Variety's Scores

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For 17,791 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: 9,139 out of 17791
  2. Mixed: 7,015 out of 17791
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17791
17791 movie reviews
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  1. Dirty God
    Much attention will deservedly be paid to Knight’s impressively nuanced performance – it’s one thing to cast an amateur who’s been through similar experiences, and quite another to get that person to inhabit a fictional character.
  2. The Automat
    The Automat taps into so many resonant aspects of what America used to be that to watch it is to be drawn into an enchanting and wistfully profound time-tripping reverie.
  3. An Inconvenient Truth
    A straightforward record of the lecture Gore has toured for years, juiced by elaborate graphics. An excellent educational tool, picture may prove an awkward fit for theatrical distribution.
  4. The Beat That My Heart Skipped
    Stands reasonably well on its own as an urgent, updated genre meditation on nurture vs. nature.
  5. Twelve Monkeys
    Gilliam's work is long on sensibility, short on sense.
  6. Lady Vengeance
    A wildly inventive, highly cinematic director's showcase that looks likely, at least in the West, to enthuse fans of Asian -- especially Korean -- genre movies more than general auds.
  7. Enchanted
    A full-blown musical that commutes between Disney's patented cartoon universe and the "real" world with cleverness and grace, this splashy production reminds one of nothing in the Disney canon so much as "Mary Poppins," not least due to the "star is born" aura that surrounds Amy Adams here, just as it did Julie Andrews 43 years ago.
  8. Kippur
    A cumulatively devastating and visceral insight into the horrors of war.
  9. The Clay Bird
    Accomplished, emotionally involving film.
  10. Lawless Heart
    This slyly humorous, cleverly constructed comedy-drama wends its way through different takes on similar time frames to a warm, inclusive ending.
  11. The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi
    Over-plotted and at times incoherent but never dull, this is a stylishly designed, highly entertaining bloodbath full of offbeat comedy and inspired musical moments.
  12. Shrek 2
    Lightning strikes twice, but not as brilliantly as before, in Shrek 2. The welcome sequel to the monster 2001 Oscar winner about an ogre's unlikely romance with a beautiful princess successfully recycles many of the qualities that made the first one an instant animated classic and worldwide smash.
  13. I Shot Andy Warhol
    An exemplary and dynamic work that goes about as far as a narrative film can in both analyzing a complex personality and portraying a cultural scene.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Samson and Delilah
    An engrossing and touching snapshot of an Australia too often left on the cutting-room floor.
  15. Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame
    An inventive marriage of ancient China and Agatha Christie, Detective Dee and the Mystery of Phantom Flame is a lavishly overwrought historical whodunit.
  16. I'll See You in My Dreams
    Danner makes an elegant, warmly sympathetic heroine in this sometimes broadly played but always tender and appealing effort.
  17. Our Little Sister
    Koreeda’s sensitive yet lucid helming keeps the performances precise yet natural.
  18. Sound of Redemption: The Frank Morgan Story
    The documentary adroitly sustains interest with a standard-issue mix of archival material, interviews with intimates and admirers, actors’ voiceovers and dramatic re-creations.
  19. Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe
    This articulate, formally immaculate portrait proves less compelling in practice than it does in principle: Over-burdened at the outset with extraneous ceremonial detail and starchy speechifying, the film takes a dry, acolytes-only approach before later, more domestically focused chapters raise the body temperature of proceedings.
  20. Nico, 1988
    Dyrholm’s performance is a powerhouse of authenticity. Her moroseness is mesmerizing, but she also gives Nico a tense intelligence, and her singing is uncanny.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Professionals
    Exciting explosive sequences, good overall pacing and acting overcome a sometimes thin script.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Absent Minded Professor
    On the surface, Walt Disney's The Absent Minded Professor is a comedy-fantasy of infectious absurdity, a natural follow-up to the studio's Shaggy Dog. But deeply rooted within the screenplay [from a story by Samuel W. Taylor] is a subtle protest against the detached, impersonal machinery of modern progress.
  23. The Seer and the Unseen
    Without trivializing the matters at hand, The Seer and the Unseen tempers complex national interests with droll human ones.
  24. The World of Jacques Demy
    The World of Jacques Demy is a major addition to films about filmmakers, and achieves its purpose in making the viewer immediately want to see the key films again.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Testament of Orpheus
    [Cocteau] still has a flair for provoking strange moods in ordinary landscapes, as well as utilizing simple trick effects effectively and judiciously. He ribs himself at times but is quite clear in his summation that a poet is rarely recognized in his time.
  26. Santosh
    While often more intellectually stimulating than emotionally engaging, Santosh lays bare the dark heart of communal divisions in modern India.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Jean de Florette
    Berri’s sympathetic work with his small cast, and his subservience to Pagnol’s story and dialog are key factors in the film’s robust dramatic appeal.
  28. Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost
    It turns out to be a very good film — canny and honest and unexpectedly moving. But it’s layered with a thick and sugary frosting of adoration.
  29. Spy
    An uproarious blast of globe-trotting action-comedy delirium that doesn’t spoof the espionage-thriller genre so much as drop a series of banana peels in its path.
  30. Lilo & Stitch
    Has a casual, freewheeling nature in contrast to the creeping grandiosity of some of Disney's A-list animated titles.
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