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. Butter
    Butter might have been a dark comedy; here, the humor is twisted but the world is bright as can be. Conservatives and liberals alike take a licking, and yet the art of butter carving emerges unscathed.
  2. Goon
    The picture has a first-rate team of actors who visibly enjoy their roles and the sharp dialogue by Baruchel and Goldberg.
  3. Jeff Who Lives at Home
    Graced with Susan Sarandon's radiant turn as Jeff's all-patient mother-enabler, this sweet but slight effort could modestly expand their audience beyond the slacker set to include middle-aged women.
  4. Submarine
    Rises above the genre's tired, cookie-cutter competition, presenting familiar elements, such as preternaturally articulate teens preoccupied with virginity, through fresh eyes.
  5. Certified Copy
    More compelling as an intellectual exercise than an emotional one, Certified Copy finds deep-thinking writer-director Abbas Kiarostami asserting there's nothing new under the Tuscan sun, particularly not his own conventional romantic drama set in rural Italy.
  6. Jane Eyre
    The candlelight flickers exquisitely even as the passions are slow to ignite in this spare, shrewdly acted but not especially vital retelling of Jane Eyre.
  7. My Week with Marilyn
    To the extent that Michelle Williams' multilayered interpretation of Marilyn Monroe serves as its raison d'etre, My Week With Marilyn succeeds stunningly.
  8. The Music Never Stopped
    The novel premise and otherwise nuanced performances are enough to hold attention.
  9. Black Death
    While managing to deliver enough suspense and bloodletting to appease gore fans, steadily improving helmer Christopher Smith ("Severance") and screenwriter Dario Poloni smuggle in a merciless critique of religious delusion.
  10. Potiche
    Eight years after the crowd-pleasing "8 Women" and a mostly impressive run of small-scale arthouse films, Francois Ozon effortlessly moves back to the mainstream with another sparkling, occasionally side-splitting adaptation of a French boulevard-theater play.
  11. White Irish Drinkers
    A modestly engaging domestic drama that earns few points for originality but rewards aud attention with persuasive performances, outbursts of robust humor and a vivid yet understated evocation of time and place.
  12. The Double Hour
    Not so much a genre movie as a movie that switches between genres -- and comes out on top.
  13. There Be Dragons
    Dragons may not be perfect, but it plays to the helmer's strengths, demonstrating an increasingly rare sense of scope and pageantry best served by the bigscreen.
  14. Beautiful Boy
    Although it's very much a contemporary yarn, there's a distinctly '70s feel to much of Beautiful Boy.
  15. Dolphin Tale
    Though garnished with some heavy dollops of cheese, Dolphin Tale is a surprisingly solid, earnest family picture.
  16. Courageous
    Moviegoers devoted to faith-based fare will flock to megaplexes for Courageous, easily the most polished production so far from brothers Alex and Stephen Kendrick, the prolific and increasingly accomplished filmmaking pastors at the Sherwood Church of Albany, Ga.
  17. Big Miracle
    This family-friendly outing captures the story's human snowball effect with a measure of sly, satirical wit, if also an excess of boilerplate subplots and jokey '80s details.
  18. Premium Rush
    The lovably ridiculous bike-messenger thriller Premium Rush is a welcome throwback.
  19. Underworld: Awakening
    Once again, Beckinsale brings an impressive physicality and subzero cool to her portrayal of Selene.
  20. Last Night
    An aptly gorgeous-looking Manhattan meller whose quartet of sexy actors proves no less attractive than the well-mounted picture as a whole.
  21. The Dark Tower
    It’s a highly competent and watchable paranoid metaphysical video game that doesn’t overstay its welcome, includes some luridly entertaining visual effects, and — it has to be said — summons an emotional impact of close to zero. Which in a film like this one isn’t necessarily a disadvantage.
  22. POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold
    A consistently amusing and not entirely vacuous stunt.
  23. Under the Boardwalk: The Monopoly Story
    Under the Boardwalk provides an amiable overview of one very famous board game's history and impact, alongside a moderately engaging portrait of players preparing for the 2009 World Monopoly Championship.
  24. The Four Times (Le Quattro Volte)
    Very kid-friendly, the wordless pic could strike some as an overly-intellectualized attempt to fetishize remnant semi-pagan traditions in a picturesque corner of Italy's Calabria province.
  25. Attenberg
    A captivating and vaguely disturbing experience.
  26. Illegal
    A prolonged stay in a Belgian immigration detention center causes more than a few chinks in the armor of a strong-willed Russian femme in Illegal, Olivier Masset-Depasse's fascinating study of perseverance in the face of subhuman treatment.
  27. The Secret World of Arrietty
    Although beautifully rendered throughout, with delicate, elegantly drawn watercolor-like illustrations, the picture may seem too plain and simple for the oversophisticated tastes of kids in Europe and North America, while Arrietty herself reps a slightly insipid heroine.
  28. 21 Jump Street
    By casting Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum as fish-out-of-water buffoons, the irreverent result feels fresher than most '80s-show reboots, effectively flipping the address Johnny Depp made famous.
  29. Men in Black III
    It's clear the filmmakers aren't simply expecting to coast on audience goodwill...Men in Black 3 is at its best when it simply owns its own absurdity.
  30. Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted
    Good-humored and endearing, full of energy and color (sometimes neon) if not quite Pixar-level invention.
  31. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
    A Civil War-era actioner of questionable taste and historical accuracy but surprisingly consistent entertainment value.
  32. Moonrise Kingdom
    Moonrise Kingdom represents a sort of non-magical Neverland -- that momentous instant when the world can seem so small and a naive crush can feel all-consuming.
  33. Wrecked
    Greenspan's solid but unexceptional debut, ably carried by Brody's one-hander performance.
  34. Wretches & Jabberers
    The ability to mix humor and emotion is the strong suit of this upbeat, music-saturated documentary.
  35. My Afternoons with Margueritte
    French feel-good filmmaking to the max. Yet a heaping pile of cliches doesn't prevent this touchingly simplistic tale -- from exuding a strong and universal emotional appeal.
  36. Bellflower
    A likely cult hit among horror fans and a gleeful affront to more delicate sensibilities, Bellflower takes the young-adult romantic-comedy blueprint and subjects it to a kind of devilish origami, creating a disturbed and disturbing parable about young male fantasies, fears and avoidance of adulthood.
  37. How to Live Forever
    The prospects, advisability and potential methods of prolonging human life are examined in an engagingly multifaceted manner in How to Live Forever.
  38. Bride Flight
    A devil-may-care adventurer and three vastly different gals emigrate from the Low Countries to New Zealand in the romantic epic Bride Flight, a glossy European meller that switches between the '50s, the '60s and the present
  39. The Expendables 2
    This muscle-bound meathead extravaganza is a sometimes blissfully cretinous endeavor, delivering the maximum firepower and zero brainpower its target audience expects.
  40. Life, Above All
    It's an absorbing, vividly inhabited tale nonetheless, never exploiting its horrors but rather treating them as tough local realities.
  41. Beginning of the Great Revival
    A Chinese propaganda film without the heavy dogma and dour treatment that would have been expected a generation ago, Beginning of the Great Revival is a slick and lavish historical epic charting the 1921 formation of the Chinese Communist Party.
  42. Winston Churchill: Walking with Destiny
    Pic benefits greatly from Ben Kingsley's brilliantly nuanced reading of frankly bombastic narration.
  43. Just Like Us
    Funny, thoughtful and, with its quasi-travelogue voiceover by helmer-comedian Ahmed Ahmed, best suited for a cable outlet that won't cut the vulgarity upon which so much depends.
  44. Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times
    This efficiently assembled primer hardly counts as a revelatory dispatch from the old-vs.-new-media frontlines, but its ideas will engross anyone for whom the viability of traditional newsgathering remains a matter of pressing significance.
  45. Conan O'Brien Can't Stop
    The biggest laughs and most intriguing revelations are provided offstage in this slickly produced documentary, as O'Brien -- often pushing himself to the point of exhaustion before, during and after performances -- plays for keeps while playing for laughs.
  46. Another Earth
    Out there, to say the least, but rescued from risibility by its well-matched lead performances and crazy low-budget ambition.
  47. The Perfect Host
    Just when the picture seems to be settling into torture porn, it begins pulling a series of clever twists -- although they lose some punch when you realize the script depends on one whopping coincidence.
  48. Terri
    Jacobs' slow-building portrait of a late bloomer makes this poetic picture an outsider even among outsider movies.
  49. Tabloid
    Errol Morris' Tabloid is bonkers in all the best possible ways -- a welcome return to perverse portraiture after a lengthy sojourn in the realm of more serious-minded subjects.
  50. Sarah's Key
    Working in a classical style and genre that rep a far cry from his previous work ("Pretty Things," "Gomez and Tavares, "UV"), Pacquet-Brenner's direction is always respectful if never entirely subtle.
  51. Daydream Nation
    Charged with alternating currents of teen angst, sardonic wit, nervous dread and impudent sensuality, Daydream Nation suggests "Juno" as reimagined by David Lynch, or a funnier, sunnier "Donnie Darko."
  52. Forks Over Knives
    One of the more convincing, radical and politically volatile documentaries to come out of the burgeoning good-food genre.
  53. A Good Old Fashioned Orgy
    Despite the preposterous, kissing-your-sister premise of A Good Old-Fashioned Orgy, a very likable cast and some terrific sketch-style comedy should please (if not deeply satisfy the lustful yearnings of) audiences lured by the film's title.
  54. Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life
    Both evocative and faithful in its depiction of the famed French singer's lascivious life, "Gainsbourg (vie heroique)" offers up a feast of memorable chansons and an almost endless parade of drop-dead-gorgeous muses.
  55. The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls
    A documentary that has you falling in love with two of the crazier people you've never met.
  56. Make Believe
    A charming, affectionate and often elegantly executed study of teenage magicians, their craft and the social shadows they step out of when they do their stuff.
  57. The Campaign
    Roach, who also counts such lowbrow laffers as "Austin Powers" and "Meet the Fockers" on his resume, manages to keep things broad without sacrificing smarts.
  58. Life 2.0
    A disturbing but nonjudgmental study of online addiction and the lure of manufactured identities.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Glee: The 3D Concert Movie
    You might leave Glee 3D feeling a little gooey all over, but that slushie does taste kind of sweet.
  60. The Woman in Black
    Helmer James Watkins ("Eden Lake") and scripter Jane Goldman judiciously combine moves from the classic scare-'em-ups with new tricks from recent J-horror pictures to retell Susan Hill's oft-adapted Victorian gothic pastiche.
  61. YellowBrickRoad
    Underwhelming finish explains zilch, but good performances, atmospherics and use of backwoods locations make Yellowbrickroad an intriguing cipher.
  62. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
    This robust, action-packed adventure benefits from a headier sense of forward momentum and a steady stream of 3D-enhanced thrills.
  63. Love Crime
    Picture initially suggests a sort of Gallic "Damages," with Kristin Scott Thomas and Ludivine Sagnier in the Glenn Close and Rose Byrne roles, but the corporate catfight soon gives way to a cleverly designed whodunit.
  64. Queen of the Sun: What Are the Bees Telling Us?
    A creative exploration of the global honeybee crisis replete with remarkable nature cinematography, some eccentric characters and yet another powerful argument for organic, sustainable agriculture in balance with nature.
  65. Battle for Brooklyn
    "It's un-American," Goldstein says about the abuses of power at the heart of the film, before correcting himself: "No -- you know what? It is American." That's precisely the message that Battle for Brooklyn doesn't sufficiently explore.
  66. 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.
  67. Despicable Me 2
    While not quite as charming or unique as the original, Despicable Me 2 comes awfully close.
  68. The Mighty Macs
    Family-friendly and abounding in uplift, The Mighty Macs is an undemandingly pleasant indie drama.
  69. The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975
    Like any mixtape, it offers some truly transcendent moments alongside a smattering of filler, and never quite assembles its pieces into a cohesive whole.
  70. Halloween
    By contemporary horror standards, the original “Halloween” was actually quite tame, featuring just five (human) deaths, whereas this one more than triples the body count — and it does so with style, borrowing several of Carpenter’s classic devices...before getting into the more prosthetic-heavy mayhem that follows.
  71. Redemption Road
    A lightly enjoyable road picture about a circuitous road to redemption, Black, White and Blues offers simple, down-home pleasures while spinning an undeniably familiar but emotionally satisfying tale.
  72. Delhi Belly
    A smartly paced, highly entertaining Bollywood gagfest. No comic masterpiece, perky pic nevertheless boasts likable characters, colorful villains, well-timed gags and Ram Sampath's extremely catchy tunes, all woven into a seamless, escalating whole.
  73. Crime After Crime
    Although helmer Yoav Potash's approach is low-key and only vaguely cinematic, each instance of judicial malfeasance -- and there are many -- is allowed to toll loudly in its own moral echo chamber.
  74. Small Town Murder Songs
    It's a rare film that feels too short, but Small Town Murder Songs leaves one wanting more -- more murder story, mystery and revelations from lead thesp Peter Stormare and virtuoso helmer Ed Gass-Donnelly.
  75. Fast & Furious 6
    Though high-octane stunts have always been the primary selling point here, Lin and veteran “Fast” screenwriter Chris Morgan have labored to add depth, dimensionality and inner conflict to the now-sprawling cast of recurring characters — so much so that, at times, “Furious 6” plays like a glossy gearhead melodrama.
  76. Welcome
    Though the issue of illegal immigration is nothing new in French cinema, Welcome makes auds care deeply for its absorbing characters.
  77. Sholem Aleichem: Laughing in the Darkness
    Joseph Dorman's intelligent if conventional bio-doc of Sholem Aleichem proves particularly revealing, since the famed, dandyish Yiddish writer led a life as full of colorful ironies as the motormouth schlemiels that populate his stories.
  78. Thor: The Dark World
    This robust, impersonal visual-effects showpiece proves buoyant and unpretentious enough to offset its stew of otherwise derivative fantasy/action elements.
  79. Daylight
    Some movie buffs will be amused to note slight but perceptible plot similarities between Daylight and, of all things, "The Tall T," Budd Boetticher's classic 1957 Western. To their credit, the filmmakers more or less acknowledge the influence in the closing credits.
  80. Hood to Coast
    Expertly constructed, impressively lensed and surprisingly entertaining.
  81. Saving Private Perez
    The horrific events in Mexico are proving fertile ground for black comedy, and though Saving Private Perez is certainly not the blackest, it may well be the funniest.
  82. Cook County
    Despite a few continuity problems, this rough-edged, low-budget drama impresses with spot-on performances, perfect-pitch dialogue and an overall sense that something bad might happen at any moment, unless something worse happens first.
  83. Point Blank
    Unlike John Boorman's trippy 1967 L.A. noir of the same title, frenetic Gallic suspenser Point Blank provides few existential thrills but plenty of heart-racing action as it follows one man's marathon dash to save his kidnapped wife from execution.
  84. The Harvest/La Cosecha
    The Harvest/La Cosecha, whose exec producers include actress Eva Longoria, has few artistic pretensions, but its observations are potent.
  85. Turbo
    Here, the laughs come not from the silly voices but a blend of snappy editing and clever character bits, including a recurring joke about an inappropriately named sidekick who calls himself White Shadow (Michael Patrick Bell).
  86. Tucker & Dale vs Evil
    Sorta doing for "Texas Chainsaw Massacre"-type slashers what "Shaun of the Dead" did for zombie pics, "T&D" offers good-natured, confidently executed splatstick whose frequent hilarity suffers only from peaking too early.
  87. Sleep Furiously
    Picture's tone is far more poetic than polemical.
  88. Dredd
    Grim, gritty and ultra-violent, Dredd reinstates the somber brutality missing from the U.K. comicbook icon's previous screen outing.
  89. My Joy
    Although discomfiting to audiences desiring a steady narrative thread (and less accessible to those unfamiliar with Eastern European history and culture), it sustains interest throughout as a devastating critique of Russian society.
  90. Cold Fish
    Like most Sono pictures, too long. But its gleeful humor and dare-you-to-watch aesthetic will help it rack up kills at specialty fests.
  91. The Amazing Spider-Man 2
    Redundancy remains a problem, but this overlong superhero sequel gets by on sound, fury and star chemistry.
  92. Parker
    Crisp and efficient, with the occasional clunky moments, Parker also shows off Jennifer Lopez (literally) to good effect, while mostly squandering the rest of its first-rate cast.
  93. The Odd Life of Timothy Green
    With just the right dose of magic and no shortage of sentiment, this inspirational parenting tale from writer-director Peter Hedges plays like "Mary Poppins" in reverse.
  94. World War Z
    Emerges as a surprisingly smart, gripping and imaginative addition to the zombie-movie canon, owing as much to scientific disaster movies like “The China Syndrome” and “Contagion” as it does to undead ur-texts like the collected works of George Romero.
  95. The Journals of Musan
    Though it cries out for trimming, "Musan" is a welcome, substantive marker on the current cinema landscape.
  96. The Whale
    When a baby orca strayed from its family pod near Puget Sound and showed up 200 miles away in Canada in 2001, it became the center of a long-running human drama by turns cute, inspirational, ludicrous and tragic, as documented in The Whale.
  97. Toast
    Like the lemon meringue pies and shrimp cocktails it features throughout, Brit comedy-drama Toast is tasty, hearty and rather conventional.
  98. Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey
    All in all, the pace -- although buoyed by Joel Goodman score -- is rather plodding until Clash's life story intersects with that of the little red guy, at which point it lifts off. And even yanks a tear or two.
  99. Mere Brother Ki Dulhan
    Engaging leads, high-end production values, wedding preparations, energetic musical numbers and a familiar story should ensure healthy biz for Mere brother ki dulhan, a lightweight, unambitious three-way romantic comedy whose utter predictability may be its greatest asset.
  100. Blackthorn
    Shepard delivers in spades, his character weary but just crackpot enough to survive.
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