Variety's Scores

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For 17,782 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: 9,136 out of 17782
  2. Mixed: 7,010 out of 17782
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17782
17782 movie reviews
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  1. The Descent
    The chills and spills keep comin' to agreeable effect in Brit-made scarefest The Descent.
  2. The Matador
    Deftly maneuvering through audacious mood swings and tonal shifts, The Matador emerges as a quirky yet commercial commingling of black comedy, seriocomic psychodrama, heart-tugging sudser and buddy-movie farce.
  3. The World's Fastest Indian
    Sometimes shticky biopic overcomes its cornball conventionality to become a genial entertainment, thanks to Anthony Hopkins' exceptionally engaging performance.
  4. Days of Santiago
    Though convincingly set in the lower depths of Lima, the story embodies a universal truth about the experience of former soldiers in many times and places.
  5. Electric Shadows
    A fairly conventional heartwarmer, lifted by likable performances, good-looking production values and (for movie buffs) a story centered on an outdoor cinema in rural China.
  6. Fun with Dick and Jane
    The rare Hollywood remake that, by daring to reinterpret its source material within a fresh political context, actually has a reason to exist.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Ich hiess Sabina Spielrein
    Engaging doc should stir psychologists and feminists.
  8. Tau man ji D
    Super-slick street-racing pic, based on a Nipponese manga series and set in Japan, is aimed squarely at the East Asian market, which it has conquered in spades since late June release.
  9. Hostel
    Hostel may become something of a classic among Fangoria magazine's readership, acolytes of George Romero and audiences who thought "Saw II" was for babies.
  10. Kill the Poor
    Result hovers a little uncertainly between dark comedy and urban drama, but remains compelling thanks to its gritty narrative texture, nervous energy and loose, jumpy structure, which fit well with the DV-shot production's no-frills approach.
  11. Tristan and Isolde
    This understated period drama may lack sufficient star power and emotional wallop to score breakthrough success with mainstream auds during its domestic theatrical run, but pic could find a warmer response in the same international markets where "Kingdom of Heaven" redeemed itself last year.
  12. The Fall of Fujimori
    Ellen Perry seems keenly aware, there is really no need to embellish the Fujimori story, which has enough unlikely melodrama for six Italian operas.
  13. 24 Hours on Craigslist
    Picture is a colorful human mosaic.
  14. Go for Zucker
    Picture lets loose an experienced cast of vets on a well-honed script that has broad appeal.
  15. Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World
    Though it risks political incorrectness every step of the way, film is more a pleasant laugher than a sharp-edged satire.
  16. Underworld: Evolution
    Overall package is potent. A few rock-the-house scenes of slam-bang derring-do -- are nothing short of sensationally exciting.
  17. Nanny McPhee
    Under the surface, the movie has a streak of Roald Dahl-style darkness that dilutes the sugar.
  18. Roving Mars
    Helmer George Butler correctly gauges his film's strengths, with the search for life in the universe becoming a heartfelt tribute to a couple of robots.
  19. Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story
    Cheating flagrantly, helmer Michael Winterbottom has pulled off the trick -- sort of -- with the wickedly playful Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story.
  20. La scorta (re-release)
    Ricky Tognazzi's La Scorta topped the Italian box office charts for weeks, thanks to its skill in capturing the country's current political climate in an entertaining action film format. (Review of Original Release)
  21. Through the Fire
    Upbeat Urbanworld documentary prizewinner, full of strong personalities and crisply edited court action.
  22. A Year Without Love
    An Argentine writer dying of AIDS searches for a medical cure and some human warmth in the hospitals and S&M clubs of Buenos Aires in dignified, thoughtful drama A Year Without Love.
  23. Eight Below
    An easy watch, thanks to the splendors of frosty scenery and furry canines.
  24. Tsotsi
    Powered by a pounding soundtrack of dance hall Kwaito music, the pic has vital, urban energy similar to the Brazilian crossover "City of God" but with a tauter, more conventional storyline.
  25. Dirty
    The cop genre receives a shot of adrenaline in helmer Chris Fisher's Dirty, a no-nonsense dramatic response to the LAPD Rampart scandals of the '90s.
  26. Unknown White Male
    Bruce's efforts to retrace and recover his life after his memory loss contain all the drama and uncertainty of a fine psychological drama.
  27. 16 Blocks
    Not that it ever rises to the level of Sidney Lumet's Gotham police pics ("Serpico," "Prince of the City"), but 16 Blocks does raise the banner for the tradition of the textured urban cop drama, spurred by action but made substantial by characters at crossroads.
  28. Aquamarine
    Result is an unusually likeable family-friendly comedy.
  29. Our Brand Is Crisis
    Proves as entertaining as the earlier "The War Room," which also featured Carville, but is more somber.
  30. Woman Is the Future of Man
    Taken as a film about muddling along, "Woman" never bores the viewer with indecisive filmmaking. Basically, it's an elegant jeu, played and constructed with an almost Gallic lightness heightened by Jeong Yong-jin's bursts of music, all bouncy piano and pizzicato.
  31. The Hills Have Eyes
    Besides proving to be a faithful mimic of Craven's filmmaking, Aja pours on the gore. But where Aja's version really leaps beyond Craven's both atmospherically and on the violence scale is in the second hour.
  32. Duck Season
    This slight but appealing film's funky eccentricity feels a little contrived at times.
  33. Evil
    Evil is not, as the title would suggest, a horror film, at least not a conventional one. Based on the autobiographical novel by Jan Guillou and set in the mid-1950s, the film relates the experiences of a troubled young man who's enrolled into a hidebound private school.
  34. Find Me Guilty
    Part mob-trial thriller, part "dese 'n' dose" extended standup routine, character-rich pic plays like vintage Lumet, mining the grim comedy from life-and-death legal wranglings in the manner of "Dog Day Afternoon," "Prince of the City" and "The Verdict."
  35. Thank You for Smoking
    Playing a Big Tobacco lobbyist, Aaron Eckhart puts his golden news-anchor good looks and smooth conviction to better use than in any pic since his breakthrough film, "In the Company of Men."
  36. Take My Eyes
    Handles the subject of domestic violence with intelligence and compassion.
  37. Don't Tell
    More than in her previous tales of dysfunctional families like "Marriages," she (Comencini) lightens the weight of angst with well-designed subplots, secondary characters and moments of tender humor.
  38. The Big Question
    Intriguing and surprisingly witty.
  39. Inside Man
    A flashy cast, clever script and vibrant showcasing of New York City as the ultimate melting pot are strong plusses for Spike Lee's most mainstream studio venture.
  40. The Lady in Question Is Charles Busch
    An affectionate, energetic documentary, it targets the existing fans of Busch's Broadway and off-Broadway exploits, but is likely to win a lot of converts, too -- largely through Busch's endearing personality.
  41. Brick
    The story, while derivative, isn't half bad, and the picture gains in finesse and confidence to the point where Johnson more or less pulls off his peril-fraught exercise.
  42. Awesome; I Fuckin' Shot That!
    The sense of immediacy and excitement is contagious.
  43. Friends with Money
    Stealing the show is Jane, whose rage-fueled rants and scarcely concealed mutterings are loaded with sarcastic bon mots that are delivered to the hilt by McDormand.
  44. On a Clear Day
    By turns whimsically humorous and intelligently sentimental, but also infused with a pungent air of working-class realism.
  45. I Am a Sex Addict
    Hits its stride from the opening scenes and continues hilariously for a while, before declining into more of same. Its undeniable appeal lies in shocking frankness shackled to irony, a combo that should attract indie lovers with psychoanalytic leanings and droll senses of humor.
  46. 4
    Its bawdy comedy, bravura sound design and uncanny atmosphere will turn on auds with a taste for deeply oddball fare and baffle others.
  47. Hard Candy
    A spectacular performance by teenage thesp Ellen Page elevates this disturbing slice of designer shocksploitation into a film that's impossible to dismiss on principle.
  48. Look Both Ways
    An imaginative, humorous and truthful contemplation of human reaction to the inexplicable.
  49. Sir! No Sir!
    Because it's bolstered by proud memories of Vietnam vets who turned against the war, Sir! No Sir! rings with an exultant, even elated tone.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Somersault
    Sexual compulsion accelerates adolescent angst in the arty Down Under drama, but while Shortland shows a notable eye for detail, her distracted approach to narrative and an attitude to her characters that's cold as the movie's snowfields make pic most likely to be embraced by serious-minded fest auds.
  51. Wassup Rockers
    A thoroughly winning and unexpectedly observant lark about the antics of seven Latino skateboarding pals in South-Central Los Angeles.
  52. Akeelah and the Bee
    This earnest weepie plays like "The Karate Kid" with a pro-literacy agenda, pushing all the right emotional buttons yet hitting quite a few wrong ones in the process.
  53. Mission: Impossible III
    For all its far-fetched formulations, this new entry maintains more of a dramatic throughline and has the bonus of a villain played with unsparing meanness by Philip Seymour Hoffman.
  54. Three Times
    Less accessible than recent "Cafe Lumiere," picture will appeal strongly to fans.
  55. Lady Vengeance
    A wildly inventive, highly cinematic director's showcase that looks likely, at least in the West, to enthuse fans of Asian -- especially Korean -- genre movies more than general auds.
  56. Down in the Valley
    Result is imperfect and overlong, but hugely ambitious and often breathtaking.
  57. Poseidon
    Thanks to its simple construction, Wolfgang Petersen's large-scale liner moves reasonably well, though anyone with the faintest memory of its 1972 predecessor will wonder where most of the plot went.
  58. X-Men: The Last Stand
    The result, though it delivers only in fits and starts, is still sharper and more inventive than most comicbook-adapted fare, and eventually gets the job done as far as action buffs are concerned.
  59. Keeping Up with the Steins
    A sure-fire audience-pleaser, Scott (son of Garry) Marshall's winning comedy bow could have been titled "My Big Fat Jewish Bar Mitzvah."
  60. Saving Shiloh
    May be naive and narratively simple, but it's prime fare for the always underserved family audience.
  61. Wah-Wah
    Flavorsome performances by a seasoned cast, held in check by Grant's traditional but well-crafted, always cinematic direction.
  62. Lemming
    Spooky, intellectually titillating and darkly funny picture is definitely the kind of film where the less you know going in, the better.
  63. Twelve and Holding
    Deals in sometimes queasy areas of underage sexuality and emotional extremes; again, deftness and confidence ultimately put across a screenplay (this time by Anthony S. Cipriano) overloaded with sensational incident.
  64. Cars
    Periodic bursts of cleverness brighten the festivities, but they're too few and far between, and the trademark humor that appeals to adults and kids often misfires.
  65. La Moustache
    Viewers who like their conclusions tidy may rebel, but those who relish outstanding performances in the service of an intriguing idea will be entertained.
  66. Cavite
    For a guerrilla-style, no-budget Yank indie to even tackle issues of jihad terror and naive Western thinking is noteworthy in itself, but Gamazon and Dela Llana inflame the issues with a gutsy, athletic filmmaking package that shows what can be done with a minimum of tools.
  67. District B13
    Fast, dumb fun.
  68. The War Tapes
    The picture's deepest fascination lies in the soldiers' complicated reactions to the war, perceived simultaneously as funny, horrific, stirring and traumatic.
  69. Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul
    One of the world's great cities comes vibrantly alive through its music and musical denizens in Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul.
  70. The Heart of the Game
    Compelling but traditional feature.
  71. The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
    Pumping high-performance gas back into the series after a second lap sputter, third entry stays in high gear most of the way with several exhilarating racing sequences, and benefits greatly from the evocative Japanese setting.
  72. Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties
    A genuinely clever kidpic that should delight moppets, please parents -- and maybe tickle a few tweens.
  73. Nacho Libre
    Nacho Libre strikes a delicate balance of whimsy and absurdity that may surprise auds primed to expect wall-to-wall slapstick.
  74. Lower City
    Though the storyline is dirt simple and not particularly meaningful or involving, the action in this character-driven film is scintillatingly sexy.
  75. The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green
    It's a crackpot of a soap opera, ornamented by a great deal of sexual humor, sexual innuendo and sex. Lead Daniel Letterle is a charmingly boyish actor, and the other featured players -- particularly veteran actress Meredith Baxter as Ethan's gay-wedding-planner mother -- are excellent.
  76. Wordplay
    Punsters, linguists and crossword puzzle fanatics everywhere couldn't ask for a more bracing tribute than helmer Patrick Creadon's buoyant and exhilaratingly brainy documentary Wordplay.
  77. Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man
    Proves that few can maneuver one of Cohen's dusky, lovelorn songs like Cohen himself.
  78. The Road to Guantanamo
    The film has a winning combo of excitement and topicality.
  79. The Devil Wears Prada
    Streep single-handedly elevates this sitcomy but tolerably entertaining adaptation of Lauren Weisberger's bestselling 2003 roman a clef about a personal assistant's year of chic hell under the thumb of the dragon lady of the fashion world.
  80. The Forsaken Land
    There's poetry in The Forsaken Land -- not the written kind (there's barely any dialogue) -- but visual poetry replete with still, painterly compositions and finely nuanced lighting.
  81. The Motel
    The Motel offers a fresh take on characters and conventions, and compels interest with shrewd, sympathy-inspiring storytelling.
  82. Who Killed the Electric Car?
    Oil companies aren't the only ones profiting from a spike in prices at the gas pump. It's likely also to boost the prospects of Who Killed the Electric Car? a likable if partisan post-mortem on the now-defunct auto.
  83. A Scanner Darkly
    Deeply intriguing but almost too-faithful adaptation of Philip K. Dick's nightmarish 1977 novel.
  84. There's No One Like You
    Enjoyable, daffily improbable escapist romp.
  85. Once in a Lifetime: The Extraordinary Story of the New York Cosmos
    While soccer fans will rep the core aud, even non-fans can enjoy.
  86. Changing Times
    A Cathererine Deneuve-Gerard Depardieu vehicle that leaves ample room for interesting supporting characters, this moody, more-bitter-than-sweet ode to anxiety is intense adult fare reinforced by effective no frills lensing.
  87. Mini's First Time
    The performances lift "Mini" out of the gutter of utter cynicism and into the realm of the complex.
  88. The Oh in Ohio
    Amusing indie comedy blithely blurs the line between risque and raunchy, often to hilarious effect.
  89. Gabrielle
    Though it won't appeal to everyone, the concoction actually works, thanks to Huppert and Greggory's powerful negative chemistry.
  90. 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance
    Intellectually demanding and non-commercial film should be embraced in the festival and arthouse circuits by film students and viewers interested in postmodern, deconstructionist cinema.
  91. Been Rich All My Life
    Providing an inspiration for active retirement, the ex-Harlem Renaissance chorus girls profiled in docu Been Rich All My Life are still shaking booty while most of their contemporaries can only shuffle their walkers.
  92. Clerks II
    A softer, flabbier and considerably higher-budgeted follow-up to Kevin Smith's 1994 indie sensation that nevertheless packs enough riotous exchanges and pungent sexual obscenities to make its 97 minutes pass by with ease.
  93. Monster House
    Constant shock cuts and souped-up music and sound effects will keep small fry in a state of moderate petrification, while the trio of tweeny leads plus attitude-redolent cohorts will make teens feel welcome.
  94. Miami Vice
    Unlike most TV-to-movie transitions, Mann returns to his roots and delivers what amounts to a slightly overblown episode, brimming with style and characteristically short on substance.
  95. Barnyard
    Zippy enough to delight youngsters and clever enough to engage their parents.
  96. Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
    Simultaneously teasing and loving a subject doesn't make for easy comedy, but writer-star Will Ferrell and director/co-writer Adam McKay pull it off with good-ol'-boy good nature in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.
  97. World Trade Center
    World Trade Center yields lovely and touching moments but proves a slow-going, arduous movie experience.
  98. Darshan: The Embrace
    Docu's pace will be a little too meditative for many, but the rigorous, sinewy lensing will have Hypnotic power on those so inclined.
  99. 13 Tzameti
    Shot like the grunge version of a '50s noir thriller from France (or Soviet Georgia), the black-and-white 13 (Tzameti) turns into a shocker of Tarantino proportions in protracted sequences of explosive violence that leave viewers quaking.
  100. Brothers of the Head
    Feature debut by Yank duo Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe isn't so far from their engrossing docus on Terry Gilliam's filmic adventures, "The Hamster Factor" (1996) and "Lost in La Mancha" (2001), except here the madness and exploitation is part of the music scene.
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