Variety's Scores

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For 17,825 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: 9,159 out of 17825
  2. Mixed: 7,029 out of 17825
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17825
17825 movie reviews
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  1. Lower City
    Though the storyline is dirt simple and not particularly meaningful or involving, the action in this character-driven film is scintillatingly sexy.
  2. The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green
    It's a crackpot of a soap opera, ornamented by a great deal of sexual humor, sexual innuendo and sex. Lead Daniel Letterle is a charmingly boyish actor, and the other featured players -- particularly veteran actress Meredith Baxter as Ethan's gay-wedding-planner mother -- are excellent.
  3. Wordplay
    Punsters, linguists and crossword puzzle fanatics everywhere couldn't ask for a more bracing tribute than helmer Patrick Creadon's buoyant and exhilaratingly brainy documentary Wordplay.
  4. Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man
    Proves that few can maneuver one of Cohen's dusky, lovelorn songs like Cohen himself.
  5. The Road to Guantanamo
    The film has a winning combo of excitement and topicality.
  6. The Devil Wears Prada
    Streep single-handedly elevates this sitcomy but tolerably entertaining adaptation of Lauren Weisberger's bestselling 2003 roman a clef about a personal assistant's year of chic hell under the thumb of the dragon lady of the fashion world.
  7. The Forsaken Land
    There's poetry in The Forsaken Land -- not the written kind (there's barely any dialogue) -- but visual poetry replete with still, painterly compositions and finely nuanced lighting.
  8. The Motel
    The Motel offers a fresh take on characters and conventions, and compels interest with shrewd, sympathy-inspiring storytelling.
  9. Who Killed the Electric Car?
    Oil companies aren't the only ones profiting from a spike in prices at the gas pump. It's likely also to boost the prospects of Who Killed the Electric Car? a likable if partisan post-mortem on the now-defunct auto.
  10. A Scanner Darkly
    Deeply intriguing but almost too-faithful adaptation of Philip K. Dick's nightmarish 1977 novel.
  11. There's No One Like You
    Enjoyable, daffily improbable escapist romp.
  12. Once in a Lifetime: The Extraordinary Story of the New York Cosmos
    While soccer fans will rep the core aud, even non-fans can enjoy.
  13. Changing Times
    A Cathererine Deneuve-Gerard Depardieu vehicle that leaves ample room for interesting supporting characters, this moody, more-bitter-than-sweet ode to anxiety is intense adult fare reinforced by effective no frills lensing.
  14. Mini's First Time
    The performances lift "Mini" out of the gutter of utter cynicism and into the realm of the complex.
  15. The Oh in Ohio
    Amusing indie comedy blithely blurs the line between risque and raunchy, often to hilarious effect.
  16. Gabrielle
    Though it won't appeal to everyone, the concoction actually works, thanks to Huppert and Greggory's powerful negative chemistry.
  17. 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance
    Intellectually demanding and non-commercial film should be embraced in the festival and arthouse circuits by film students and viewers interested in postmodern, deconstructionist cinema.
  18. Been Rich All My Life
    Providing an inspiration for active retirement, the ex-Harlem Renaissance chorus girls profiled in docu Been Rich All My Life are still shaking booty while most of their contemporaries can only shuffle their walkers.
  19. Clerks II
    A softer, flabbier and considerably higher-budgeted follow-up to Kevin Smith's 1994 indie sensation that nevertheless packs enough riotous exchanges and pungent sexual obscenities to make its 97 minutes pass by with ease.
  20. Monster House
    Constant shock cuts and souped-up music and sound effects will keep small fry in a state of moderate petrification, while the trio of tweeny leads plus attitude-redolent cohorts will make teens feel welcome.
  21. Miami Vice
    Unlike most TV-to-movie transitions, Mann returns to his roots and delivers what amounts to a slightly overblown episode, brimming with style and characteristically short on substance.
  22. Barnyard
    Zippy enough to delight youngsters and clever enough to engage their parents.
  23. Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
    Simultaneously teasing and loving a subject doesn't make for easy comedy, but writer-star Will Ferrell and director/co-writer Adam McKay pull it off with good-ol'-boy good nature in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.
  24. World Trade Center
    World Trade Center yields lovely and touching moments but proves a slow-going, arduous movie experience.
  25. Darshan: The Embrace
    Docu's pace will be a little too meditative for many, but the rigorous, sinewy lensing will have Hypnotic power on those so inclined.
  26. 13 Tzameti
    Shot like the grunge version of a '50s noir thriller from France (or Soviet Georgia), the black-and-white 13 (Tzameti) turns into a shocker of Tarantino proportions in protracted sequences of explosive violence that leave viewers quaking.
  27. Brothers of the Head
    Feature debut by Yank duo Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe isn't so far from their engrossing docus on Terry Gilliam's filmic adventures, "The Hamster Factor" (1996) and "Lost in La Mancha" (2001), except here the madness and exploitation is part of the music scene.
  28. I Like Killing Flies
    Charming character study.
  29. The Bridesmaid
    At 74, Chabrol is in full possession of his talent for elegant, understated filmmaking, though he's far from his disturbing films of the '50s and '60s.
  30. My Country, My Country
    Gotham-based documaker Laura Poitras ("Flag Wars") comes up with a still-timely, quietly hard-hitting look at the Iraqi situation with My Country, My Country, focusing on the lead-up to and outcome of the Jan. 30, 2005, Iraq election.
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