Variety's Scores

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For 17,808 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: 9,149 out of 17808
  2. Mixed: 7,022 out of 17808
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17808
17808 movie reviews
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  1. Never Let Me Go
    Never Let Me Go is that rare find, a fragile little four-leaf clover of a movie that's emotionally devastating, yet all too easily trampled by cynics.
  2. Kings of Pastry
    Given what seems like unprecedented access to the very masculine world of the French patissier, Pennebaker and Hegedus get their subjects to reveal a few trade secrets as well as personal aspirations. As their calm camera glides over the chefs' almost-too-beautiful-to-eat creations, viewers share their awe.
  3. Bran Nue Dae
    Offering blandly stereotypical characters in a trite road-trip narrative, it's genial but too silly for most grownups, and likely to impress few "High School Musical"-indoctrinated kids.
  4. Lovely, Still
    The surprise twist brutally defies the opening narration and plot logic that preceded it, alienating viewers who willingly suspended disbelief.
  5. The Virginity Hit
    Those with the stomach for 90 slapdash minutes of nonstop crudity and cruelty will be tickled, while their elders will likely despair at these youngsters' lack of a moral center or ability to hold a camera steady.
  6. Ahead of Time
    Wisely letting his lively, articulate nonagenarian subject narrate her life story through interviews and lectures, debuting director Bob Richman (a noted indie cameraman) compellingly blends a plethora of choice archival materials and contempo footage.
  7. Heartbreaker
    Combining the glamour of "To Catch a Thief" with the ruckus of a Ben Stiller movie, TV vet Pascal Chaumeil's French Riviera-set intrigue stars Romain Duris.
  8. I'm Still Here
    An utterly fascinating experiment that apparently blends real and faked material to examine notions of celebrity, mental stability and friendship.
  9. Resident Evil: Afterlife
    Director Paul W.S. Anderson (who also directed the original) can hardly manage a hint of suspense or excitement. And excitement is exactly what the film ought to have in excess.
  10. The Romantics
    While in some ways an improvement on the book, this seriocomedy toplining Katie Holmes remains short on truly involving characters or situations, and is likely to spark unflattering comparisons to such vaguely similar, more distinctive films as "Rachel Getting Married" and "Margot at the Wedding."
  11. Sequestro: A Story of Kidnapping
    Audiences might feel they've been taken hostage during certain parts of Sequestro (Kidnapping), but Brazilian helmer Jorge W. Atalla's documentary is ultimately electrifying, both in what it reveals and how it reveals it. .
  12. Going the Distance
    This uneven effort saddles its likable leads, Drew Barrymore and Justin Long, with the kind of verbally exaggerated sexual humor that not only comes off as embarrassingly strained and calculated, but also compromises what the picture genuinely wants to be.
  13. Machete
    Wildly uneven as it doggedly strives (sometimes with obvious strain) to sustain a free-wheeling, anything-goes air of exuberant junkiness.
  14. Last Train Home
    The picture laudably adopts an intimate, personal approach to a subject -- hardworking Chinese garment workers -- that's been covered in more hectoring fashion elsewhere.
  15. The Winning Season
    With an invaluable assist from Sam Rockwell, hilarious and wounding as a deadbeat dad who lands a high school coaching gig, it's the rare inspirational movie with more than just winning or losing on its mind.
  16. A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop
    Western audiences familiar with "Blood Simple" will get a kick out of the reinventions.
  17. Prince of Broadway
    Streetwise, kinetic and solidly dramatic, Prince of Broadway is a convincingly character-driven tale set in a clandestine universe -- the realm of stolen and/or counterfeit fashions that exists in the no man's land of Manhattan's West 20s.
  18. White Wedding
    A highly engaging picture with a post-apartheid edge (certain scenes play like a farcical "Invictus").
  19. Max Manus
    This engaging second feature from "Bandidas" duo Espen Sandberg and Joachim Roenning combines artistic ambition and commercial appeal with a well-paced action-adventure approach.
  20. Takers
    A respectable but watered-down heist movie that, given the Los Angeles setting, either owes a debt to director Michael Mann or suggests an unusually violent and action-packed episode of "Entourage."
  21. The Last Exorcism
    The Last Exorcism makes first-rate use of religious doubt and religious extremism to concoct a novel horror-thriller clever enough to seduce unbelievers while satisfying the bloodlust of its congregation/fanbase.
  22. Centurion
    "Doomsday," horror-trained British helmer Neil Marshall flexes strong action muscles and carves copious flesh here, creating the sort of broadsword-based bedlam that will thrill fans of ancient martial movies.
  23. Change of Plans (Le code a changé)
    Two's company, three's a crowd and eight is definitely way more than enough in writer-director Daniele Thompson's mismanaged comic ensembler, Change of Plans. Less a crowdpleaser and more a headscratcher than her previous hit, "Avenue Montaigne."
  24. Daniel and Ana
    The screenplay leaves it to the audience to map the psychological terrain, which will frustrate some but thrill others who prefer oblique storytelling.
  25. The Milk of Sorrow
    At first, the picture seems a slow-moving, particularly well-framed ethnographic study of life in the big city in Peru; it only gradually becomes clear that Llosa's second feature perfectly aligns form and content.
  26. Make-Out with Violence
    Directed by the pseudonymous Deagol Brothers, the film invests in spacey horror tropes one moment, plunges into absurdist adolescent angst the next and begs questions every step of the way, but just about holds together with its strong compositional sense, killer atmospheric lighting and wall-to-wall music track.
  27. Louis
    This cinematic anomaly falls flat as a stand-alone.
  28. Baghdad Texas
    David H. Hickey's Lone Star comedy never really develops, stalling this culture-clash clambake at the merely likable stage.
  29. Piranha 3-D
    The 32-year-old carnivorous fish franchise has lost none of its bite, serving up a fresh batch of spring-break revelers for the fearsome creatures to attack.
  30. Lottery Ticket
    The script is never nearly as clever as the premise ought to allow, and the madcap fun is far too frequently derailed by tonal inconsistencies.
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