Variety's Scores

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For 17,837 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: 9,166 out of 17837
  2. Mixed: 7,034 out of 17837
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17837
17837 movie reviews
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  1. Miss Potter
    Renee Zellweger, in another Blighty role, struggles to make Beatrix credible.
  2. Comedy of Power
    While the picture may be too subtle and oblique in places for more general audiences, it remains enjoyable as a sardonic glimpse of unspoken codes at the intersection of politics and business.
  3. Happily N'Ever After
    Colorful, crowd-pleasing toon.
  4. Alpha Dog
    Writer-director Nick Cassavetes' sprawling dramatization recklessly blurs the line between reconstruction and reality in ways that are admittedly interesting, if more than a little artistically suspect.
  5. Nomad
    Picture fits seamlessly together although it is somewhat generic in flavor, with an off-the-shelf narrative arch and characterizations drawn using broad brushstrokes.
  6. Regular Lovers
    Regular Lovers evokes the '60s pretty well just through dialogue and rhythm -- better, in fact, than Bernardo Bertolucci's more reverently detailed "The Dreamers." However, the film's slow tempo induces the feeling one is living through the whole of 1968 in one sitting.
  7. Smokin' Aces
    Smokin' Aces blows some cool smoke rings until it makes the very un-cool mistake of overstaying its welcome.
  8. Funny Money
    Greif obviously ascribes to the Blake Edwardian school of comedy, laying out gags with commendable topographical precision. But, unlike Edwards' unique mixture of sophistication and slapstick, Funny Money falls squarely in the tradition of pure farce, itself an anomaly in this age of aggressively abrasive personality comedies.
  9. Puccini for Beginners
    While it tips its hat to screwball comedy, Puccini for Beginners owes more to contemporary sitcom. It also has way more in common with "Sex and the City" than "The L Word." None of that is entirely a bad thing in a film that never really soars but has enough breezy humor.
  10. Constellation
    Exceptionally strong cast is pictures beating heart.
  11. Daddy's Little Girls
    Chockfull of cathartic moments, Perry's storytelling is best when it defies convention. Like the black man's Frank Capra, Perry tells stories in which every conflict is a test of faith and every victory a testament to the American underdog. Instead of following the proven formulas of screenwriting books, he earnestly shepherds his own messy structure.
  12. Starter for 10
    Showcasing the considerable talents of ubiquitous thesp James McAvoy ("The Last King of Scotland," "Penelope") and several other up-and-coming Brit actors, picture garnishes fairly standard college-set plot with wit, warmth and unexpected turns.
  13. Beyond the Gates
    Although in many respects a more stylish, authentic, tougher-minded film than "Hotel Rwanda," director Michael Caton-Jones' respectable and well-intentioned Beyond the Gates (aka Shooting Dogs) still falls into the trap of filtering an inherently African story through the eyes of a noble white protagonist -- in this case, two of them.
  14. Premonition
    This slick exercise about a housewife whose spouse might or might not be dead is effective until a downright maudlin close.
  15. The Wind That Shakes the Barley
    Though tastily lensed and with a convincing cast led by Cillian Murphy, essentially small-scale picture lacks the involving sweep of Loach's earlier historical-political yarn, "Land and Freedom."
  16. Shooter
    An immediately involving yarn of an ace Marine sharpshooter set up to take the fall for an attempted presidential assassination, picture saddles itself with stereotypical villains, hokey contrivances and too-expedient crisis solutions.
  17. Iluminados por el fuego
    A watchable if none-too-penetrating analysis of the traumatizing effects of a war largely forgotten.
  18. The Last Mimzy
    Kids will like Mimzy if for no other reason than it doesn't talk down to them.
  19. Pride
    Despite a second half that feels more routine than its first, Pride is a definite crowd-pleaser.
  20. Boy Culture
    A strong cast, formal visual style and cynical voiceover that propels the action help elevate this Seattle-set gay romp from the ranks of the stereotypical.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    U-Carmen e-Khayelitsha
    This version of Georges Bizet's frequently reinterpreted "Carmen" is spoken and sung in the click-punctuated African lingo of Xhosa and adapted to fit yarn's shift south, with a semi-cinema verite style cleverly disguising the artifice of the work's legit origins.
  22. The Reaping
    Revisiting the book of Exodus in a feverish Southern-gothic context, this lurid, often ludicrously entertaining slab of Biblesploitation builds an earnest case for spirituality in a skeptical age.
  23. Red Road
    Sensual, dark in every sense, but a touch derivative, Red Road reps an impressive feature debut for Brit writer-helmer Andrea Arnold, an Oscar-winner for her knockout short "Wasp."
  24. Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea
    Jaunty and fun for a while, with a cast of colorful locals who make the residents of "Vernon, Florida" seem normal, pic ultimately overstays its welcome and overstates its case.
  25. Civic Duty
    Unfolding largely within the confines of a single apartment complex, the well-structured scenario is arresting but ill-served by an overly fussy visual treatment from helmer Jeff Renfroe, while Peter Krause's increasingly psychotic performance as an amateur snoop frequently threatens to cross the line between forceful and off-putting.
  26. Allegro
    Sophomore effort by Danish helmer Christoffer Boe offers a mix of cerebral sci-fi conceits, baroque visual texture and romantic melancholy similar to that in his Cannes kudo-reaping debut, "Reconstruction." Still, pic is remarkably original and reps further evidence of a unique directorial vision.
  27. In Search of Mozart
    A beautifully lensed but ploddingly paced tribute.
  28. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
    The third voyage in the "Priates" trilogy could be touted as "The biggest, loudest and second-best (or second-worst) 'Pirates' ever!" -- not necessarily a ringing endorsement, but honest.
  29. Mr. Brooks
    Mr. Brooks is most effective when it's dealing with Earl and his conscience. Hurt and Costner are terrific together as two sides of the same personality and, again, the casting is what it's all about.
  30. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
    At a time when tortured superheroes like Spider-Man, Superman and Batman would benefit from some serious psychotherapy, it's almost refreshing to see a comicbook caper as blithe, weightless and cheerfully dumb as Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.
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