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. Hop
    Why rock, rather than hip-hop, is anybunny's guess, though either way, the basic overnight-sensation pop-star fantasy will surely appeal to a demographic weaned on "American Idol."
  2. Insidious
    A possession thriller less terrifying than fun.
  3. Rio
    Like its flight-challenged parrot protagonist, Rio takes a while to get off the ground but manages to soar by the end.
  4. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
    Serves as a welcome corrective, reviving the fun, feather-light frivolity that any film based on a Disneyland ride ought to exhibit.
  5. Cedar Rapids
    Though not as uproarious as "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," director Miguel Arteta's consistently entertaining white-collar laffer could do for Helms what that film did for Steve Carell.
  6. The Eagle
    While the movie doesn't wholly succeed, there's enough to like here -- including Channing Tatum's credible performance as a tradition-bound Roman soldier.
  7. Putty Hill
    This curious blend of documentary and narrative, held together less by any plot device than by a rigorous aesthetic, proves all the more effective for being in service of casual naturalism.
  8. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
    While director Guy Ritchie's excesses and modern concessions -- among them a lot of explosions -- remain intact, the parts of this second "Sherlock Holmes" are considerably more rewarding.
  9. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
    Pixar wizard Brad Bird's live-action debut serves up sights and setpieces of often jaw-dropping ingenuity and visual flair, but it's a movie of dazzling individual parts that don't come together to fully satisfying effect in the final stretch.
  10. The Muppets
    An unexpected treat. Bright and perky, cheeky but never mean-spirited.
  11. Winnie the Pooh
    The desire to stay true to what was lovable and enduring about the originals is palpable throughout, down to the amusing storybook conceit of having the characters interact not only with the narrator (voiced by John Cleese), but also with the letters and punctuation marks on the page.
  12. Even the Rain (Tambien la Lluvia)
    Iciar Bollain's fifth feature is her most ambitious and best, driving its big ideas home through a tightly knit Paul Laverty script that only falters over the final reel.
  13. The Grace Card
    Blessed with fine performances, credible dialogue and slick production values that belie a reportedly paltry budget, The Grace Card ranks among the better religious-themed indies released in recent years.
  14. Heartbeats
    Splashy colors, oddball framing, super-cool threads and cranked-up retro music supply the picture's bizarre love triangle with a dance-club atmosphere that'll seduce young audiences of most any orientation.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Of Gods and Men
    As the film patiently (perhaps too much so for some) heads toward its foregone conclusion, Beauvois gradually raises his style to a level of baroqueness reminiscent of 1995's "Don't Forget You're Going to Die."
  16. Born to Be Wild
    Sticks faithfully to the giantscreen brand's impress-and-educate formula.
  17. Final Destination 5
    This latest entry in the 11-year-old horror series duly adheres to tradition by providing inventively grisly demises for various characters.
  18. Colombiana
    The Olivier Megaton-directed Colombiana may not be the brainiest of actioners, but one of the merits of producer Luc Besson's latest brainchild is that fanboys worldwide will come away with a scrap of horticultural knowledge as well as a pretty good time.
  19. 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.
  20. 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.
  21. A Dangerous Method
    This complex story from the early days of psychoanalysis engrosses and even amuses as it unfolds through a series of conversations, treatment sessions and exchanged letters.
  22. Rise of the Planet of the Apes
    Thanks to stunning advances in performance capture technology, director Rupert Wyatt successfully ditches the cumbersome makeup appliances of past chapters, building the story around a cast of photoreal CG simians convincing enough to identify with as characters, rather than just special effects.
  23. Bernie
    Pitch-perfect performances by Shirley MacLaine and an unusually restrained Jack Black hold together this offbeat true-crime saga, but Linklater's keen eye for human eccentricity flowers most memorably on the periphery.
  24. Damsels in Distress
    Stillman proves he still knows how to write crackling, articulate dialogue for quirky preppie characters whom he loves laughing at as much as with.
  25. 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.
  26. 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.
  27. 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.
  28. Trespass
    Helmer Joel Schumacher and a game cast headed by Nicolas Cage and Nicole Kidman do their damnedest to build and sustain suspense while trying, with some degree of success, to breathe fresh life into a formulaic, even generic scenario.
  29. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
    The powerhouse cast is so capable, the actors just about manage to play the picture as if it were a "Midsummer Night's Dream"-style frothy farce, with marigold garlands and picturesque poverty.
  30. Butter
    Butter might have been a dark comedy; here, the humor is twisted but the world is bright as can be. Conservatives and liberals alike take a licking, and yet the art of butter carving emerges unscathed.
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