Variety's Scores

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For 17,777 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: 9,133 out of 17777
  2. Mixed: 7,008 out of 17777
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17777
17777 movie reviews
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  1. 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.
  2. The Others
    A luxuriously old-fashioned star vehicle custom-fit to its topliner's strengths, which come across to sensational effect.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Barton Fink
    Scene after scene is filled with a ferocious strength and humor. Michael Lerner's performance as a Mayer-like studio overlord is sensational.
  4. Meet the Parents
    A flat-out hilarious mainstream comedy.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Dead Poets Society
    Sings whenever Williams is onscreen.
  6. The Door in the Floor
    A thoughtful, melancholy story of love, loss, pain, betrayal and the lingering after-effects of tragedy, The Door in the Floor is an intelligent, impeccably acted, unsentimental drama.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Chocolat
    The most satisfying epicurean feast since "Big Night."
  8. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
    If films about coping with memory loss and/or reverse-order storytelling now constitute a mini-genre, then Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is arguably the best of the lot.
    • 97 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
    George C. Scott as the fiery Pentagon general who seizes on the crisis as a means to argue for total annihilation of Russia offers a top performance, one of the best in the film. Odd as it may seem in this backdrop, he displays a fine comedy touch.
  10. Praise
    A feature debut that packs a knockout punch.
  11. The Piano
    The Piano confirms Campion as a major talent, an uncompromising filmmaker with a very personal and specific vision.
  12. Sweet Sixteen
    Rendered deeply moving by the director's peerless capacity to combine humor and compassion with honesty and despair.
  13. A Very Long Engagement
    Told with a blend of visual mastery and emotional intimacy, ambitious venture sustains a special melding of romance and pragmatism that should engage discerning audiences.
  14. 8 Mile
    The rough power, as well as the humor and sensitivity, of pop phenom Eminem is delivered intact in 8 Mile.
  15. Bad Education
    Superbly orchestrated, visually impressive.
  16. Forrest Gump
    Manages the difficult feat of being an intimate, even delicate tale played with an appealingly light touch against an epic backdrop.
  17. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
    Looks to please the book's legions of fans with its imaginatively scrupulous rendering of the tome's characters and worlds on the screen, as well as the uninitiated with its uninterrupted flow of incident and spectacle.
  18. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
    Has a sharper narrative focus and a livelier sense of forward movement than did the more episodic "Fellowship."
  19. The Manchurian Candidate
    Structurally and thematically similar to John Frankenheimer's original but entirely different in style, feel and nuance, this political thriller about a brainwashed soldier being positioned for the White House provides a delectable network of dramatic tripwires that teases the mind and quickens the pulse. This is brainy popcorn fare.
  20. Short Cuts
    Exploding Raymond Carver's spare stories and minimally drawn characters onto the screen with startling imagination, Robert Altman has made his most complex and full-bodied human comedy since "Nashville."
  21. The Birdcage
    Performed with matchless aplomb and made with plush professionalism, pic serves up pure pleasure from beginning to end.
  22. Sleepers
    Colorful characters, richly evoked settings, epic story of friendship, crime and punishment, and a strong dose of good old-fashioned star power.
  23. 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.
  24. When We Were Kings
    Tightly made and populated by a uniformly larger-than-life cast of characters , pic is a total delight for every second of its running time.
  25. The Jackal
    With its strong premise, a couple of fine performances and highly polished tooling, The Jackal scores as an involving high-tech thriller that occasionally hits peaks of pulsating excitement.
  26. Afterglow
    Followers of Alan Rudolph's career will rejoice at his latest effort, Afterglow, an incredibly and incurably romantic comedy-drama that most perceptively dissects the delicate imbalances of two very modern but very different marriages.
  27. Breakdown
    In his bigscreen feature debut, director and co-writer Jonathan Mostow displays real flair for visceral cinema while adroitly sidestepping many of the usual tripwires of this sort of film, particularly silly coincidences, stupid decisions on the part of characters with whom you're supposed to identify, and superheroics performed by ordinary people.
  28. Eve's Bayou
    Anchored by a strong cast, including Samuel L. Jackson (also credited as a producer), Lynn Whitfield and Diahann Carroll, this talented debut by a black female writer-director is a well-made, if also old-fashioned, multi-generational drama.
  29. Oscar and Lucinda
    Armstrong and Jones smoothly navigate the magical tale through numerous shocking twists and turns until they bring it to a most logical, emotionally satisfying conclusion.
  30. Ransom
    Although the story is built around the automatically emotional situation of an imperiled kid, scripters Richard Price (who appears briefly as an uncomfortably handcuffed victim of Sinise in the early going) and Alexander Ignon and director Ron Howard largely steer clear of milking the easy melodrama.
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