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. Atlantis: The Lost Empire
    Recycles familiar adventure and cartoon devices with minimal wit and flair, and the lack of imagination will seem all the more dramatic to audiences in comparison to the winningly sophisticated "Shrek."
  2. Evolution
    A consistently amusing action romp.
  3. Bride of the Wind
    An odd case of filmmaking with a crystal-clear subject but no guiding dramatic premise.
  4. The Anniversary Party
    Too familiar in its basic trajectory to be fresh or compelling.
  5. Whatever Happened to Harold Smith?
    Pic's busy direction and bright performances partly compensate for a script that goes in too many directions at the same time.
  6. Erleuchtung garantiert
    Ochsenknecht and Wohler are a strong double act, displaying exemplary comic timing and making the brothers a problem-plagued but likable pair.
  7. Swordfish
    A half-absorbing, half-ridiculous techno-thriller that often goes too far in search of audience-rousing effects.
  8. Divided We Fall
    Confronts an incendiary topic head-on with grace, style, compassion and exquisitely practical wit.
  9. Rape Me
    This hard-core pic is a half-baked, punk-inflected porn odyssey masquerading as a movie worth seeing and talking about.
  10. The Animal
    A sweethearted trifle.
  11. What's the Worst That Could Happen?
    The star in this case is Martin Lawrence, who is not only thoroughly upstaged by nemesis Danny DeVito but is completely boxed out of his comfort zone for broad physical comedy.
  12. Barking Dogs Never Bite
    While the slender idea feels stretched at feature length and fails to brings its themes of societal chaos together in a fully cohesive way, the film is fresh and lively enough to score further festival bookings, particularly at events devoted to new talent.
  13. The Man Who Cried
    Sally Potter, who leapt to critical attention with her 1992 adaptation of Virginia Woolf's "Orlando" -- makes a serious misstep with The Man Who Cried.
  14. The Road Home
    Takes the simplest of stories and weaves a seductive, extremely moving portrait of a young woman’s unshakable love.
  15. Pearl Harbor
    Just compare their superficiality to the complex characters in "From Here to Eternity" and what's missing here becomes terribly clear.
  16. Fast Food Fast Women
    Boasts engaging characters, inventive situations and a series of satisfying punchlines that will send viewers out with a smile.
  17. Strange Fits of Passion
    Technically raw, and amusing only in hit-and-miss fashion, the no-budget independent production recalls too many other entries about erudite young adults wrestling with questions of love and sex.
  18. Angel Eyes
    Darts back and forth from being a psychological thriller to a vaguely metaphysical drama to a fate-driven romance -- it all becomes a blur.
  19. Moulin Rouge!
    A tour de force of artifice, a dazzling pastiche of musical and visual elements at the service of a blatantly artificial story.
  20. Shrek
    This spirited and often very funny lark accomplishes something that most films in the bygone Hollywood studio era used to do but is remarkably rare in today's world of niche markets: It offers entertainment equally to viewers from 4 to 104.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Performance
    Co-director Nicolas Roeg’s lensing is tricky, the characters gamey, the dialog dull, performances flat, impact none.
  22. Sordid Lives
    When Sordid Lives does what it does best -- showing Southern gals in the full flight of rabid self-denial -- it's as screamingly funny as this subgenre can get.
  23. Startup.com
    Topical film, which goes beyond its potentially dry diet of facts to incorporate the juicy human drama of Machiavellian manipulations, ambition, torn loyalties and crushing betrayal.
  24. The King Is Alive
    Simultaneously gritty and cerebral.
    • 27 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    The Trumpet of the Swan
    Bland animated musical offers little to charm adults with fond memories of the book, and even tykes are likely to become bored by the halfway point.
  26. Bread and Roses
    Its politics and dramatic line are familiar and far from convincing.
  27. A Knight's Tale
    Traditionalists and older viewers in general will scoff, while pop culture addicts will no doubt go with the flow.
  28. About Adam
    Unlike "Four Weddings," which ultimately was moralistic and conservative in its message --—About Adam is a frolic free of any judgments, and marked by Stembridge's sparkling wit.
  29. The Man Who Bought Mustique
    A memorable portrait of an unbearable personality.
  30. Pavilion of Women
    Fails to stir the emotions despite its heavily melodramatic drive.
  31. Under the Sand
    An exquisite reflection on personal bereavement.
  32. Eureka
    Builds steadily through a series of masterfully orchestrated modulations to a final act without shattering revelations or lofty dramatic peaks but with a quiet, formidable power.
  33. Time and Tide
    An almost plotless effort that features charismatic stars and plentiful scenes of finely choreographed mayhem.
  34. The Mummy Returns
    Virtually bursts with visual goodies, and writer-director Stephen Sommers scarcely allows the actors, or the audience, a moment to take a breath during the nonstop action of the final hour.
  35. Ed Gein
    A disappointingly mild re-creation of true events.
  36. Deuces Wild
    In its overwhelmingly artificial depiction of the street gangs that ruled Brooklyn's mean streets in the 1950s, Deuces Wild draws from a phony deck.
  37. Green Dragon
    An ultimately moving drama about a displaced people. But its emotional kick is muffled by long-windedness, sentimental overkill and an overpopulated character gallery.
  38. The Forsaken
    Chalk it up as a middling B-pic that, with a bit more wit and style, could have been at least a cult item.
  39. One Night at McCool's
    Feels like a film from several years ago, one of the many made in the wake of "Pulp Fiction" that tried and failed to be as clever as its progenitor.
  40. Driven
    Director Renny Harlin has unfortunately adopted a let's-try-anything attitude that translates into a chaotic and unattractive visual style.
  41. The Golden Bowl
    A deliberately paced literary film that takes too long to build narrative momentum and explore its central dramatic conflicts.
  42. Town & Country
    A lot of talent on both sides of the camera operating in low gear.
  43. The Luzhin Defence
    A smoothly made period romancer that's elevated by strong playing from its whole cast, led by John Turturro and Emily Watson as the starstruck lovers.
  44. The Low Down
    The lowdown on The Low Down: charm 8, content 2.
  45. Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles
    Amiable rather than genuinely funny.
  46. Freddy Got Fingered
    One of the most brutally awful comedies ever to emerge from a major studio.
  47. The Center of the World
    A fairly sexy, serious-minded drama hobbled by its lack of real conceptual ambition.
  48. States of Control
    Oblique and impenetrable under its glossy surface.
  49. Brigham City
    The happiest marriage yet of the disparate propagandistic and narrative influences inherent in the subgenre of "religious" cinema.
  50. Lakeboat
    So fractured and so awkwardly staged that end result is an uninvolving film that’s dramatically inert and artistically shapeless.
  51. The Body
    Has shown its true colors as less a serious religious-themed film than a moth-eaten tapestry of foreign intrigue and badly miscast international stars.
  52. The Circle
    Both fascinates and horrifies with its bold assertions about what it means to be a woman under a cruel, institutionalized patriarchy.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Bridget Jones's Diary
    Misses its mark, failing to capitalize on the staccato rhythms and sardonic wit of Bridget's inner life.
  54. Josie and the Pussycats
    Sensationally exuberant, imaginatively crafted and intoxicatingly clever.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Kingdom Come
    Uneven but generally well-acted.
  56. Chopper
    The director has managed the difficult feat of making a nonlinear film that contains a handful of almost unbearably suspenseful sequences, each one undercut by bizarre black humor.
  57. Joe Dirt
    Takes a prominent place along with "Tomcats," "Say It Isn't So," "Saving Silverman" and "Get Over It" on the list of reasons why raucous teen farce is headed six feet under.
  58. Just Visiting
    A one-joke comedy that is good for more than a few good laughs.
  59. Beautiful Creatures
    Plays like a movie where the script went missing on the third day of shooting.
  60. The Day I Became a Woman
    A powerful statement about the social oppression of women in today's Iran.
  61. Along Came a Spider
    Weaves a humdrum plot that's never ahead of the audience until three-quarters through.
  62. Pokémon 3: The Movie
    The series' quest for different and challenging Pokemon reaches a nearly absurd endpoint this time.
  63. Booye kafoor, atre yas
    Resonant with inner harmonies and dark, dark humor.
  64. Blow
    Respectable but unmemorable end result may suffer from comparison with the similarly themed, albeit differently angled, “Traffic.”
  65. All Access: Front Row. Backstage. Live!
    Will greatly peeve many hardcore fans.
  66. Amores Perros
    He (Gonzalez Inarritu) handles a complex plot with clarity and precision while keeping audience members on the edge of their seats.
  67. The Tailor of Panama
    Classy, articulate and richly humorous.
  68. Someone Like You...
    A romantic comedy as lamely generic as its title.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Spy Kids
    Fulfills kids' empowerment fantasies and features enough techno-wizardry and cool f/x to satisfy those weaned on videogames.
  70. Tomcats
    A boner-headed comedy whose sense of gross-out humor is calculated rather than inspired.
  71. The Brothers
    Pic's complete lack of cinematic verve, along with bland tech work, do much to drain the juice out of what should have been a fierce, fun battle of the sexes.
  72. Heartbreakers
    Overstays its welcome by at least a half-hour after never getting very high off the ground in the first place.
  73. Say It Isn't So
    Even dumb farce has to be built on logic, but that crumbles in the face of a set of tired routines playing off of stock types.
  74. Too Much Sleep
    The material is slender, the characters not sufficiently engaging or eccentric for a feature-length movie.
  75. Exit Wounds
    Viewers who sit through Exit Wounds should at least do themselves the favor of staying for the end credits, which feature some truly funny off-color banter between Anderson and Arnold on the latter's ostensible talkshow.
  76. Memento
    Deconstructs time and space with Einstein-caliber dexterity in the service of a delectably disturbing tale of revenge.
  77. Enemy at the Gates
    Shows a consistent inability to generate any kind of drama when characters open their mouths.
  78. The Dish
    A feel-good comic ensembler that's hard to resist.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Kissing Jessica Stein
    Pure pleasure. A fresh take on sex and the single girl, this buoyant, well-crafted romantic comedy blends pitch-perfect performances with deliciously smart writing.
  80. When Brendan Met Trudy
    Intermittently funny movie. Almost every scene recreates or alludes to a Hollywood or foreign classic.
  81. Long Night's Journey Into Day
    Demonstrates the impossibility of separating the private from the public dimensions of politics, and the pain involved in trying to account for behavior that cannot withstand rational examination.
  82. 15 Minutes
    A thriller more contrived than it is exciting.
  83. Get Over It
    A mildly diverting, largely inoffensive teen laffer that's long on cartoonish high school hijinks but short on dramatic concentration and crucial story details.
  84. Blow Dry
    Limp comedy-drama.
  85. Carman: The Champion
    Modestly engaging but thoroughly formulaic drama about a boxer turned preacher who returns to the ring to fund a community-outreach center.
  86. See Spot Run
    Gruff and downright smelly, especially when star David Arquette is forced at one point to flop around in a pile of doggy doo.
  87. The Mexican
    An intensely whimsical shaggy-dog crime story that ricochets between goofy violence and some endearing personal moments.
  88. Monkeybone
    It's equal parts wacky, sappy and sniggery.
  89. 3000 Miles to Graceland
    If drive-ins still existed, this film would rule there for weeks.
  90. Too Tired to Die
    Has a jaunty, cosmopolitan air that proves appealing for considerable stretches, and Chin's love of cinema and mostly humorous approach to weighty themes will win points with buffs who have seen the same films the director has.
  91. Company Man
    A consistently silly, occasionally funny but mostly forced account of how a mild-mannered teacher from Connecticut unwittingly triggered the Bay of Pigs fiasco.
  92. Down to Earth
    A very earthbound comic fantasy, a racially flip-flopped "Heaven Can Wait" redo stuck in a purgatory with just enough meager laughs to keep it from a more fiery fate.
  93. Sweet November
    A contrived but entirely workable premise is given a well-tooled treatment in Sweet November, a femme-slanted doomed romance with a heavily calculated feel to it.
  94. Recess: School's Out
    Animation is dull and characterless, and vocal talent has evidently received blanket direction to, when in doubt, shout.
  95. The Price of Milk
    Full of surreal occurrences and bizarre, sometimes overly precious humor that may make it too rarefied an exercise for wide acceptance.
  96. Hannibal
    The continuing saga of one of contemporary literature and cinema's most fascinating villains, as played once again with exquisite taste and riveting force by Anthony Hopkins.
  97. Saving Silverman
    Misbegotten, unimaginative buddy pic.
  98. Valentine
    Looking good but lacking much in the way of personality or gray matter -- rather like its characters -- Valentine is a straightforward slasher pic that's acceptably scary until a weak finale.
    • 27 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Head Over Heels
    A mildly amusing trifle.
  100. Left Behind
    Might be extremely effective while preaching to the converted, but it's no great shakes as secular entertainment.
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