Variety's Scores

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For 17,760 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: 9,121 out of 17760
  2. Mixed: 7,003 out of 17760
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17760
17760 movie reviews
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  1. A Novel Romance
    Grotesquely straining to ridicule and validate its hero simultaneously, A Novel Romance will disappoint even Guttenberg diehards.
  2. God's Fiddler: Jascha Heifetz
    Once Heifetz becomes a household name, Rosen struggles mightily to milk drama not from his musical genius, but from his relatively unremarkable personal life.
  3. The Greening of Whitney Brown
    This simplistic story of bucolic redemption has few pretensions to depth, ambiguity or realism, relying on its name cast, sprightly lead and a helluva horse to attract family audiences.
  4. The Love We Make
    The former Beatle, a longtime Maysles friend, could have found no better documentarian.
  5. Jack and Jill
    Yet the picture's general stupidity, careless direction and reliance on a single-joke premise that was never really funny to begin with are only the most obvious of its problems.
  6. Arthur Christmas
    Arthur Christmas embraces this unconditional faith and rewards it with creative explanations and a brisk computer-animated adventure clever enough to become essential yuletide viewing.
  7. Immortals
    Navigating the film's mounting erotic bloodlust proves tedious, until the show-stopping final battle between gods and Titans in one chamber, Theseus and Hyperion in another, at which point logic melts away completely and the pic's raison d'etre emerges -- namely, to justify staging a fight scene for the ages.
  8. Barbershop Punk
    Topolski and his story are so engaging that the resulting discord of voices and agendas can't drown out the voice of the little guy questioning the system.
  9. Dog Sweat
    Great for ADD-style viewing but not for advancing Iranian cinema's currently challenged profile.
  10. Letters from the Big Man
    Surely the least excitable beauty-meets-Bigfoot film ever made.
  11. Shame
    A mesmerizing companion piece to his 2008 debut, "Hunger," this more approachable but equally uncompromising drama likewise fixes its gaze on the uses and abuses of the human body, as Michael Fassbender again strips himself down, in every way an actor can, for McQueen's rigorous but humane interrogation.
  12. Haywire
    Paring down narrative and character concerns in favor of a breathtaking application of pure thriller technique, Soderbergh's latest picture is a lean, efficient exercise tossed off with his customary sangfroid and wickedly dry sense of humor.
  13. London Boulevard
    The result is a superficially handsome crime thriller that doesn't tick, although it's got a pretty, jeweled face, and some clever scripting by William Monahan (scribe of "The Departed"), making his directorial debut here.
  14. Into the Abyss
    These days, true-crime docs are a dime a dozen, and yet, returning to the "In Cold Blood" analogy, Into the Abyss dares to plumb the dark hole in America's soul. Herzog's investigation may not work as an anti-death-penalty editorial, but its findings are undeniably profound.
  15. Elite Squad: The Enemy Within
    When this "Enemy Within" settles into key action sequences, such as a stunning nighttime ambush or a daytime battle against Fabio, it becomes wildly entertaining.
  16. 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.
  17. The Conquest
    Picture takes genre helmer Xavier Durringer ("Chok-Dee") back to his theater roots, with most of the narrative mayhem and laughs coming from the picture's sharp dialogue and strong work by seasoned thesps, who just manage to avoid caricature.
  18. J. Edgar
    Any movie in which the longtime FBI honcho features as the central character must supply some insight into what made him tick, or suffer from the reality that the Bureau's exploits were far more interesting than the bureaucrat who ran it -- a dilemma J. Edgar never rises above.
  19. Cherkess
    Despite much verbal huffing and puffing, rifle waving and scimitar rattling, Cherkess proceeds with an astounding lack of action.
  20. A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas
    This vulgar romp is a generally harmless, heartwarming affair, a cinematic Christmas cookie almost sweet and flaky enough to cover the fact that it's laced with hash, cocaine and assorted bodily fluids, blood included.
  21. 5 Star Day
    Buday's astrology-themed romantic comedy boasts a promising premise, convincing chemistry between its attractive leads and fine thesping by a defensively edgy Jena Malone. But the uneven script, repetitive tropes and over-indulgence of actorly bits slow the pace, tipping youthful casualness into complacency.
  22. Killing Bono
    Taking liberties with journalist Neil McCormick's memoir to create narrative tension, screenwriters Simon Maxwell and prolific scribe team Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais ("The Commitments") overstuff the story with subplots and trite character arcs.
  23. Stuck Between Stations
    Real people may not be this glib and witty, but Rosen and Lister-Jones sell us on Casper and Becky nonetheless.
  24. The Other F Word
    The Other F Word is a raucous, eye-opening, sad and unexpectedly wise look at veteran punk rockers as they adapt to the challenges of fatherhood.
  25. The Last Rites of Joe May
    Despite all this boilerplate gangster-with-a-heart-of-gold stuff, there's an emotional payoff to "Joe May" that feels solid and right.
  26. Young Goethe in Love
    As its English-language title indicates, Philipp Stoelzl's yarn is clearly modeled on "Shakespeare in Love." But though it lacks that film's delirious wordplay, this German cousin is well plotted and impressively mounted.
  27. The Son of No One
    In this case, Montiel's awkward appropriation of gritty crime-drama conventions results in a film that's contrived and implausible, at times absurdly so.
  28. Rid of Me
    Bracingly original, alarming and droll, the righteously ribald Rid of Me should prove a breakthrough for helmer James Westby and his producer and leading lady, Katie O'Grady.
  29. Another Happy Day
    Mistaking over-the-top dysfunctional family cruelty for comedy and drama, Another Happy Day tries and fails to channel "Rachel Getting Married" in its protracted tale of a wedding-party weekend that turns predictably from scabrous to redemptive.
  30. Tower Heist
    During the heist itself, the suspense is palpable, if only because Christophe Beck's funky score blares its horns so insistently, one can't help but feel anxious. But the laughs don't follow.
  31. RA. One
    Much of the film is marked by a sense of dead air, owing to the fact that there's not a lot of story, but nevertheless, per Bollywood conventions, a lot of time to fill.
  32. All's Faire in Love
    Verily, this Scott Marshall-helmed production has several nutjob supporting performances that almost rescue its hackneyed plot, but there's not enough consistent madness to keep the film from what will be a fleeting theatrical career, followed by entombment on homevid.
  33. God's Land
    Miller deftly navigates his picture's unusual tonal mix, balancing absurdity, melodrama, comedy of manners and an unblinking ethnographic stare. But the film's nearly three-hour length may consign it to cult status.
  34. Glitch in the Grid
    Leiser flexes his animation muscles with a bewitching stop-motion technique, but it proves a poor fit with a scattershot storyline that includes quasi-interview and improv segments that never coalesce into a coherent whole.
  35. In Time
    It's a fascinating philosophical conceit delivered as a slick, hyper-stylized conspiracy yarn, juicy enough to deliver on both fronts, provided you don't ask too many questions.
  36. 13
    A starry cast and glossier production values simply work against the black-and-white original's strengths in this stillborn thriller about a deadly game of chance.
  37. Melancholia
    For all the tyrannical disdain he's shown other filmmakers over the years, von Trier once again demonstrates a mastery of classical technique, extracting incredibly strong performances from his cast while serving up a sturdy blend of fly-on-the-wall naturalism and jaw-dropping visual effects.
  38. Retreat
    A potential menage a trois of terror is served up as rather weak tea in Retreat, which fails to make its alleged suspense, thrills or even its mist-enshrouded landscapes particularly plausible.
  39. Hipsters
    Although a massive hit at home, taking approximately $16 million at the wickets, this great-looking but tonally uneven pic won't jive with audiences quite so well anywhere else.
  40. The Adventures of Tintin
    Clearly rejuvenated by his collaboration with producer Peter Jackson, and blessed with a smart script and the best craftsmanship money can buy, Spielberg has fashioned a whiz-bang thrill ride that's largely faithful to the wholesome spirit of his source but still appealing to younger, Tintin-challenged audiencs.
  41. Puss in Boots
    However crass the motivation for its existence, Puss' origin story could easily stand on its own -- a testament to clever writing on the part of its creative team and an irresistible central performance by Antonio Banderas.
  42. Like Crazy
    An exquisite, beautifully acted gem of a film, one that should serve as a prelude to bigger things for stars Felicity Jones and Anton Yelchin, as well as director Drake Doremus.
  43. Janie Jones
    There's never any doubt where the picture is headed. If it finally achieves a modicum of poignancy, the impact surely would have been greater if the whole felt fresher.
  44. Inni
    Whereas 2007's well-traveled "Heima" reveled in scenic color imagery of the artists' homeland, this minimalist item strips the band down to its output, fashioning black-and-white performance footage into a uniquely spellbinding experience.
  45. The Double
    While there's the sense that this old guy/young guy spy angle has been done better by films like "Spy Game" a decade ago, Gere, never looking tougher or handsomer, and Grace, adding some action skills to his relatively cerebral persona, invigorate the proceedings in roles that would seem to benefit the actors' career arcs.
  46. The Rum Diary
    Temperance of a different sort, a willful abstention from trippy stylistic excess, is what makes this 1960-set Caribbean picaresque easily the most lucid screen adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson's work, even if it's still several drafts shy of a fully developed yarn.
  47. Cargo
    Its provocative subject matter, though seriously treated, qualifies it as a dark-horse candidate for latenight cable.
  48. The Reunion
    A flabby, unfunny action-comedy produced, directed and written by former WWE exec VP Mike Pavone, The Reunion boasts one of the most poorly assembled scripts to emerge from the wrestling franchise.
  49. Snowmen
    Picture narrowly avoids outright bathos, thanks largely to first-rate perfs by its child thesps and by Ray Liotta. But by self-righteously rejecting facile solutions, then employing them anyway in the tradition of "no ending left behind," the result conforms to parents' old-fashioned notions of kid movies rather than demonstrating true kid appeal.
  50. Klitschko
    The indomitable siblings' unusual background, huge size and highly developed intellects, as well as the dramatic ups, downs and rebounds of their interwoven sagas, should result in a fascinating dual biodoc. But the two-hour pic's lack of economy makes for heavy slogging, with no boxing minutiae too small for exhaustive exposition.
  51. The Descendants
    Nearly every detail sources directly back to Kaui Hart Hemmings' sensitively crafted novel, and yet, Payne's triumph is in striking the right tone -- and knowing what to leave unsaid.
  52. Le Havre
    Mixing together some of helmer Aki Kaurismaki's favorite Gallic and Finnish thesps with a few newbies, Le Havre feels like a welcoming family reunion.
  53. The Mighty Macs
    Family-friendly and abounding in uplift, The Mighty Macs is an undemandingly pleasant indie drama.
  54. Oranges and Sunshine
    A deeply moving study of emotionally scarred adults who were illegally deported as children to Australia from Britain in the 1940s and '50s.
  55. Revenge of the Electric Car
    Revenge is a disappointment. Admittedly, the picture deploys the same kind of cinematic bells and whistles that made "Killed" so enjoyable. But without true tension, the documentary feels as slickly manufactured as its va-va-voom subject.
  56. Martha Marcy May Marlene
    The largely elliptical script feels a few drafts shy of focus, with the thriller elements undermining the juicier questions of why one joins a cult and how life can go back to normal later.
  57. Margin Call
    J.C. Chandor's precocious writing-directing debut is fastidious, smart and more than a bit portentous as it probes the human costs of unchecked greed.
  58. Elevate
    Hoop dreams die hard, and the stories in Elevate are both sobering and thrilling.
  59. Paul Goodman Changed My Life
    Reminiscences about Goodman and readings of his poetry are played over old pictures that capture his singularly seductive appeal and lively sense of humor.
  60. The Catechism Cataclysm
    In the curious absence of religious satire, toilet humor isn't enough to constitute comedy, while the leads' grating performances make 81 minutes feel eternal.
  61. 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.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Johnny English Reborn
    More a resuscitation than a rebirth, Johnny English Reborn finds British comedian Rowan Atkinson reviving his spoof spy character with this enjoyable if somewhat wheezy reprise.
  63. Happy Life
    Set in cramped apartments and hole-in-the-wall storefronts in the East Village, Michael M. Bilandic's nanobudget comedy Happy Life plays like a poor schlub's "High Fidelity."
  64. Oka!
    If movies were subject to sanity tests, Oka! would be a crazy old man with a three-day beard and a sock full of kruggerrands under his mattress.
  65. The Thing
    Far less chilling than versions from 1951 and 1982, Universal's latest take on The Thing at least has a strong lead thesp in Mary Elizabeth Winstead, recruited for the studio's bid to turn a tale of ice-cold macho paranoia into a beauty-vs.-beast shocker a la "Alien."
  66. The Big Year
    Director David Frankel's picture delivers sweet and (more rarely) amusing moments, but this odd duck never completely gets off the ground.
  67. Father of Invention
    Colorless exposition and a lack of imagination or wit stall Father of Invention at the starting gate.
  68. 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.
  69. The Skin I Live In
    Much as he did with Ruth Rendell's "Live Flesh," Almodovar has taken an ice-cold psychological thriller, penned by a novelist of far less humanistic temperament, and performed some stylistic surgery of his own, adding broad comic relief, overripe melodrama, outrageous asides and zesty girl-power uplift.
  70. Miss Bala
    With the blistering firecracker that is Miss Bala, next-gen Mexican director and AFI grad Gerardo Naranjo delivers on the promise of such well-respected early pics as "Drama/Mex" and "I'm Gonna Explode," revealing them as dry runs for this "Scarface"-scary depiction of south-of-the-border crime run amok.
  71. Fireflies in the Garden
    Clumsy melodrama, which looks and sounds no better than an average made-for-cabler.
  72. Chalet Girl
    A chirpy, tween-skewing, snowboarding-themed romantic comedy, Chalet Girl slaloms exuberantly down a predictable path, kicking up regular flurries of fun along the way.
  73. Sleeping Beauty
    For those eager to tease out what Leigh’s conceptual exercise is about, the key no doubt lies in Lucy’s relation to her own mortality, with each descent into sleep resembling a death of sorts.
  74. Anonymous
    The film as a whole isn't quite as interesting, though it is noteworthy that action specialist Emmerich has clearly decided to change course here from anything he's previously made. Although this is primarily a writer's film, with John Orloff's screenplay (and dialogue) placed front and center, Anonymous surprises with how classical, staid and traditional Emmerich's mise-en-scene is, never straying from tried-and-true costumer standards.
  75. The Sons of Tennessee Williams
    Tim Wolff's documentary is a diverting mix of colorful interviewees and footage from one such krewe's 40th anniversary ball, but it doesn't probe very deep.
  76. 1911
    Resulting mish-mash of exposition and speechifying opts to summarize rather than dramatize; one spends nearly as much time reading indigestible lumps of onscreen text as one does listening to the often distractingly post-dubbed dialogue.
  77. The Nine Muses
    Akomfrah's steady, patient pace makes it fairly easy and ultimately fascinating to absorb his many heady references.
  78. Finding Joe
    Campbell's career and influence encompass much wider fields of interest than are considered here, despite the picture's colorful surface. Narrowing its focus to the simplest inspirational gist, with zero insight into the man behind it, Finding Joe winds up seeming like an infomercial for a personal-growth program.
  79. Norman
    Recalls last year's "World's Greatest Dad," similarly using a snowballing fib to lampoon the ambulance-chasing relationship between morbidity and celebrity. But unlike that primarily satirical exercise, Norman gradually ditches the snark in favor of poignant, understated dramatics.
  80. The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence)
    More boring than stomach-churning, the film nevertheless contains scattered scenes and sequences so far beyond the tolerance of the squeamish that it can't be overstated.
  81. Dream House
    Impressive as the combination may seem on paper, having Sheridan direct this sort of genre fare reps a clear miscasting of helmer and subject, as he displays no particular feel for the material and is unable to overcome the story's generic approach, lack of striking psychological ideas, and literal-minded denouement.
  82. Blackthorn
    Shepard delivers in spades, his character weary but just crackpot enough to survive.
  83. Dirty Girl
    For those not hip to its smug "out is in" mentality, Dirty Girl's redeeming feature is its cast. Temple is vixen enough to carry the part, but manages to project a real wit burning beneath the layers of makeup and dumb-blonde shtick her character affects around others.
  84. Paranormal Activity 3
    Much like its predecessors, Paranormal Activity 3 is a slow-building, stealthily creepy supernatural thriller that takes a teasingly indirect approach to generating suspense and escalating dread.
  85. Footloose
    Paramount's Footloose reboot never quite cuts loose enough to distinguish itself from the original.
  86. Texas Killing Fields
    Script by former DEA officer Don Ferrarone isn't that bad in itself, but matters aren't helped by the mumbled performances and poor sound, which make it hard to hear what anyone's saying, while sloppy editing wreaks havoc on the story.
  87. 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.
  88. Real Steel
    The uncanny thing about Real Steel is just how gripping the fight scenes are; Sugar Ray Leonard served as a consultant to the motion-capture performers responsible for pantomiming the machines' moves.
  89. Carnage
    The real battle in Roman Polanski's brisk, fitfully amusing adaptation of Yasmina Reza's popular play is a more formal clash between stage minimalism and screen naturalism, as this acid-drenched four-hander never shakes off a mannered, hermetic feel that consistently betrays its theatrical origins.
  90. What's Your Number?
    A draggy, generally laugh-free outing that wastes a perfectly good Anna Faris.
  91. You Don't Like the Truth: 4 Days Inside Guantanamo
    Luc Cote and Patricio Henriquez's You Don't Like the Truth demonstrates, through excerpts from an actual videotaped interrogation at Guantanamo, the process by which human will can be systematically broken down to force an admission of guilt, regardless of truth.
  92. Margaret
    This unwieldy drama of conscience in the wake of tragedy is hyperarticulate but rarely eloquent, full of wrenchingly acted scenes that lack credible motivation or devolve into shrill hectoring.
  93. American Teacher
    Its inspiring portraits of hardworking subjects make a fine case for raising the bar by rewarding excellence rather than punishing failure.
  94. Surrogate Valentine
    Dave Boyle's picture is fueled by no overriding visual style, relying completely on its actors' chemistry for momentum. Unfortunately, the two strike no sparks.
  95. Bunraku
    It's a picture that's akin to a terrarium of plastic flowers -- gaudily decorative, but airless and lifeless.
  96. Benda Bilili!
    Audiences will find the group's triumph inspiring.
  97. 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.
  98. Take Shelter
    This deliberately paced psychological drama builds an ever-tightening knot of tension around an excellent Michael Shannon, here playing a family man slowly driven mad by apocalyptic visions that could be paranoid, prophetic or both.
  99. Sarah Palin: You Betcha!
    Shovels enough dirt on the Tea Party guru and self-described hockey mom to satisfy her haters, but lacks sufficient humor and insight to make it a must-see for anyone outside the Brit muckraker's fan base.
  100. 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.
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