantis
    The few who saw the embalmed adaptation of "Snow Falling on Cedars" will recognize the same stifling approach brought to this more accessible material by director Scott Hicks.
  72. Zoolander
    Misses its comic targets as often as it hits them but is endearing all the same for the good-natured cheer with which it skewers the eminently skewerable.
  73. Don't Say a Word
    Generates tension from the get-go, albeit of an increasingly unpleasant variety, on its way to a disappointingly generic climax.
  74. Liam
    This depiction of the trials and tribulations of a working-class Catholic family during the Depression is a far more intimate viewing experience than the similarly themed "Angela's Ashes."
  75. The Endurance
    Conveys enough of the stirring true-life drama recounted in Butler's other Shackleton docu to satisfy ticketbuyers who demand substance even in larger-than-life entertainment.
  76. Sorority Girls' Revenge
    Midnight moviegoers aren't so desperate that they will opt for such trailer trash.
  77. Go Tigers!
    Arguably the best sports-oriented documentary since "Hoop Dreams."
  78. Megiddo: The Omega Code 2
    Apocalyptic gobbledygook.
  79. Glitter
    Glitter deserves yet another title: "A Star Is Dull." As phony a vehicle as one could possibly concoct for a wannabe movie star, pic carries Mariah Carey into a swamp of gloppy melodrama.
  80. Children Underground
    Belzberg's unsparing camera sometimes portrays a level of cruelty that tests viewers' tolerance, but her fearless aesthetic is also a measure of the film's brilliant indictment of any society that can allow its most vulnerable to slip into oblivion.
  81. China: The Panda Adventure
    This wobbly docu-drama ends up being caught in between the impulse to make theatrical a true story and the usual Imax mission of imparting information about the natural world in an entertaining way for families.
  82. Haiku Tunnel
    While it plays more like stage or TV sketch-comedy shtick than film material, this modest, visually unimposing production remains entertaining thanks to its ironic observations and winning sense of folly.
  83. The Glass House
    There's nothing in genredom quite so unhinged as the badly made psycho-thriller, and long before it's over, The Glass House collapses from wretched design and execution.
  84. Hard Ball
    There's no cork inside Hardball, but there's more than enough corn. Everything about the movie is geared for maximum uplifting and tear-jerking effect, and seems designed, in the end, to question the old saw that there's no crying in baseball.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Kill Me Later
    An edgy, energetic romantic thriller in the tradition of "Run Lola Run," "A Life Less Ordinary" and "Out of Sight."
  86. A Trial in Prague
    Sheds valuable light on a complex period of post-World War II Czechoslovakia.
  87. Tell Me Something
    A crackerjack serial-killer chiller in "Seven" mold, Tell Me Something cleverly disguises its thoroughly generic content and leaps of logic with highly honed technique and an involving approach to narrative.
  88. Two Can Play That Game
    Few recent movies have conceived their central female character more contemptuously -- a fanatic for a lifestyle that appears to have come from the bestselling "The Rules."
  89. The Musketeer
    A handsome but ho-hum swashbuckler that springs to life only during a few spirited scenes of acrobatic swordplay.
  90. Soul Survivors
    A horror movie without horror, a spook pic without spookiness and a metaphysical drama without the slightest spiritual tug, Soul Survivors virtually dwindles away on the screen.
  91. Our Lady of the Assassins
    Schroeder's first non-American film in 16 years feels like a rejuvenation; his adaptation of Fernando Vallejo's 1994 novel has a naturalistic freedom and ease that is both refreshing and direct in the way it tells a deeply disturbing story.
  92. Rock Star
    Feels particularly like old news after the risks of the rock 'n' roll lifestyle were laid out for the previously uninformed in last year's "Almost Famous."
  93. The Iron Ladies
    Its screaming-queen stereotypes will look pretty retro in most Western markets, even if an earnest pro-tolerance message disarms potential offense.
  94. Vengo
    Music has always played a vital role in the films of Tony Gatlif, and in Vengo it finally threatens to take over, submerging the frail, familiar vendetta plotline.
  95. The American Astronaut
    Unfortunately that blast-off heralds an orbit to nowhere, with initial delight fading as pic runs out of ideas all too soon, never building a sense of momentum or narrative thrust.
  96. Jeepers Creepers
    Emerges as the most conventional and least imaginative of the recent crop of high-class fright movies that includes "The Others," "Session 9" and "Wendigo."
  97. Tortilla Soup
    A warm-blooded winner with equal emphasis placed on taste buds and heartstrings.
  98. Maybe Baby
    A wannabe romantic comedy with miscast leads and a script in desperate need of a good editor.
  99. Summer Catch
    Haphazard mix of boisterously crude comedy, romantic entanglements, class-conscious clashes and intensely competitive hardball.
  100. Ghosts of Mars
    This deliberately pre-'90s slice of rock 'n' roll-tinged sci-fi horror, decorated with anything but the latest in special effects, seems particularly grungy and marginal.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »