Variety's Scores

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For 17,771 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 2.5 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: 9,130 out of 17771
  2. Mixed: 7,005 out of 17771
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17771
17771 movie reviews
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  1. A Talking Picture
    A film destined to divide Manoel de Oliveira's fans but also to win him new ones, A Talking Picture is his simplest, most linear story in memory.
  2. Dazed and Confused
    One-liners and dry sight gags still abound, but the ennui-sodden formlessness of "Slacker" doesn't fly as well in this $ 6 million, smoothly lensed package, which calls for shapelier narrative and resolution.
  3. Leaving Las Vegas
    The film pulls no punches, takes no prisoners and flies in the face of feel-good pictures.
  4. Lost in Translation
    The film's unhurried pace will target it for discerning audiences only, but its wry humor and coolly amused observation of contemporary Japan should score with smart urbanites.
  5. Spirited Away
    An out-and-out charmer. It's almost impossible to do justice in words either to the visual richness of the movie, which melanges traditional Japanese clothes and architecture with both Victorian and modern-day artifacts, or to the character-filled storyline, with human figures, harpies and grotesque creatures.
  6. Unforgiven
    Clint Eastwood has crafted a tense, hard-edged, superbly dramatic yarn that is also an exceedingly intelligent meditation on the West, its myths and its heroes.
  7. I'm Going Home
    Elusive and elliptical as it is, this is one of the most accessible films in Oliveira's recent repetoire.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Silence of the Lambs
    A mesmerizing thriller that will grip audiences from first scene to last.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Casino
    Possesses a stylistic boldness and verisimilitude that is virtually matchless.
  10. Being John Malkovich
    Devilishly inventive and so far out there it's almost off the scale.
  11. Spider-Man 2
    The pleasure is doubled in Spider-Man 2. Crackerjack entertainment from start to finish, this rousing yarn about a reluctant superhero and his equally conflicted friends and enemies improves in every way on its predecessor and is arguably about as good a live-action picture as anyone's ever made using comicbook characters.
  12. Ghost World
    By sharp turns poignant, disturbing and hysterically funny.
  13. The Incredibles
    As deliriously smart escapist fare, The Incredibles is practically nonpareil.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Last Waltz
    An outstanding rock documentary.
  15. Mulholland Dr.
    A genuinely ominous and suspenseful thriller.
  16. The Sea Inside
    A dramatic triumph.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Miller's Crossing
    Substance is here in spades, along with the twisted, brilliantly controlled style on which filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen made a name.
  18. Vera Drake
    Mike Leigh is at the peak of his powers with Vera Drake, a compassionate, morally complex drama that stands easily alongside his best work, "Secrets & Lies" and "Topsy-Turvy."
  19. The Aviator
    An enormously entertaining slice of biographical drama, The Aviator flies like one of Howard Hughes' record-setting speed airplanes.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Superman
    Magnify James Bond's extraordinary physical powers while curbing his sex drive and you have the essence of Superman, a wonderful, chuckling, preposterously exciting fantasy.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
    Brilliant cinema theatre.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Patton
    War is hell, and Patton is one hell of a war picture, perhaps one of the most remarkable of its type ever made.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Wings of Desire
    Wim Wenders returns to Germany with a sublimely beautiful, deeply romantic film for our times. (Review of Original Release)
  24. In the Name of the Father
    But the filmmakers have invigorated and enriched the story through the use of a thousand details, a strong sense of time and place, outstanding characterizations and a display of energy and cinematic flair that marks an advance on "My Left Foot."
  25. The Pelican Brief
    Tilling some of the same conspiracy turf he explored in "All the President's Men," Pakula has improved on Grisham's book by excising much of the detritus, crafting a taut, intelligent thriller that succeeds on almost every level.
  26. Free Willy
    An astute, intelligent family picture, the film is a potent reminder that you can have your heart in the right place and still produce a gripping, satisfying entertainment.
  27. Cold Comfort Farm
    The fun that Schlesinger and his first-rate ensemble must have had while working on this production is infectious, for there isn't one dull -- or quiet -- moment in the film.
  28. The Flower of My Secret
    Far from abandoning his trademark humor, however, the writer-director skillfully enlists it in the service of an emotional story, charting the heroine's journey from loss and torment to rediscovered strength and hope. Propelled by stellar performances and a script that resonates with intelligence, subtlety and surprises, this is by far Almodovar's best film in years.
  29. Tootsie
    Remarkably funny and entirely convincing, film pulls off the rare accomplishment of being an in-drag comedy which also emerges with three-dimensional characters.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Born on the Fourth of July
    Oliver Stone again shows America to itself in a way it won't forget. His collaboration with Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic to depict Kovic's odyssey from teenage true believer to wheel-chair-bound soldier in a very different war results in a gripping, devastating and telling film about the Vietnam era.
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