Variety's Scores

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For 17,779 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: 9,134 out of 17779
  2. Mixed: 7,009 out of 17779
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17779
17779 movie reviews
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  1. Inside Deep Throat
    Has a gaudy pop-culture personality that perfectly suits its subject.
  2. My Mother's Smile
    In the central role, Castellitto's powerfully focused performance manages to keep the complex drama grounded.
  3. The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill
    A charming look at the mildly eccentric man who gained modest feature-page celebrity for his familiarity with San Francisco's tropical parrot flock.
  4. Alexandra's Project
    The punishment seems out of all proportion to the "crimes" committed, so that the film becomes no simplistic pro-feminist tract but is, on the contrary, more complex and disturbing.
  5. Schultze Gets the Blues
    Small but charming film.
  6. Her Majesty
    Despite its faltering touch with the story's darker, more melodramatic threads, Her Majesty nonetheless proves winning overall thanks to a predominant emphasis on nostalgia, whimsy (heroine's royal audience fantasies include one full-on production number) and droll-to-broad humor.
  7. Gunner Palace
    Put together by Tucker and his co-director/editor wife Petra Epperlein without a hint of artifice, docu offers up its sounds and images bluntly, and they are very much sounds and images worth having as part of the record.
  8. Whisky
    A whimsical piece of deadpan drollery, Whisky plays like Aki Kaurismaki, South American style.
  9. Millions
    Maintains a bankable charm and innocence even when overdrawn on the special effects side.
  10. The Boys & Girl from County Clare
    Given a lift by its folksy soundtrack of toe-tapping Ceili dance tunes, the film is handsomely produced and engaging enough, but never more than that due to a weak dramatic arc and soft conflicts in Nicholas Adams' script and to John Irvin's functional direction.
  11. Off the Map
    Campbell Scott's latest foray behind the camera most excels as a subtly observed study of how the dynamics within a close-knit family can shift over time.
  12. The Buffalo Boy
    Sports a stronger narrative spine than is usual in Vietnamese rural dramas and a less fragile tone in its deployment of landscape and character.
  13. The Rider Named Death
    Instead of using its hot-button issues as a present-day hook, sticks with a 19th century mindset which it accompanies with elegant turn-of-the-century decors.
  14. Milk and Honey
    Dexterously scripted, darkly humorous.
  15. Lipstick & Dynamite, Piss & Vinegar: The First Ladies of Wrestling
    Smart assembly of terrific archive footage is matched by spirited interviews with the tough old broads today.
  16. Beauty Shop
    A sunny and sassy comedy that somehow manages to breathe fresh life into familiar stereotypes and stock situations.
  17. The Friend
    After a tedious start building up the boys' lives and friendship, feature bow by Elmar Fischer becomes deeply engrossing in its second half, as the viewer learns of the hero's anguish and doubts.
  18. The Year of the Yao
    Slickly entertaining documentary.
  19. Save the Green Planet!
    Though certainly not to everyone's tastes, this looney-tunes pic about a deranged serial killer who thinks he's helping Earth by killing off supposed aliens works on a variety of levels, from gruesome slapstick comedy through social critique to genuinely chilling Grand Guignol.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Double Dare
    Viewers are left feeling that it's still a male-dominated profession, but that determined women like these might just effect some small change.
  21. One Missed Call
    Combines scares and chuckles with good production values.
  22. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
    More smile-inducing than laugh-aloud funny.
  23. Mysterious Skin
    By turns spiky and lyrical, this unsettling drama will be anathema to many audiences, but is bound to be a provocative, talked-about release.
  24. The Great Role
    Predictable yet charming, The Grand Role is a crowd-pleasing dramatic comedy about love, friendship, role-playing and Jewish pride.
  25. Kicking & Screaming
    An immensely likable, funny comedy that finds a novel approach to that familiar combo of kids and sports.
  26. Mad Hot Ballroom
    Perky and effortlessly smooth.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    A Wake in Providence
    Zesty indie comedy from Rhode Island is a winner, with ethnic humor easily mixing with universal truths about dealing with families.
  28. Tell Them Who You Are
    A compelling look at the great cinematographer Haskell Wexler by his photojournalist son Mark.
  29. Fixing Frank
    Full of bold dramatic strokes and complex character shadings.
  30. Saving Face
    The film's appealing characters and amusing situations prevail over its general shortage of energy.
  31. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
    Mixes satisfying dollops of fun, tears, travel, romance and lesson-learning in a handsome package whose two hours pass faster than many a grownup entertainment.
  32. Batman Begins
    Ambitious, well made but not exactly rousing.
  33. Pure
    The film belongs to Eden, who creates a winning personality out of a combination of vulnerability, resourcefulness, toughness and fragility. It's an outstanding juvenile performance.
  34. 5x2
    Excellent perfs and writer-director Francois Ozon's sure, unfussy way with the camera add up to a viewing experience whose richness depends in large part on how much the viewer reads into the human templates on display.
  35. Paternal Instinct
    Endearing nature of the personalities involved makes a fine argument for weighing parental suitability on terms more profound than the prospective parents sexual orientation.
  36. Chrystal
    Respectable piece of work is reasonably involving if not compelling.
  37. McLibel
    An alarming if ultimately inspiring David-and-Goliath parable for today.
  38. Me and You and Everyone We Know
    Brings a fresh perspective to age-old human dilemmas.
  39. Herbie Fully Loaded
    A pleasingly retro recycling of "The Love Bug."
  40. Dallas 362
    Has a relaxed poeticism to it; it's a sweetly naive, adolescent Hemingway fantasy with a star-making performance by Shawn Hatosy and good ones from everyone else (including Caan).
  41. The Last Mogul
    A refreshingly honest film about the life and times of Hollywood uber-power player Lew Wasserman.
  42. The World
    While the film feels overlong at two hours 20 minutes, there's a seductive stillness to its enveloping mood.
  43. The Beautiful Country
    Standout performance is by Nolte who, in the final 20 minutes, draws on a deep reservoir of playing broken romantic heroes to portray Binh's father. The subtle, resonant scenes between the two men are worth the price of admission.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Saraband
    A bitter but finally moving story about lost love, hatred between generations and a curious kind of liberation, Saraband officially closes one of the most prestigious and influential careers in the history of cinema.
  45. On the Outs
    Skillfully entwines stories of three young women drifting in and out of a Jersey City juvenile detention center.
  46. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
    Entertaining and fabulously imaginative in many ways, this second bigscreen rendition of the late author's modest morality tale on the wages of unbridled excess sports excesses of its own.
  47. The Reception
    Superb emotional thesping complements script's measured restraint.
  48. Hustle & Flow
    Director Craig Brewer has given his second feature film a vibrant pulse amplified by an outstanding cast led by Terrence Howard.
  49. 9 Songs
    A touching, often poetic, sometimes achingly real snapshot of a brief encounter related almost entirely through the bedroom.
  50. Monumental: David Brower's Fight for Wild America
    Stylish and substantial enough to prompt even a couch potato to action, Kelly Duane's Monumental: David Brower's Fight for Wild America delivers a stirring and visually dense account of the life and times of Brower.
  51. Must Love Dogs
    To properly appreciate Must Love Dogs, one must first love John Cusack. Thesp's maverick turn steals the show in this otherwise middling romantic comedy, which retools standard meet-cute elements for the Web generation in pleasant but uninspired fashion.
  52. Oyster Farmer
    A small, carefully composed film that rejoices in the parochial lingo and mores of its richly textured characters.
  53. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
    A visually lush and very Westernized vision of life in a remote Chinese village in the early 1970s.
  54. My Date with Drew
    This maddening yet deftly made, and finally disarming, documentary comes through with enough heart and hilarity to sell its celebrity-stalking shenanigans to genuinely moving effect.
  55. Saint Ralph
    Even though it sprints along a well-trod path through familiar territory, Saint Ralph remains surprisingly compelling.
  56. Four Brothers
    With equal measures of rock-the-house vigor and in-your-face attitude, Four Brothers proves usually potent and consistently enjoyable as an old school approach to what might best be described as the urban-Western genre of slam-bang, balls-out action-revenger.
  57. Pulse
    Result is always watchable, occasionally creepy and teasingly pitched halfway between a genre riff and a genuine scarefest.
  58. The Century of the Self
    Consistently engaging due to the wealth of generally unfamiliar archival footage, which reveals social trends, sweeping overview should provoke healthy debate.
  59. Red Eye
    Departing less from his horror bailiwick than he did with "Music Of The Heart" in 1999, Wes Craven retains shocks but dispenses with scares in the negligible Red Eye.
  60. Eternal
    A handsome package whose atmospherics outclass merely serviceable plot and character elements.
  61. We Jam Econo: The Story of the Minutemen
    A suitably unfussy tribute to a band that disdained even the slightest rock-star flash, We Jam Econo tells the story of the Minutemen, whose regrettably brief but brilliant career did much to expand punk's parameters during the early 1980s.
  62. Transporter 2
    Slick kidnapping yarn starts off like a bat out of hell and never sags.
  63. Touch the Sound: A Sound Journey with Evelyn Glennie
    Fans of the Grammy-winning musician will revel in the proximity to their idol, though second pic from talented helmer Thomas Riedelsheimer plays a tad long to those unfamiliar with his, or her, work.
  64. Keane
    Convincing as a portrait of a marginal man gone beyond the emotional pale.
  65. Green Street Hooligans
    Unvarnished verisimilitude, visceral impact and vividly evoked emotional and physical extremes distinguish Hooligans, the impressive debut feature by German-born helmer Lexi Alexander.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Music from the Inside Out
    Words sometimes fail, but energy and enthusiasm triumph in Music From the Inside Out, a docu that quizzes members of the Philadelphia Orchestra about their relationship to music.
  67. Thumbsucker
    Thumbsucker (like "Donnie Darko") is more likely to prosper in the long haul as a home-format cult fave than in its initial arthouse tour. Both offer eccentric humor within a fairly somber overall tone, support-cast surprises, and (to a lesser degree in Thumbsucker) fable-like, hyperreal elements.
  68. One Bright Shining Moment
    "Too decent to be president" was the label stuck to former senator and 1972 presidential candidate George McGovern, the self-effacing subject of Stephen Vittoria's One Bright Shining Moment. If "decent" means "polite," then the movie makes no effort to emulate its subject.
  69. G
    A handsome, compelling drama, about the African-American elite settling in the Hamptons, that more than stands on its own.
  70. Oliver Twist
    A respectable literary adaptation but lacks dramatic urgency and intriguing undercurrents.
  71. Forty Shades of Blue
    A muted but nicely observed study of a Russian woman's gradual estrangement from her domineering Memphis music-legend husband.
  72. Serenity
    What makes Serenity refreshing is its avoidance of CGI, which gives the pic a much more human dimension; the evident chemistry between the cast; and a humor that doesn't rely simply on flip one-liners.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Once Upon a Time in the West (re-release)
    Henry Fonda and Jason Robards relish each screen minute as the heavies, and Charles Bronson plays Clint Eastwood's 'man with no name' role. (Review of Original Release)
  74. The Squid and the Whale
    Pic makes up in strong performances and wry observation what it sometimes lacks in narrative drive. Result is a perceptive (and unexpectedly moving) portrait of lives in crisis.
  75. In Her Shoes
    While the director's avid fans may be disappointed, upscalish mainstream auds, particularly women, will eat up this well-acted, emotionally focused adaptation of Jennifer Weiner's popular novel.
  76. The Aggressives
    Documaker Daniel Peddle also works as a casting director, and so it is small wonder his crisp, concise, intimate portrait of six very different, self-styled "aggressives" -- women who stress their masculine sides -- should reveal in each a curious integrity and beauty.
  77. The Dark Hours
    The Dark Hours surmounts some of the problems of its weak dialogue through a commanding performance by lead Kate Greenhouse and some grisly, genre-style violence.
  78. Summer Storm
    Routine in some aspects, but compensates via psychologically sharp writing and performances.
  79. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
    Once again making a diverting but insubstantial movie look better than it is, Downey, with haggard charm to burn, is winning all the way. Kilmer is riotous at times as an impeccably groomed, businesslike guy keen to assert his orientation at every opportunity.
  80. Emmanuel's Gift
    Sincere but fairly soft piece of ennobling journalism that gives a positive spin to some of Africa's seemingly intractable problems.
  81. Protocols of Zion
    Entertaining and substantial enough to attract at least a portion of the Michael Moore audience.
  82. The Roost
    Debuting helmer Ti West taps into the realist-horror spirit of mentor and exec producer Larry Fessenden, and makes a scarier pic than any by his master.
  83. The Legend of Zorro
    Bigger, louder and considerably less charming than its predecessor…Still, there are enough crowd-pleasing moments amid the frenetic action.
  84. New York Doll
    A charmer whose lack of profane language or images renders it unexpectedly viable for general broadcast.
  85. Three... Extremes
    Plenty of vile little secrets and ghastly urges are explored in the stylishly made Asian-fusion horror triptych.
  86. Gay Sex in the 70s
    Magnificent photographs, archival news footage, and location-shot porn add texture and immediacy to Joseph Lovett's fascinating memoir of the sexually explosive 12-year period (1969-1981).
  87. Zathura: A Space Adventure
    Its unwieldy title notwithstanding, Zathura: A Space Adventure is arguably the best adaptation of a Chris Van Allsburg book to date.
  88. Christmas in the Clouds
    Combo of gorgeously shot Western settings (mostly in snowbound Idaho), memorably mismatched characters, and light-touch social commentary.
  89. Cape of Good Hope
    Although by now routine, the intertwining of separate story strands is solidly structured, and the different mini-narratives resolved in unsurprising yet satisfying ways.
  90. Undertaking Betty
    An enjoyable and entertainingly cast fable about love, death and fitting revenge, "Plots With a View" (AKA Undertaking Betty) strikes a near-miraculous balance between the silly and the morbid.
  91. The Comedians of Comedy
    Amiably slapdash docu about The Comedians of Comedy tour mixes on-stage performances, backstage bull sessions and downtime tomfoolery to generally satisfying and frequently hilarious effect.
  92. Walk the Line
    Walk the Line is a strongly acted, musically vibrant, conventionally satisfying biopic of country/rock/blues legend Johnny Cash and his second wife, June Carter.
  93. Private
    Political realities are a powerful bonus to, rather than the only reason for, Private, an emotionally gripping drama.
  94. The Ice Harvest
    Fine thesping in the service of characters as meaty as they are immoral makes this material a treat for grown up audiences with an ear for sardonic dialogue.
  95. Just Friends
    A surprisingly shrewd and energetic romantic comedy.
  96. Yours, Mine and Ours
    Generally pleasant family-friendly fare.
  97. Down to the Bone
    First-time feature director's disciplined objectivity is coupled with humanism in this collaboration with a gifted cast and cinematographer. The artistic success, though, may be a bit too cool.
  98. Streets of Legend
    Due to digital image manipulation that pushes the picture to the boundary between narrative and avant-garde filmmaking, slightly overlong effort is full of striking, fresh visual interludes showing cars, speed and the sensations surrounding the scene.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Mrs Palfrey at The Claremont
    A low-key drama with comedic undertones that will appeal to older auds, arthouse patrons, and Joan Plowright fans.
  100. Be Here to Love Me: A Film About Townes Van Zandt
    A dignified and wistful look at the unusual life, difficult career and lasting influence of singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt.
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