Variety's Scores

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For 17,831 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: 9,163 out of 17831
  2. Mixed: 7,031 out of 17831
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17831
17831 movie reviews
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  1. Hatchet II
    Outrageously over-the-top gore doubtless will scare off all but the heartiest genre aficionados.
  2. Ip Man
    Ip Man will be manna for those who like their kung fu straight and wireless, their villains Japanese and their heroes unconflicted Chinese patriots.
  3. Marwencol
    Hogancamp is a complex character, and Marwencol introduces the man in layers, creating an incomplete yet sympathetic portrait specialty audiences and hipsters can agree on.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Samson and Delilah
    An engrossing and touching snapshot of an Australia too often left on the cutting-room floor.
  5. Hereafter
    A beguiling blend of the audacious and the familiar; it dances right on the edge of the ridiculous and at times even crosses over, but is armored against risibility by its deep pockets of emotion, sly humor and matter-of-fact approach to the fantastical.
  6. Making the Boys
    Though some of this material is fascinating, it feels like a rambling postscript to the real story, with Robey, with the benefit of hindsight, too eager to make "The Boys in the Band" snugly fit in the grand sweep of gay history, right down to California's Prop. 8.
  7. William S. Burroughs: A Man Within
    There is a wealth of anecdotal material. Like his subject, Leyser strives to disengage from the conventional, while still being lucid. He succeeds admirably.
  8. Helena from the Wedding
    Pacing is brisk, and performances and writing sharp enough to engage throughout.
  9. The Warrior's Way
    A visually inspired multi-genre amalgamation, a borderline-surreal folly that suggests a martial-arts action-adventure co-directed by Sergio Leone and Federico Fellini.
  10. The Fighter
    If The Fighter feels like kind of a mess, lurching from one scene to the next as if the film itself has taken a few hits to the head, that's not entirely a bad thing.
  11. Country Strong
    That rare ensemble piece in which all four principals are not only compellingly drawn but handled with an astute sense of dramatic balance.
  12. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
    Benefits from edge-of-your-seat pacing despite a conspicuous lack of action.
  13. Nothing Personal
    Largely thanks to Verbeek's performance, full of physical grace notes and small details, she manages to involve the audience, even though her character is more a movie creation than one based in real psychology. Rea, largely giving his usual mumbling Oirish perf, proves a selfless support, and provides an anchor to the movie.
  14. Heartless
    There's more mood than matter here, but suspenseful atmospherics effectively distract from minor plot holes.
  15. Inspector Bellamy
    This upscale talkfest, which delights in its witty banter and sly references, could be helmer's most commercial work in quite some time.
  16. Tiny Furniture
    What it doesn't have, to its credit, is a neat conclusion. In the end, the film appears to suggest that Aura likely will feel free to keep searching for herself, repeating mistakes and making new ones, because she has all the time in the world.
  17. Justin Bieber: Never Say Never
    As much a legitimate documentary as it is a 3D concert film and teen girl squeal-delivery device, the film possesses surprising moments of candor on the toil of teenage superstardom.
  18. Gnomeo and Juliet
    A welcome dose of honest silliness at a time when most family-oriented toons settle for smart-alecky.
  19. Drive Angry 3D
    Despite amply funded f/x, including some spectacular muscle-car stunts, the movie motors to the grindhouse with squealing tires and guitars, gratuitous nudity and gore, and a scantily clad greasy-spoon waitress endearingly played by Amber Heard.
  20. The Magician
    A talkative Melbourne hit man and his long-suffering marks are engaging company in "The Magician," an Aussie mockumentary cut from the same cloth as 1992 Belgian cult item "Man Bites Dog." Lacking the latter film's graphic violence, this pic opts for straight-on comedy and largely succeeds. [18 July 2005]
    • Variety
      • Posted Aug 4, 2022
  21. Undertow
    Neither sexually explicit nor showily lyrical, Undertow nonetheless has a sensuous, romantic feel that balances same-sex love with an equally empathetic view toward the adoring, then bewildered, then enraged wife.
  22. The Legend of Pale Male
    Family-friendly holiday fare.
  23. Beijing Taxi
    Throughout, the drivers are framed against the various cityscapes they traverse, though their philosophical views on what is unfolding around them differs with age and temperament.
  24. Rabbit à la Berlin
    Cunningly fashioning found footage into a rabbit's-eye view of events, Polish helmer Bartek Konopka creates a chillingly apt political allegory in Rabbit a la Berlin.
  25. I Am Secretly an Important Man
    Given his due and more by Sillen's insightful and occasionally startling portrait, Bernstein is made a complicated, even morbidly fascinating figure in a film that will have limited theatrical exposure but, like the director's earlier work, will likely enjoy a cultish afterlife.
  26. Dhobi Ghat (Mumbai Diaries)
    This tale of four Mumbai dwellers at a crossroads in their lives owes more to Taiwanese or French auteur cinema than to Satyajit Ray.
  27. Sacrifice
    Sacrifice is practically a chamber piece, and duly draws its strength from its performances, especially those of Ge and Wang.
  28. Thor
    Thor delivers the goods so long as butt is being kicked and family conflict is playing out in celestial dimensions, but is less thrilling during the Norse warrior god's rather brief banishment on Earth.
  29. Gabi on the Roof in July
    Initially registers as meandering and disjointed enough to qualify as mumblecore. But remarkably, the film gradually, effectively coheres, building to a climax at once unexpected yet integral to what has transpired before.
  30. Soul Surfer
    Distinguished by splashy cinematography, engaging performances from Dennis Quaid and Helen Hunt as the girl's go-get-'em parents.
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