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. Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted
    Good-humored and endearing, full of energy and color (sometimes neon) if not quite Pixar-level invention.
  2. Chernobyl Diaries
    Scattered stretches of suspense and a few undeniably potent shocks are not enough to dissipate the sense of deja vu that prevails throughout Chernobyl Diaries, a wearyingly predictable thriller about "extreme tourists."
  3. Battle Royale
    Departing from two decades' worth of domestic and personal dramas and returning to his roots as Japan's maestro of mayhem, Kinji Fukasaku has delivered a brutal punch to the collective solar plexus with one of his most outrageous and timely films.
  4. The Intouchables
    Though never known for their subtlety, French co-helmers/scripters Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache have never delivered a film as offensive as "Untouchable," which flings about the kind of Uncle Tom racism one hopes has permanently exited American screens.
  5. 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.
  6. Bill W.
    Showing deep appreciation for Wilson's influence, as well as for the obscurity in which he spent his career in the spiritual-rescue business, the helmers employ a motherlode of photographs, diary entries, correspondence and recorded speeches to tell a sensational story that many will think they know, but don't.
  7. 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.
  8. Quill: The Life of a Guide Dog
    Puppy appeal nudges past some dramatic deficiencies -- if just by a nose.
  9. Indie Game: The Movie
    The picture scores big points by drawing a sharp distinction between corporate vidgame programmers and indies.
  10. Polisse
    Though rough edges are very much part of picture's fabric and charm, the current two-hour-plus edit is too choppy, with many sequences feeling rushed or underdeveloped.
  11. Hysteria
    Dancy manages a few sly moments, and Everett is as ever a scene-stealer, if barely recognizable under a beard and altered features, and with a raspy voice. But the estimable Pryce and Jones are wasted, along with many other fine thesps, while Gyllenhaal works too gratingly hard in an already strained role.
  12. Entrance
    A textbook example of a movie that betrays its audience, Entrance begins as a mildly interesting slice-of-life look at a struggling Los Angeles cafe worker, then impulsively devolves into a manipulative slasher picture.
  13. Piranha 3DD
    Ups the self-parody so much that it's practically a Wayans Brothers spoof, albeit with fewer jokes.
  14. The Samaritan
    If anything, this Canadian production misses a great opportunity to dig into its setting and examine the dark side of seemingly pristine Toronto, even as the script by Elan Mastai and director David Weaver labors over a mostly boilerplate storyline.
  15. Virginia
    A scattershot Southern melodrama that can't decide what it's supposed to be.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    What to Expect When You're Expecting
    Helmer Kirk Jones does a solid job negotiating the material and managing the few tonal shifts when an occasional dark moment emerges.
  17. The Dictator
    Typically, political correctness couldn't be farther from the filmmakers' mind, and yet, what the picture most sorely lacks is the sort of humanist appeal Chaplin delivered at the close of "The Great Dictator."
  18. The Road
    This low-budget shocker eventually pays off, displaying just enough narrative ingenuity to compensate for a cinematically crude and logistically sketchy deployment of the requisite blood-and-guts mayhem.
  19. Girl in Progress
    Never finds its own groove, alternating between high-school dramedy and overworked-single-mom narratives without ever really becoming a mother-and-daughter story until the closing scenes.
  20. Nobody Else But You (Poupoupidou)
    A subversive and strange little film noir.
  21. Nesting
    The script unfortunately suffers from its own case of arrested development, barely getting out of the gate before stalling, and never building enough laughs or narrative impetus to justify feature length.
  22. Bonsái
    By turns gentle, deadpan, droll and sarcastic, Jimenez's film reflects on Proust's "Remembrance of Things Past" to track a sweet but doomed love affair between literary -- and pleasurably randy -- college students.
  23. Dark Shadows
    This bizarre but weirdly bloodless retro-camp exercise is neither funny nor eerie enough to seduce the uninitiated, and will court bemused reactions at best from the series' still-estimable fan following.
  24. Patience (After Sebald)
    Gee follows Sebald's path with only occasional detours, while intermittently glimpsed talking heads fade in and out of artful black-and-white landscapes.
  25. Under African Skies
    Under African Skies is appreciably smarter than most celebrity musician documentaries.
  26. Sleepless Night
    There's no mistaking Jardin's playful mastery of the Hollywood-style action aesthetic; his movie starts in high gear and accelerates steadily from there.
  27. Portrait of Wally
    Turning over rocks in and around the New York art world, helmer Andrew Shea finds a lot of ugly stuff while chronicling what amounts to a 60-year hostage drama centered around the Egon Schiele oil painting that gives the film its title.
  28. A Bag of Hammers
    First-time feature helmer Brian Crano maneuvers some tricky tonal shifts with impressive ease in A Bag of Hammers, a droll, quirky comedy with a pleasant amount of heart.
  29. Meeting Evil
    The picture could provide modest amusement for indulgent viewers with a taste for tales of loquacious killers and not-so-innocent bystanders.
  30. God Bless America
    While it starts out well, Bobcat Goldthwait's black comedy struggles to maintain focus as it turns into a road trip of diminishing rewards in satirical and narrative terms.
  31. I Wish
    This tale of two elementary-school brothers plotting to end the physical separation their parents' divorce has forced on them effortlessly pulls off the naturalism and charm desired from material that might have easily curdled into calculated preciousness.
  32. Tonight You're Mine
    Picture may not be Scots helmer David Mackenzie's best effort, but it's easily his most lighthearted, a cheery trifle that reps a contrast to his recent pictures, the apocalyptic "Perfect Sense" and U.S.-set comic misfire "Spread."
  33. Chronicling a Crisis
    Just marginally a documentary, Chronicling a Crisis turns out to be one of Amos Kollek's more affecting films.
  34. Mother's Day
    Undistinguished apart from Rebecca De Mornay's performance as an unhinged mama.
  35. Last Call at the Oasis
    Whether the glass is half full or half empty isn't the point of the effervescent Last Call at the Oasis: It's whether there'll be anything in the glass at all.
  36. Dolphin Boy
    A natural fit for nature-film audiences and the edu-tainment market.
  37. The Perfect Family
    Watching a consummate pro like Turner navigate an uneven script, veering from farcical determination, her cheeks puffed like those of a demented chipmunk, to utter devastation, can be immensely entertaining, particularly when she's backed by an able cast, as she is here.
  38. First Position
    The picture combines the built-in drama, tension and suspense of documentaries such as "Spellbound" with exciting, beautifully lensed variations performed by the virtuosos of the future.
  39. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
    The powerhouse cast is so capable, the actors just about manage to play the picture as if it were a "Midsummer Night's Dream"-style frothy farce, with marigold garlands and picturesque poverty.
  40. A Little Bit of Heaven
    An only fitfully convincing Hudson leads a strong-on-paper cast, but most of the actors look uncomfortable here, particularly Gael Garcia Bernal as her love interest.
  41. The Giant Mechanical Man
    Helmer-writer Lee Kirk's deliberately offbeat romance, a vehicle for wife Fischer, will undoubtedly win friends through its cockeyed-optimistic view of romance.
  42. Inventing Our Life: The Kibbutz Experiment
    Toby Perl Freilich's thought-provoking documentary Inventing Our Life sketches the history of the radically socialist, more-than-100-year-old kibbutz movement.
  43. Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale
    This wildly ambitious rumble-in-the-jungle battle epic arrives bearing so heavy a burden of industry expectations, one wishes the results were less kitschy and more coherent; still, the filmmaking has a raw physicality and crazy conviction it's hard not to admire.
  44. 96 Minutes
    Despite the over-familiarity of its once-trendy time-tripping plot structure, 96 Minutes maintains a brisk pace and generates a satisfying degree of suspense with its credibly contrived tale of disparate lives forever changed by a violent carjacking.
  45. Safe
    What starts out crisp and promising gives way to a conventional shoot-'em-up in Safe, a fast-paced but extremely familiar vehicle for Jason Statham, who can only carry the material so far on his brawny shoulders.
  46. Mamitas
    Every bit as cliched as it sounds, picture offers a dramatically crude, overly familiar take on the bad-boy-turned-good story. At its best, it offers young thesps E.J. Bonilla and Veronica Diaz-Carranza a showcase for their range.
  47. Restless City
    Picture's visual elegance makes a limited arthouse life possible, although Nigerian-born fashion photog-turned-helmer Andrew Dosunmu is far more interested in aesthetics than narrative in erecting his visually poetic "City."
  48. Sound of My Voice
    Two documentary filmmakers infiltrate a mysterious cult, only to find themselves drawn into the leader's insidious grip, in the taut, compelling low-budget feature Sound of My Voice.
  49. Headhunters
    A smooth, intriguing opening and a predictable but emotionally satisfying home stretch bookend helmer Morten Tyldum's otherwise by-the-numbers Norwegian thriller Headhunters.
  50. Elles
    A typically smart performance by Juliette Binoche isn't enough to keep Elles from drowning in pseudo-intellectual pretension and general banality.
  51. Bernie
    Pitch-perfect performances by Shirley MacLaine and an unusually restrained Jack Black hold together this offbeat true-crime saga, but Linklater's keen eye for human eccentricity flowers most memorably on the periphery.
  52. Payback
    Payback is a rarefied conceptual documentary that will appeal to a limited but highly appreciative audience.
  53. The Avengers
    Like a superior, state-of-the-art model built from reconstituted parts, Joss Whedon's buoyant, witty and robustly entertaining superhero smash-up is escapism of a sophisticated order.
  54. To the Arctic
    Alternates between intimate wildlife saga and majestic views of the North Pole, offering strong visual compensations for its meandering structure, syrupy tone and excessive sampling of Paul McCartney's back catalog.
  55. The Five-Year Engagement
    It puts Emily Blunt in a wedding dress, which will appease the hopeless romantics in the house, even while making the institution of marriage seem ridiculously obsolete.
  56. Jean Gentil
    The relentlessly dour picture traces the slow voyage into oblivion of a talented immigrant looking for his place in a world that thinks it doesn't need him.
  57. The Day He Arrives
    An agreeably meandering exercise that brings some clever French New Wave fillips and structural repetitions to Hong's characteristically boozy party. Rougher but more approachable than his previous "Oki's Movie."
  58. The Lucky One
    When a novel gives you soapsuds and washboard abs to work with, what other choice does a director have but to provide the most aesthetically pleasing actors, scenery and sets to disguise the thinness of the underlying material.
  59. Touchback
    This handsomely produced but ponderously uplifting trifle should be flagged for excessive schmaltz and offensive illogic.
  60. Fightville
    Ready-to-order fan base certainly means exposure, but helmers Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein aren't interested in glorifying the gore of ultimate fighting as much as revealing its heart.
  61. Chimpanzee
    Visually stunning, almost impossibly intimate results. Unfortunately, this footage is welded to a creakily executed story and narrated by a schticky, frequently bellowing Tim Allen.
  62. My Way
    Picture operates on the notion that indiscriminate action in service of a formulaic script will keep audiences clutching their armrests, but the results fail to grip.
  63. The Moth Diaries
    The body count runs high at Brangwyn boarding school, but tension, surprise and viewer interest are the real casualties in The Moth Diaries.
  64. Marley
    Kevin Macdonald's generous, absorbing, family-authorized documentary on the late, still-reigning king of reggae music.
  65. Jesus Henry Christ
    Too deliberately eccentric to attain quite the level of wigginess it aspires to, Jesus Henry Christ does feature some standout performances and a refreshingly unconventional approach to telling its slight story.
  66. High School
    This madcap romp runs out of steam well before the finish, but its combo of sweetness and high spirits -- not unlike the chemical composition of the dope-infused brownies that serve as a key plot device -- proves sufficiently ingratiating to satisfy viewers.
  67. Goodbye First Love
    The present picture, filmed with supreme confidence, offers another unapologetically sentimental story stripped to its emotional core.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Darling Companion
    It meanders about as much as its eponymous pooch.
  69. The Three Stooges
    Peter and Bobby Farrelly tone down the abuse without compromising the numbskulls' unique style of physical comedy, making for an unexpectedly pleasant yet unapologetically lowbrow outing true to the spirit that has made the trio such an enduring comedy fixture since its bigscreen debut in 1930.
  70. How to Grow a Band
    Devotees of folk and bluegrass -- and, of course, diehard Nickel Creek fans -- are the natural audience for this leisurely paced documentary.
  71. ATM
    Seems assembled from autopilot thriller material, with most of the dull dialogue devoted to plugging potential plot holes rather than anything resembling logic.
  72. Woman Thou Art Loosed: On the 7th Day
    Woman Thou Art Loosed: On the 7th Day is crammed with enough melodramatic incident for three movies, all of them seemingly scripted by Tyler Perry in a very foul mood.
  73. Think Like a Man
    While the result deserves some credit for finding a creative way to bring the book to life, the overlapping storylines simply aren't compelling enough, despite the best efforts of a game and attractive cast.
  74. Battleship
    Overlong and underwritten even by the standards of summer f/x extravaganzas, this Battleship will nonetheless float with many on the strength of its boyish, eager-to-please razzle-dazzle.
  75. Deadline
    Although helmer Curt Hahn champions the causes of racial justice and crusading journalism, he can't seem to find a tone that's consistent or that befits the gravity of his subject matter.
  76. Late Bloomers
    While the world could certainly use more films about characters entering their sunset years, a solution as toothless and saggy as Julie Gavras' Late Bloomers does little to help the cause.
  77. Life Happens
    The film is ultimately an untenable muddle.
  78. Hit So Hard
    Though stylistically incoherent at times, picture benefits from the percussionist's plainspokenness.
  79. Blue Like Jazz
    Remains as tame in its presentation as its target audience would expect. Students drink beers on occasion, but no one is shown having sex, taking mind-altering substances or using language that would jeopardize a PG-13 rating. On the plus side, the film also abstains from any overt message-mongering.
  80. Monsieur Lazhar
    Quietly intelligent and respectable.
  81. Lockout
    Tackles a nifty futuristic premise with bargain-basement efficiency and a deadpan, devil-may-care attitude. It's an initially invigorating tactic that proves slapdash and unsatisfying over the long haul, reducing a potentially rich sci-fier to the level of a halfway decent time-killer
  82. MIS Human Secret Weapon
    Junichi Suzuki's documentary ratchets up the sentiment when a cooler touch would have sufficed.
  83. Post Mortem
    Pablo Larrain's breathtaking visual command makes for enthralling viewing in Post Mortem, a rigorous, formally controlled yet emotionally gripping drama set during Chile's bloody 1973 military coup.
  84. Your Sister's Sister
    After putting male insecurity under a comic microscope in "Humpday," writer-director Lynn Shelton hands the fairer sex a more prominent role in Your Sister's Sister, another winning study of relational boundaries crossed and sexual dares gone awry.
  85. American Reunion
    While it's poignant seeing the whole gang again, the tired gross-out antics and limp romantic reprisals keep this hapless if heartfelt effort from qualifying as a decent comedy, let alone a generational classic.
  86. Surviving Progress
    Progress does a remarkable job weaving together these and many other big ideas in a crisp, coherent, easy-to-take fashion that somehow never becomes an informational overload.
  87. We the Party
    This South Los Angeles-set dramedy flirts with terminal stereotypes and high-school movie cliches right and left.
  88. We Have a Pope
    The results veer between occasional smiles and outright pretension, with only Piccoli's mastery transcending the material.
  89. Keyhole
    Maddin's singular humor and fabulous black-and-white mise-en-scene can't sustain this fever dream beyond its initial fascination, making for an intriguing transitional work unlikely to broaden his audience.
  90. Detention
    What starts as a bracing rush quickly devolves into a deadening assault of stimuli.
  91. Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan's Hope
    Spurlock brings his usual good-humored approach to the subject, nicely balancing absurdity with genuine human interest.
  92. Iron Sky
    Much more amusing in theory than in execution.
  93. Damsels in Distress
    Stillman proves he still knows how to write crackling, articulate dialogue for quirky preppie characters whom he loves laughing at as much as with.
  94. Dark Tide
    It's a murky sea that surrounds Dark Tide. A soap opera with shark attacks, picture contains a few alarming sequences but loses its grip on its material -- and the viewer -- in a swirling vortex of visual confusion.
  95. Mirror Mirror
    Poised between revisionist fairy tale and smirking sendup, this gaudy, over-frosted cream puff of a movie half-heartedly positions its famous heroine as a dagger-wielding proto-feminist, yet ultimately suffers the same fatal flaw as Julia Roberts' evil queen: It doesn't really care about anything except how pretty it looks.
  96. Wrath of the Titans
    It's a mess too, but it's far more defensible as a lazy Sunday lark for those who have just recently outgrown action figures.
  97. Womb
    Its quietly unsettling storytelling, precision visuals and almost mythical isolated setting all feel Hungarian to the core.
  98. The Pirates! Band of Misfits
    Although this family-friendly tale of feckless adventurers pursuing a prize is consistently funnier than "Arthur," in language, humor and attitude it's as endearingly British as Yorkshire pudding, soccer hooliganism and wonky teeth.
  99. Intruders
    A fitfully creepy, overly protracted chiller that plays more like a noncommittal sampler of horror techniques than the vivid nightmare it's clearly aiming for.
  100. Goon
    The picture has a first-rate team of actors who visibly enjoy their roles and the sharp dialogue by Baruchel and Goldberg.
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