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. Drool
    Writer-director Nancy Kissam's inexplicably named feature feels a tad Frankensteinian, sewing second-hand ideas together most inorganically.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Pop Star on Ice
    Smartly structured, crisply lensed docu Pop Star on Ice is a fascinating portrait of outspoken Olympian and three-time U.S. figure skating national champion Johnny Weir.
  3. The Book of Eli
    Some mordant comic touches would have been welcome throughout the picture, which has a somber tone that suffers a bit from lack of modulation and nuance.
  4. Fish Tank
    What makes the picture feel special is its unflinching honesty and lack of sentimentality or moralizing, along with assured direction and excellent performances.
    • 27 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Spy Next Door
    Chan struggles gamely to charm, but the picture's cartoonish jokes and misfired gags are likely to elicit more eye rolls than laughs.
  6. 44 Inch Chest
    On the debit side, and it's a doozy, the picture's narrative trajectory fails to deliver a third act that takes the story anywhere of note except into a silly realm of cut-rate surrealism. Final reel ends not with the expected bang but with an almost inaudible whimper.
  7. Daybreakers
    The script doesn't wring many surprises or much character involvement from the premise, and the brothers' helming, while slick, is short on scares, action setpieces and humor.
  8. Youth in Revolt
    Cera and his gifted comic co-stars elevate the mediocre source material into a semi-iconic coming-of-age story.
  9. Leap Year
    Pleasant enough overall, if also somewhat gratingly old-fashioned.
  10. Waiting for Armageddon
    The documentary's open-endedness offers something for everyone.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Wonderful World
    Joshua Goldin's directing debut has soulful qualities that have been compressed into a paint-by-numbers production.
  12. Bitch Slap
    Overblown and underwhelming, Bitch Slap is a desperately unfunny attempt to satirically recycle cliches and archetypes from sexploitation actioners of the 1960s and '70s within the time-trippy, multiple-flashback framework of a Quentin Tarantino. extravaganza.
  13. Crazy on the Outside
    Looking and sounding like a second-tier '80s made-for-cabler, Crazy on the Outside is the sort of bland trifle one might watch to kill time during an extended flight.
  14. In Search of Memory
    Petra Seeger's beautifully crafted documentary about neurobiologist Eric Kandel, In Search of Memory, interweaves experience and experiments, autobiography and science as seamlessly as the Nobel Prize winner's same-titled book.
  15. Garbage Dreams
    Mai Iskander's stunning documentary-helming debut.
  16. The White Ribbon
    Immaculately crafted in beautiful black-and-white and entirely absorbing through its longish running time, Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon nonetheless proves a difficult film to entirely embrace.
  17. The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond
    The fragrant aroma of magnolias is undercut by the distinct smell of mothballs throughoutThe Loss of a Teardrop Diamond, an admirably earnest but curiously flat attempt to film a long-unproduced scenario by Tennessee Williams.
  18. The Chaser
    Pulse-pounding third act expertly pushes the audience’s buttons, to excruciatingly ironic and ultimately devastating effect. Pic does turn overwrought in the final stretch and would have been wise to end on an earlier note, though action fans won’t mind.
  19. Sherlock Holmes
    Ritchie has never worked on a scale anything approaching this before and, while some of the directorial affectations are distracting, he keeps the action humming.
  20. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
    With Ledger onscreen more than might have been expected, the film possesses strong curiosity value bolstered by generally lively action and excellent visual effects.
  21. It's Complicated
    Cute and clever though the plot may be, everything is played out in the broadest possible terms without an iota of nuance or subtlety.
  22. Sita Sings the Blues
    Paley sustains a consistently funny, sometimes even self-deprecatory comic tone.
  23. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel
    A frenetic but undeniably funny follow-up that offers twice the number of singing-and-dancing rodents in another seamless blend of CGI and live-action elements.
  24. Police, Adjective
    Porumboiu is one of the few helmers working today who so completely understands both the power of language and the power of visuals.
  25. Did You Hear About the Morgans?
    But the charm of the film is that it resists turning people into cliches and lets Parker and Grant work their particular magic -- before they get to Wyoming, their performances are as stressed out as their characters, and while it's a dubious conceit that going cowboy is a cure-all, they put the notion across as convincingly as possible.
  26. Avatar
    Avatar is all-enveloping and transporting, with Cameron & Co.'s years of R&D paying off with a film that, as his work has done before, raises the technical bar and throws down a challenge for the many other filmmakers toiling in the sci-fi/fantasy realm.
  27. Nine
    Sophisticated, sexy and stylishly decked out, Rob Marshall's disciplined, tightly focused film impresses and amuses.
  28. The Young Victoria
    Well-groomed, upscale, three-hankie entertainment for the “Masterpiece Theater” crowd.
  29. The New Daughter
    Kevin Costner starrer boasts an impressive English-language debut from Spanish teenager Ivana Baquero ("Pan's Labyrinth") and a well-constructed first half, but its many cliches begin to undo its spell long before a ridiculous third act squanders all remaining goodwill.
  30. Crazy Heart
    Ever-youthful in his looks and energy, Bridges now stands as one of Hollywood's great old pros, incapable of making a false move.
  31. A Town Called Panic
    A sparkly little gem.
  32. Ricky
    Because Ozon doesn't develop his characters once Ricky shows his true nature, the movie's slightly overcooked working-class realism quickly morphs into a grotesque -- and admittedly funny -- story of a mutant baby.
  33. Invictus
    Inspirational on the face of it, Clint Eastwood's film has a predictable trajectory, but every scene brims with surprising details that accumulate into a rich fabric of history, cultural impressions and emotion.
  34. The Lovely Bones
    Jackson undermines solid work from a good cast with show-offy celestial evocations that severely disrupt the emotional connections with the characters.
  35. A Single Man
    Like the speck of sand that seeds a pearl, it’s the tiny fleck of kitsch at the heart of “A Single Man” that makes it luminous and treasurable, despite its imperfections.
  36. The Slammin' Salmon
    It is the presence of Duncan as a Mike Tyson-esque, malaprop-spouting ex-champion that, at least momentarily, lifts the pic out of its mediocrity.
  37. The Vicious Kind
    Before it bogs down in one too many moments of cathartic reckoning, The Vicious Kind is an unpredictable, off-kilter and scabrously funny piece of work.
  38. Up in the Air
    The timing in the Clooney-Farmiga scenes is like splendid tennis, with each player surprising the other with shots but keeping the rally going to breathtaking duration.
  39. The Last Station
    Solid middlebrow biographical fare in which meaty roles are acted to the hilt by a cast more than ready for the feast.
  40. Transylmania
    Fangs aside, it sticks with the same basic menu of T&A and lowbrow humor.
  41. Brothers
    Though it renders a convincing portrait of fractured family life and boasts its share of powerfully acted moments, this schematic tale of two siblings, ripped apart by jealousy, misunderstanding and unshakable trauma, plays like a more polished but less effective twin to the 2005 Danish original.
  42. Armored
    A so-so heist-gone-awry thriller, light on the thrills, Armored doesn't exactly take its audience captive.
  43. Everybody's Fine
    Though a bit too artful to merit the pejorative "tearjerker" label, the film is rigorously streamlined to deliver a good emotional uppercut by the end, and purely on the strength of its craft, it connects.
  44. Breaking Point
    Overplotted and underwhelming, Breaking Point is the type of movie that finds it necessary to invent a far-reaching legal/political conspiracy just so one guy can redeem himself by overthrowing it.
  45. Serious Moonlight
    A less-than-frothy domestic showdown starring Meg Ryan and Timothy Hutton, it owes as much to Edward Albee as to Nora Ephron, with an occasional nod to "A Clockwork Orange."
  46. Loot
    Marder, surely, was looking for a big bonanza at the end of Loot, but suspense and catharsis prove as elusive as two old men's memories.
  47. Paa
    Though unrecognizable, Amitabh Bachchan is the star of -- and the only reason to go see -- Paa.
  48. The Strip
    It's certainly an unusual movie, aiming more often than not for pathos rather than pratfalls while nonetheless maintaining a slapstick tone, but it remains resolutely unmemorable.
  49. Until the Light Takes Us
    Stylistic overreach and neglect of the uninitiated make Until the Light Takes Us a too-specialized examination of Norway's black-metal movement and the aberrant culture surrounding it.
  50. Across the Hall
    Creepy but uneven.
  51. Le jour avant le lendemain
    A profound, elemental and hauntingly beautiful period drama that makes an intimate story of endurance into a metaphor for an entire culture.
  52. Made for Each Other
    Often wryly hilarious, completely overboard and unpredictable.
  53. The Private Lives of Pippa Lee
    Feels as schizophrenic as its eponymous heroine.
  54. Home
    Typically sharp work by d.p. Agnes Godard and lead thesp Isabelle Huppert.
  55. The Road
    Except for the physical aspects of this bleak odyssey by a father and son through a post-apocalyptic landscape, this long-delayed production falls dispiritingly short on every front.
  56. The Princess and the Frog
    This cheeky update of a classic fairy tale boasts almost as many talking points as merchandising opportunities.
  57. Old Dogs
    Too bad this shrilly tuned comedy doesn't demand more than clock-punching effort from everyone involved.
  58. Ninja Assassin
    Seemingly made to capitalize on a dubious CG innovation -- namely, the slicing of bodies in half by whizzing five-pointed stars -- Ninja Assassin has little else to recommend it, not even laughs.
  59. Me and Orson Welles
    There are moments, especially when Welles is alternating between acting as Brutus and directing everyone else, that it’s possible to forget you’re watching an actor and really believe you’re beholding Orson Welles at work.
  60. The Blind Side
    Uplifting and entertaining feel-good, fact-based sports drama.
  61. The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans
    The film is offbeat, silly, disarming and loopy all at the same time, and viewers will decide to ride with that or just give up on it, according to mood and disposition.
  62. Broken Embraces
    A restless, rangy and frankly enjoyable genre-juggler that combines melodrama, comedy and more noir-hued darkness than ever before, the picture is held together by the extraordinary force of Almodovar’s cinematic personality.
  63. The Twilight Saga: New Moon
    Carried by Kristen Stewart's compellingly dark performance, but also by helmer Chris Weitz's robust visuals.
  64. Planet 51
    There's nothing funny, provocative or involving about what "Shrek" co-writer Joe Stillman and the team from Madrid-based Ilion Animation Studios do with the notion here.
  65. Defamation
    End result is at once intelligent, wry and -- there's no way around it -- quintessentially Jewish, in the best sense.
  66. Fix
    The diversity of visual tactics, characters, settings and incidents keep this shaggy-dog tale consistently diverting.
  67. The Sun
    As usual, Sokurov's unhurried pacing will test the patience of more fidgety viewers, although the script is more accessible than some of his recent efforts.
  68. Mammoth
    A mixed bag, Mammoth is a good-looking, smoothly directed, continent-hopping drama about parents and children, globalization and the disconnect between rich and poor, but comes with too much repetitive exposition and lacks an emotional payoff.
  69. The Missing Person
    An intriguingly plotted mystery that unfortunately forgets to put the noir in film noir. A drab, pale-looking affair without a trace of visual style, this cross-country pursuit yarn fights a losing battle to sustain viewer attention via narrative alone, so much does it flounder for lack of imagistic flair.
  70. The War on Kids
    A startling wake-up call about appalling conditions prevailing in American schools, The War on Kids contradicts popular wisdom.
  71. Red Cliff
    Balances character, grit, spectacle and visceral action in a meaty, dramatically satisfying pie that delivers on the hype and will surprise many who felt the Hong Kong helmer progressively lost his mojo during his long years stateside.
  72. Fantastic Mr. Fox
    The film's style, paradoxically both precious and rough-hewn, positions this as the season's defiantly anti-CGI toon, and its retro charms will likely appeal more strongly to grown-ups than to moppets; it's a picture for people who would rather drive a 1953 Jaguar XK 120 than a new one.
  73. 2012
    The visual effects are pretty sensational, delivering the cutting-edge CGI goods auds want and expect. It will be hard to watch "Earthquake'' ever again after this one.
  74. The Messenger
    Nobody plays angry like Ben Foster, but compassion is something new for the actor, who softens his crazy-man shtick to deliver a complex and moving performance in The Messenger.
  75. Pirate Radio
    Picture generally stays afloat on the strength of its characters but sometimes threatens to sink under its overlong running time and vignettish structure.
  76. Dare
    This "Cruel Intentions"-style cesspool of teenage hanky-panky may be more scandalous than its chaste Disney counterpart, but that doesn't necessarily make it any more authentic.
  77. William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe
    In attempting to address its subject's ideological discrepancies, "Kunstler" lacks the objectivity needed to put the lawyer's shift from '60s fist-pumper to '80s and '90s headline-grabber in proper context.
  78. Oh My God
    Compacts nearly three years' worth of globe-trotting interviews into an often visually vibrant but rhetorically muddled package. So intent on giving (almost) every perspective a fair shake that it winds up saying little of consequence.
  79. Uncertainty
    Half formulaic and half simply unimaginative.
  80. Women in Trouble
    A wildly uneven but compulsively watchable mix of high camp and grand passions, soap opera and softcore sex. Very much in the deliriously lewd style of Pedro Almodovar.
  81. Love Hurts
    An ungainly, at times cringe-worthy succession of tame, telegraphed romantic mishaps, well-intentioned if unconvincing sentimentality, and some of the least authentic teenage dialogue this side of the "Friday the 13th" franchise.
  82. Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire
    An urban nightmare with a surfeit of soul, Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire is like a diamond -- clear, bright, but oh so hard.
  83. The Men Who Stare at Goats
    A superbly written loony-tunes satire, played by a tony cast at the top of its game.
  84. The Box
    Kelly's trademark mix of sci-fi, surrealism and suburbia occasionally entertains.
  85. The Fourth Kind
    Even the most gullible auds will be challenged to buy into the picture, billed as "based on the actual case studies" and, in any case, rendered rather boring by writer-director Olatunde Osunsanmi ("The Cavern").
  86. A Christmas Carol
    Shortchanging traditional animation by literalizing it while robbing actors of their full range of facial expressiveness, the performance-capture technique favored by director Robert Zemeckis looks more than ever like the emperor's new clothes in Disney's A Christmas Carol.
  87. Storm
    A potentially gripping legal thriller about what happens when Western Europe attempts to solve Central European problems ends up as dull entertainment in Storm.
  88. Collapse
    Unnervingly persuasive much of the time, and merely riveting when it's not.
  89. Splinterheads
    Writer-director Brant Sersen's amiable indie comedy -- even less edgy than Greg Mottola's theme-park-set "Adventureland" -- attempts to compensate for its too-familiar romantic setup by defining its characters through idiosyncratic hobbies and traits.
  90. That Evening Sun
    Deliberately paced, richly atmospheric drama also boasts first-rate work by a splendid supporting cast and impressive production values.
  91. The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day
    Feels larger in scope yet sorely lacking in originality.
  92. Gentlemen Broncos
    Napoleon Dynamite seems perfectly well-adjusted (not to mention downright charismatic) compared to homeschooled mama's boy Benjamin Purvis in Gentlemen Broncos, the latest oddball character portrait from one-trick helmer Jared Hess.
  93. The House of the Devil
    Call it the best '80s babysitter-in-peril movie never made. The House of the Devil delivers about as much as one could reasonably hope from the not-quite-alone-in-the-house category, with the bonus of authentically re-creating the low-budget look and feel of that era's classic horror entries.
  94. Labor Day
    For every engrossing rank-and-file story, there are endless self-congratulatory explanations and podium highlights.
  95. Looking for Palladin
    Amiable but uneven.
  96. Skin
    One of the more bizarre illustrations of racial injustice under apartheid is dramatized in Skin.
  97. This Is It
    There’s an incredible amount to enjoy here, and the star’s fans will be in rapture.
  98. Antichrist
    Lars von Trier cuts a big fat art-film fart with Antichrist. As if deliberately courting critical abuse, the Danish bad boy densely packs this theological-psychological horror opus with grotesque, self-consciously provocative images.
  99. Amelia
    What rankles most about Amelia is the timidity and lack of imagination with which Nair approaches one of America's most exceptional and intriguing celebrity life stories.
  100. Astro Boy
    Appropriately for a film about robots, efficiency is the primary virtue of Astro Boy, a well-oiled CG-animated superhero pic that makes up in competence and vitality what it lacks in originality.
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