Variety's Scores

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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
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  1. The Road to El Dorado
    A strained and pallid concoction that won't fire the collective imaginations of modern children.
    • 24 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    The Skulls
    A silly, hackneyed college suspenser put across with all the contrived banality of a bad '70s TV movie.
  3. High Fidelity
    Trenchantly witty and acutely insightful.
  4. Here on Earth
    Young teen girls will flock to pic in droves, dragging their boyfriends or other girlfriends.
  5. Whatever It Takes
    Makes little impression and is sure to leave few memories for a teen.
  6. Erin Brockovich
    Snappy and unusually funny under fundamentally serious circumstances, without being contrived or sitcomy.
  7. Final Destination
    Generates a respectable amount of suspense and takes a few unexpected turns while covering familiar territory.
  8. Beyond the Mat
    A gently and genuinely observed film whose subject is a garish, artificial display of mayhem.
  9. The Disappearance of Finbar
    Brit filmmaker Sue Clayton's muddled feature bow is full of intriguing ideas and incidental charms that fail to come together into a cohesive whole.
  10. Mission to Mars
    In outer space, no one can hear you scream -- of boredom.
  11. The Ninth Gate
    This is really a shaggy devil story whose giddy, ironic tone may throw viewers expecting a scary movie.
  12. The Next Best Thing
    Likely lack of much critical enthusiasm or positive word-of-mouth will induce quick theatrical falloff, with better news likely down the line for rental merchants.
  13. Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
    The gambits in Ghost Dog seem simply like literary and cinematic games devoid of any larger meaning.
  14. Drowning Mona
    A white-trash black comedy, a caustic working-class whodunit in which the solution to the murder mystery takes a distant back seat to countless barbs and jibes tossed in the direction of the mostly imbecilic cast of characters.
  15. What Planet Are You From?
    Good for a few lascivious titters but quite lacking in the sort of comic bite and social satire one hopes for in the work of Mike Nichols.
  16. 3 Strikes
    Exuberantly rude and crude, but generally more frantic than genuinely funny.
  17. Judy Berlin
    Numerous lovely, quirky moments.
  18. Reindeer Games
    With a far-fetched script that might barely have passed muster at the B units in the old studio days, this Dimension release will command a certain up-front attention due to cast topliners.
  19. The Closer You Get
    Another tale of out-of-it working-class men cooking up a harebrained scheme to improve their lot in life.
  20. Wonder Boys
    Massively inventive, Wonder Boys is spiked with fresh, perverse humor that flows naturally from the straight-faced playing.
  21. Boiler Room
    Begins extremely well as a saga of greed and conspicuous consumption, but gradually loses its bite.
  22. Hanging Up
    A shamelessly sappy family meller that bears the schmaltzy sensibility of Nora Ephron.
  23. The Whole Nine Yards
    A crudely funny farce that covers no new ground but sees its talented players running some surefire plays.
  24. Pitch Black
    Mildly scary but not particularly engaging on any other level.
  25. The Tigger Movie
    By far the least ambitious, and certainly the least interesting, animated feature to come out of Disney in quite some time.
  26. The Beach
    Visually resplendent but dramatically uneven.
  27. Gun Shy
    A textbook case in which the parts are greater than the whole.
  28. Scream 3
    A crafty and well-crafted wrap-up that really does bring a satisfying sense of closure to the franchise.
  29. Eye of the Beholder
    A mixed-genre detective pic, thriller and love story that shifts gears too often and doesn't know when to end.
  30. Grizzly Falls
    Lame stuntwork and subdued thrills indicate not just a low-budgeter, but a blindness to what target aud demands.
  31. Isn't She Great
    Isn't even unintentionally funny enough to qualify as guilty pleasure a la "Valley of the Dolls."
  32. Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her
    A collection of five femme-oriented vignettes that are not intricately linked dramatically but overlap characters, this observant, emotionally acute drama is distinguished by a pronounced poetic sensibility.
    • 13 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Down to You
    Something oddly appealing about this mushy romantic tale, but first-time feature writer-director Kris Isacsson doesn't have the skills to raise it far above its formulaic foundation.
  34. The Boondock Saints
    More interested in finding fresh ways to stage execution scenes than in finding meaning behind the human urge for self-appointed righting of wrongs, (the film) is stuffed with effects that have no lasting impact.
    • 19 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Supernova
    Appears headed for a deep-space rendezvous with audience indifference.
  36. My Dog Skip
    Superior family entertainment.
  37. Next Friday
    A few good laughs but few surprises in Next Friday, an amiably unfocused sequel.
  38. Fantasia 2000
    Like a light buffet of tasty morsels rather than a full and satisfying meal; all the episodes are more or less agreeable, but as a whole it lacks a knockout punch, one dynamite sequence that will galvanize viewers.
  39. The Hurricane
    In what's easily his most zealous and fully realized performance since "Malcolm X," Washington elevates the earnest, occasionally simplistic narrative to the level of a genuinely touching moral expose.
  40. Play It to the Bone
    A woefully under-realized story of small-time boxers enjoying perhaps their last moment in the spotlight.
  41. Titus
    Taymor makes the action clear and easy to follow with her bold physicalization of the story and forceful direction of an astutely chosen cast.
  42. Galaxy Quest
    One of the holiday movie season's more pleasant surprises. A mischievously clever and slickly commercial sci-fi comedy.
  43. The Talented Mr. Ripley
    Performances are aces top to bottom
  44. Snow Falling on Cedars
    Impeccably crafted but dramatically dull.
  45. Angela's Ashes
    Artfully evokes the physical realities of Irish poverty, but mostly misses the humor, lyricism and emotional charge of Frank McCourt's magical and magnificent memoir
  46. Any Given Sunday
    (Stone's) most accessible and purely enjoyable film in years.
  47. Man on the Moon
    Never comes close to making the case that its subject is worthy of the viewer's interest.
  48. Girl, Interrupted
    A solid central performance by Winona Ryder and a captivating wild turn by Angelina Jolie in the yarn's flashiest role.
  49. Jing Ke ci Qin Wang
    A string of striking set pieces hung on a dramatically shaky clothesline.
  50. Bicentennial Man
    Columbus' approach is intended to cloak such topics as mortality and human identity in the warm glow of greeting card sentiment, which renders the prescription palatable for mass consumption but hopelessly diluted.
  51. Simpatico
    An unbeatable cast lends satisfying emotional texture.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Stuart Little
    Given what a tricky proposition it is to adapt a classic children's book for the screen, this take on E.B. White's Stuart Little does a more-than-passable job of resurrecting the story for a new generation.
  53. Topsy-Turvy
    This beautifully crafted and lively romp around the 1880s stage world should enjoy its longest life as a vid classic.
  54. Anna and the King
    Her (Foster's) performance is contained in a schmaltzy, ultra-elaborate, overly long production.
  55. Magnolia
    A remarkably inventive and audacious film that almost overcomes its flaws.
  56. The Cider House Rules
    A touching, old-fashioned charmer that ultimately satisfies.
  57. Cradle Will Rock
    Succeeds far more often than not in delivering a credible, kaleidoscopic portrait of creative, and often famous, individuals.
  58. Stir of Echoes
    Koepp does a masterful job of grounding his intimations of the supernatural in a totally persuasive down-to-earth context.
  59. The Green Mile
    An intermittently powerful and meticulously crafted drama that falls short of its full potential due to considerable over-length and some shopworn, simplistic notions at its center.
  60. Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo
    A sign that the Sandler comedy empire is expanding and reaching new depths of pure gross-out stupidity.
  61. Clouds of May
    Though it moves more slowly than the tortoise prominently featured in one sequence, Clouds of May is the kind of film that creeps up on the patient viewer.
  62. Holy Smoke
    Original in every sense.
  63. The End of the Affair
    A faithful adaptation that captures the haunting spirit and religious nature of the 1951 novel.
  64. Sweet and Lowdown
    The almost wall-to-wall music is glorious, with solo guitarist Howard Alden doing a sock job. Penn, incidentally, utterly convinces in the scenes in which he's seen "playing" the guitar.
  65. Flawless
    Schumacher takes a step in the right direction with Flawless, a small-scale, intimate serio-comedy.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tumbleweeds
    Has what it takes to becomes the year's first heartfelt sleeper.
  67. End of Days
    It's good to see Schwarzenegger doing his thing again after what, for him, was a long sabbatical.
  68. Ride with the Devil
    Lee has made a brutal but sensitively observed film about the fringes of the Civil War.
  69. Toy Story 2
    Toy Story 2 is to "Toy Story" what "The Empire Strikes Back" was to its predecessor, a richer, more satisfying film in every respect.
  70. The World Is Not Enough
    007 is undone by villainous scripting and misguided casting and acting in a couple of key secondary roles.
  71. All About My Mother
    An emotionally satisfying and brilliantly played take on the ups and (mostly) downs of a group of less-than-typical female friends.
  72. Sleepy Hollow
    An entertainingly eccentric horror tale that envelopes the audience in a dreamy and bloody nightmare.
  73. Mansfield Park
    But there's little sense of a longer dramatic arc stretching across the characters: Rozema can't seem to hold a single tone for more than a few minutes, and she has too many other axes to grind besides just getting the story up on the screen.
  74. Liberty Heights
    Barry Levinson goes deep with Liberty Heights, and the result is a grand slam.
  75. Anywhere But Here
    With half a dozen roles to her credit, Portman is a natural performer who brings rough edges to any role she plays -- the movie is inconceivable without her.
  76. Felicia's Journey
    Mounted as an art film and is likely to divide both critics and the helmer's fans.
  77. The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc
    The lack of a plausible leading lady is enough to sink what is otherwise an eye-catching, although heavily '90s-style, telling of one of history's most frequently filmed stories.
  78. Dogma
    A very vulgar pro-faith comedy rather than a sacrilegious goof, Dogma is an extraordinarily uneven film.
  79. Light It Up
    Never quite catches fire in its too-deliberate attempt to appeal to all ages and all tastes.
  80. Pokémon: The First Movie - Mewtwo Strikes Back!
    Girls -- a big part of the Pokemon crowd and what makes it such a humongous commercial success -- will feel left out in the cold.
  81. The Bachelor
    A remarkably mirthless and inept romantic comedy.
  82. The Bone Collector
    Entertaining but never fully engrossing.
  83. The Insider
    A borderline pretentious, overly inflated picture.
  84. The Suburbans
    A mediocre ensemble comedy-drama that's not particularly funny, involving or even nostalgic.
  85. Beefcake
    As a mix of nonfiction and wafer-thin drama, however, it's a genial mess in which both elements emerge undercooked
  86. Music of the Heart
    A gloriously sentimental true-life drama
  87. The Legend of 1900
    The material is at heart an intimate allegorical fairy tale about rarefied philosophical concerns.
  88. Princess Mononoke
    Exceedingly imaginative, beautifully realized animated epic adventure.
  89. Being John Malkovich
    Devilishly inventive and so far out there it's almost off the scale.
  90. House on Haunted Hill
    Still nothing but a gussied-up B movie.
  91. The Best Man
    Overall, this smooth, glossy, enjoyable film showcases an impressive new authorial voice.
  92. Three to Tango
    A smart and sassy comedy with a playful sensibility and subtle sensitivity.
  93. Bats
    Smoothly maneuvering within the limitations of genre conventions, Bats emerges as a vigorously paced and surprisingly satisfying piece of work.
  94. Body Shots
    Fires nothing but blanks.
  95. Crazy in Alabama
    The opposition of the two dramas winds up in gratifyingly moral and philosophical territory.
  96. Bringing Out the Dead
    Achieves a poetic, quasi-religious tone.
  97. The Story of Us
    The stylistic devices used, which recall early Woody Allen and Paul Mazursky, get increasingly tedious, disrupting not only the sequence of events but also squelching audience sympathy for the protagonists.
  98. The Omega Code
    By turns laughably simplistic and confoundingly muddled as it charts the "final battle" between good and evil.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Straight Story
    Lynch has directed his most satisfyingly disciplined movie.
  100. Fight Club
    Bold, inventive, sustained adrenaline rush of a movie.
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