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. Bully
    Lee Hirsch's "The Bully Project" serves as a call to action against abuse of students by their peers as it follows, over the course of a year, five sobering case histories of unrelenting schoolyard persecution.
  2. The Island President
    In the face of rising sea levels, the Maldive Islands are the Alamo, and environmental crusader Mohamed Nasheed is their Davy Crockett. Boasting astonishing access, director Jon Shenk's The Island President documents a brave battle against overwhelming odds.
  3. Losing Control
    Some of Weiss' funniest material gets lost between episodes of outright silliness; to paraphrase Mark Twain's assessment of Richard Wagner, the film is smarter than it looks.
  4. The Trouble with Bliss
    One can guess how the elements here might have been alluring on the page, but helmer/co-scenarist Michael Knowles' third feature doesn't find the distinctive tone needed to make its eccentric characters less than irksome and its plot more than arbitrary.
  5. Reuniting the Rubins
    Its humor and sentimentality equally labored, this by-the-numbers picture will look better, albeit still not good, as a latenight cable or streaming time-killer.
  6. October Baby
    Newcomer Rachel Hendrix grabs attention and sustains sympathy as a lovely yet troubled 19-year-old student determined to unlock the secrets of her past after learning the circumstances of her birth.
  7. Musical Chairs
    This would-be inspirational picture has its heart in the right place, but with default-setting characters, loudly telegraphed emotional beats and lack of any real sizzle to enliven its maudlin moralizing, it all feels like a cursory run through a well-trodden routine.
  8. All In: The Poker Movie
    Loaded with history, interviews, hole-cam drama and some rather grand digressions, Douglas Tirola's picture seems a bit late for the poker craze, and at any rate will be preaching largely to the converted.
  9. Brake
    Mannion's script goes a bit too far in terms of twists, capping the third-act suspense with a plot U-turn, and then another, that leaves audiences feeling played. Worse, the final development loses credibility in retrospect, reducing the film to the level of an exercise in paranoia, effects and one actor's ability to hold attention for nearly 90 minutes.
  10. Fake It So Real
    The title is an apt one, suggesting that for all its staging and overt theatrics, independent (read: non-WWF) pro wrestling makes huge demands on the body and spirit.
  11. Pray for Japan
    It's hard not to be moved by the words of love, gratitude and resilience spoken by earthquake/tsunami survivors and volunteers in Pray for Japan. But well-meaning platitudes go only so far in this sincerely felt, raggedly structured compilation of footage.
  12. The Deep Blue Sea
    Davies is in fine form here, with luminous performances, especially from Rachel Weisz, rounding out a classy package whose only major problem is it may be a bit too true to its period sensibility and legit origins.
  13. The Hunger Games
    A watchable enough picture that feels content to realize someone else's vision rather than claim it as its own. Any real sense of risk has been carefully ironed out: The PG-13 rating that ensures the film's suitability for its target audience also blunts the impact of the teen-on-teen bloodshed.
  14. The Wise Kids
    An unusual example of what can be termed a "gay Christian" film, Cone's feature is among the best of a recent spate of dramas observing American Christian life.
  15. Delicacy
    Tautou is fine but clearly typecast as another whimsical pixie with strong melancholy undercurrents.
  16. The Understudy
    Marin Ireland makes a winning lead, but the script by helmers David Conolly and Hannah Davis ran out of gas in 2008, which is when the film was made.
  17. Natural Selection
    This filmed-in-Texas road movie finds a smooth groove between self-conscious quirkiness and broadly played farce.
  18. The Kid with a Bike
    The breakout here is 13-year-old Doret, the Dardennes' latest stunningly naturalistic, non-professional acting discovery.
  19. 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.
  20. The FP
    This unabashedly derivative, vaguely post-apocalyptic riff on well-worn '80s-movie tropes plays its boilerplate premise with endearing earnestness, but runs thin in no time.
  21. Free Men
    A satisfying wartime espionage drama focused on little-noted intersections between Arabic emigres and the French Resistance.
  22. Detachment
    Scripter Lund, himself an ex-teacher, delivers a story that lacks nuance, and mixes badly with Kaye's impatient edits, Dutch angles and extreme close-ups.
  23. Casa de mi Padre
    A likable enough lark that rarely achieves outright hilarity.
  24. Shakespeare High
    Alex Rotaru's very busy documentary focuses more on the kids' stories than on their work; considering how sensational some of them are, it's probably a strategic advantage.
  25. The Raven
    The Raven is a squawking, silly picture that never takes flight.
  26. The Cabin in the Woods
    Not since "Scream" has a horror movie subverted the expectations that accompany the genre to such wicked effect as The Cabin in the Woods, a sly, self-conscious twist on one of slasher films' ugliest stepchildren: the coed campsite massacre.
  27. A Thousand Words
    Alas, even Murphy's largely wordless, physically adroit performance can't redeem this tortured exercise in high-concept spiritualist hokum.
  28. Convento
    Documentarian Jarred Alterman emphasizes oddball lyricism in the one-of-a-kind Convento, in which a 400-year-old Portuguese monastery provides the canvas for a Dutch family's artistic experimentation.
  29. Good for Nothing
    A droll New Zealand parody with a tone so deadpan it becomes laugh-out-loud funny.
  30. Apart
    Editor-turned-writer-helmer Aaron Rottinghaus has a keen eye, but doles out the details of this mystery at such a dysfunctional pace, it's difficult to get engaged.
  31. John Carter
    Stanton has been given the resources to create an expansive, expensive world, but lacks the instincts to direct live-action, a limitation that shows most in the performances. Bare of chest and fair of feature, Kitsch doesn't exhibit enough charisma to carry a project of this scale.
  32. 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.
  33. Sound of Noise
    A delightful comic cocktail of modern city symphony, police procedural and love story.
  34. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen
    Like one of those kitchen machines that can turn nearly any ingredient into ice cream, Lasse Hallstrom has sweetened the satire right out of Paul Torday's side-splitting political sendup Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.
  35. Jiro Dreams of Sushi
    The worst that could be said of helmer David Gelb's feature debut is that it's perhaps a little over-garnished with backstory about Ono's relationship with his two sons, and is slightly repetitive. That said, this intrinsically compelling hymn to craftsmanship and taste in every sense should cleanse palates.
  36. Footnote
    Footnote is a decidedly male-centric film. Structurally, the picture is divided into named chapters that make for cute markers but give it the not-entirely satisfying feel of a jaunty satire.
  37. Friends with Kids
    Unfolds in a glib, familiar sitcom universe (think "Seinfeld" crossed with "Friends" sans ethnic flavor but with plenty of Judd Apatow-style crass patter about sex and body parts).
  38. Silent House
    Pulling off the thespian equivalent of running a marathon, the hyperventilating Olsen works awfully hard in the service of a film that, in the end, does little or nothing to preserve her character's integrity.
  39. Project X
    This game-changing instant classic will doubtless inspire imitators, onscreen and in backyards everywhere, en route to redefining what a new generation expects of its mice-will-play movies.
  40. Dr. Seuss' The Lorax
    The key to Seuss' tales, as with all good fables, is not only their cleverness but their surpassing elegance and simplicity, qualities that this busy, over-cluttered contraption of a movie seems entirely uninterested in replicating.
  41. The Raid: Redemption
    Taking the genre to a higher level of intensity, the Welsh-born Evans continues what he started in previous Indonesia-set actioner "Merantau," but this picture will seal his cult status.
  42. Let the Bullets Fly
    A rollicking, violent, Western-cum-comedy that serves many masters, but adds up to an entertaining hot pot of wry political commentary and general mischief.
  43. Better Than Something: Jay Reatard
    What elevates the picture above the norm is a series of remarkably candid and eerily prescient interviews.
  44. The Salt of Life
    Di Gregorio's dialogue and performers are once again marked by a spontaneity and ease; who else working today treats so-called "middle age" with such jocular honesty?
  45. This Is Not a Film
    Standing at his balcony, filming the revelry with his iPhone, he seems to be saying that directing is more defiant an act than lighting a firecracker or two. Truth be told, Panahi's poignant "Film" is infinitely more explosive.
  46. Being Flynn
    The film surrounds its leads with a cast whose faces capture the ragtag dignity Flynn described in his book -- no overacting required, no emotional panhandling allowed.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Tomorrow, When the War Began
    Parochial paranoia dovetails with adolescent angst in the glossy sci-fi coming-of-ager Tomorrow When the War Began.
  48. Last Days Here
    A surprise back-from-the-brink redemption proves reliably engaging in rock-doc Last Days Here, tracking three years in the life of cult musician Bobby Liebling, whose band Pentagram never capitalized on its early promise.
  49. The Assault
    The tense buildup to a blazing, if generic, rescue is the most satisfying part of The Assault, a stylized combo of action and drama from Julien Leclercq.
  50. The Snowtown Murders
    The result is a movie that can be admired in many respects from a distance but is progressively less emotionally engaging.
  51. Black Butterflies
    The uncompromising power of Ingrid Jonker's poetry runs like a pulsing vein through Black Butterflies.
  52. Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie
    Recycles characters and plotlines from their show, along with badly made commercials and faux PSAs about inane subjects, a gambit that dates back to such comedy compilations as "Kentucky Fried Movie" or even "Laugh-In." What Tim & Eric has that those others lacked are the many sexually outre, scatological and degrading moments that seem intended to shock -- and perhaps will, if you're really young or really old.
  53. Gone
    A low-pulse thriller that evaporates from memory with the last credit.
  54. Good Deeds
    Good Deeds is relentlessly unsurprising in its plotting and borderline comical in its melodramatic flourishes.
  55. Act of Valor
    A mechanically efficient yet soulless dramatization of the U.S. Navy SEALs in action, Act of Valor ultimately misses its target: The hearts and minds of American audiences.
  56. Wanderlust
    Despite some amusing moments, everyone simply works too hard at providing rambunctious zaniness, until one grows painfully aware the inevitable outtakes reel will be superior to the movie.
  57. The Fairy
    In The Fairy, Abel, Gordon and Romy have all of Le Havre as their playground. And now that the they've established the ideal format for their brand of comicbook-style humor, one can't help but wish they show the good sense to keep it at this level going forward.
  58. Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance
    The picture is still much too rickety, slapdash and surprisingly dull to qualify as a good barrel-bottom pleasure.
  59. Jess and Moss
    Jeter's film takes on the quality of a sustained dream, as if the theatrical conceits of Jean Genet were married to a children's story retold via William Faulker's Southern brand of stream of consciousness.
  60. Cirkus Columbia
    Though burdened by major problems of tone, Tanovic's fourth feature succeeds in making clear the incredulity with which most people regarded the thought of war and dissolution of Yugoslavia, as well as the machinations of various opportunistic groups.
  61. The Forgotten Space
    Sekula's overwritten narration, with its fair share of whoppers, does his argument no favors, overwhelming genuinely interesting statistics.
  62. Putin's Kiss
    The picture still tells a riveting story about contempo Russia's darkest side.
  63. Michael
    Illustrating the banality of evil in an impressively controlled and sometimes darkly humorous fashion, Michael takes a coolly nonjudgmental, non-psychological approach to a disturbing topic.
  64. Undefeated
    Enjoyably upbeat and intelligently inspiring.
  65. Bullhead
    Though the story is told and edited in a way that too often obscures rather than enhances its central tragedy, much is compensated by a career-defining, powerfully physical lead perf by Matthias Schoenaerts and ace lensing by local widescreen wiz Nicolas Karakatsanis.
  66. Hell and Back Again
    Similar in its battlefield passages to last year's Danish-made "Armadillo," Dennis' film scores a layered perspective that follows Marine Sgt. Nathan Harris into combat and back home.
  67. Bombay Beach
    In an inspired twist, Har'el brings surreal levity to the potentially downer subject by interrupting her elegiac regional portraiture with a series of amateur dance numbers. Still, without dramatic momentum, this fringe-appeal snapshot feels less like a film than a coffee-table photo project come to life.
  68. The Swell Season
    Swell never really gathers momentum, remaining a collection of moments, some more privileged than others.
  69. Buried Prayers
    Documentary's insistent inflation of buried gold jewelry and watches into symbols of heroic defiance and transcendental tragedy rings hollow in the wake of weightier Holocaust testimonials.
  70. Color Me Obsessed: A Film About The Replacements
    Even devotees of the Replacements' defiant perversity will be unsatisfied with this talky tribute to a noisy band.
  71. Laredoans Speak: Voices on Immigration
    Some six or seven men (women conspicuously absent), including a mayor, an immigration lawyer, a congressman and a "coyote," offer views on immigration. Unfortunately, they all say the same thing -- and it's nothing new, affecting or articulate.
  72. Kinyarwanda
    Doubly disappointing considering that it marks the first feature by Rwandan filmmakers to address the country's 1994 Hutu-on-Tutsi genocide, Kinyarwanda awkwardly and fitfully patches together a half-dozen story strands meant to provide a panoramic view of war and reconciliation.
  73. Under Fire: Journalists in Combat
    Viewers unconvinced by the "war is a drug" doctrine set forth by Kathryn Bigelow's "The Hurt Locker" will find it amply corroborated by the self-admitted adrenaline junkies here, whose collective war-reporting experience spans an astounding number of overseas conflicts from Sarajevo and Chechnya to El Salvador and Libya.
  74. A Warrior's Heart
    While the sheer novelty of a feature about lacrosse may be enough to generate some audience curiosity about A Warrior's Heart, this respectably crafted but thoroughly predictable indie rarely deviates from the gameplan followed by countless other dramas about self-absorbed young hotheads who get a shot at redemption on the playing field.
  75. Grandma, a Thousand Times
    A delightfully inventive valentine to his 83-year-old Lebanese grandmother, Mahmoud Kaabour's Grandma, a Thousand Times tenderly deconstructs the family-portrait genre, investing all manner of postmodernist distancing devices with emotional resonance.
  76. Chronicle
    Unlike other mock documentaries, which unconvincingly pass themselves off as real, Chronicle cleverly embraces the format as shorthand for a new kind of naturalism, inviting audiences to suspend disbelief and join in the fantasy of being able to do anything with their minds.
  77. Richard Garriott: Man on a Mission
    A must-see for stargazers of all ages.
  78. The Miners' Hymns
    Morrison sometimes slows down imagery to a hypnotic, frame-by-frame trance-like state; one can imagine townsfolk scrutinizing the faces of long-dead relatives magically raised.
  79. Bonsai People: The Vision of Muhammad Yunus
    Unfortunately, the documentary's impact is mitigated the benefactor's constant presence and paternalistic, infomercial-like exposition.
  80. This Means War
    This screwball premise lives or dies by the chemistry between Pine and Hardy, who are too busy trying to out-appeal one another to make the buddy dynamic click.
  81. 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.
  82. Safe House
    In contrast with the fragmented kineticism of Paul Greengrass' "Bourne" movies, there's no existential dimension to the shattered-glass aesthetic here; it's just raw, chaotic action, inelegantly shot and staged but no less unnerving for it.
  83. The Vow
    The Vow represents that most welcome kind of Valentine's Day offering, focusing on the feelings that bring couples closer.
  84. The Pruitt-Igoe Myth
    Detailing the birth, life and death of America's first major urban housing project in St. Louis, Chad Freidrichs' The Pruitt-Igoe Myth combines concise but thoroughgoing sociological-historical analysis and elegant cinematic resources in service of an uncommonly artful example of film journalism.
  85. Private Romeo
    Sticking closely to the written text (with basketballs and barbells supplying incidental props) and wisely not attempting to reimagine the specific circumstances that separate the lovers, a dynamite ensemble cast of young actors invests the Bard's poetry with energetic immediacy.
  86. The Dish & the Spoon
    Gerwig, charmingly unflappable in "Greenberg," lets it all hang out here, unafraid to sacrifice likability to over-the-top hysteria as someone who cannot control herself, despite a lingering sense of her own absurdity. Alexander proves a worthily understated foil, his self-deprecatory whimsy recalling that of a young Johnny Depp.
  87. Crazy Horse
    What's generally missing here though is a sense of the creative process; rather than sweat-and-tears rehearsals breaking the dances into individual movements, the numbers are largely shown nearly complete. Consequently, there's little sense of the discipline involved, or the struggle for perfection that makes dance documentaries so engrossing.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Journey 2: The Mysterious Island
    A fun though rarely funny family adventure whose lively special effects compensate somewhat for actors who largely sleepwalk through their roles.
  89. Windfall
    Variably articulate subjects drone on and on in an 83-minute film that could easily make its TV news-style point in a half-hour or less.
  90. Chico & Rita
    Think of Chico and Rita as a test, one that gauges whether your love of Cuban jazz can exceed your threshold for lousy animation -- a real "good tunes/bad toons" quandary.
  91. In Darkness
    For the film to work, Holland needs audiences to connect as deeply with the trapped Jews as Socha eventually does. With the exception of the group's leader, movie-star handsome Mundek Margulies (German-born, internationally recognized Benno Furmann), the characters are flat as shadows.
  92. The Turin Horse
    Though ripe for metaphorical interpretation, the slender setup, about the fate of a horse seen beaten in the streets, gives arthouse audiences little to cling to, and will provide institutional and fest programmers a test-of-wills head-scratcher for their calendars.
  93. Bad Fever
    Dustin Guy Defa's Bad Fever takes mumblecore to its reductio ad absurdum, featuring a hero whose utterances border on the unintelligible.
  94. 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.
  95. Splinters
    Surfing meets sociology in Splinters, a compelling documentary about the sport's arrival in the Papua New Guinea village of Vanimo.
  96. Perfect Sense
    Mackenzie's second collaboration with Ewan McGregor (following 2003's "Young Adam") tritely tosses together two indifferently conceived characters against a backdrop of global panic that generates no urgency.
  97. 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.
  98. Kill List
    Displaying both a nasty edge and a playful sense of humor -- but thankfully, never at the same time -- Brit import Kill List is several cuts above its fellow midbudget horror brethren.
  99. The Innkeepers
    Slow-burning buildup, lack of explicit mayhem and overall low-tech approach may strike cineastes as amusingly quaint.
  100. One for the Money
    Tedious and tonally inept.
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