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. Sunshine
    Well-intentioned but never entirely engaging chronicle.
  2. Bait
    A B movie in A-grade clothing.
  3. Tears of the Sun
    This is one of those pictures that unavoidably becomes part of the zeitgeist due to its coincidental arrival at a precise moment in history when its themes play into current events.
  4. A Dirty Shame
    Frequently hilarious but ultimately is a protracted one-joke affair that strays into undisciplined chaos.
  5. The Thirteenth Floor
    Comes too late, far surpassed by similar and more visually stunning devices in "The Matrix," and even by the mind-bending realities of "eXistenZ."
  6. Cellular
    Because plot is the sum total here, the alarming holes, inconsistencies and impossibilities in Chris Morgan's script corrode this drama of distress.
  7. The Girl Next Door
    A tickle-and-tease teen sex comedy that plays like a late-night channel-surf through soft-core sitcoms, "American Pie" wannabes and '80s Brat Pack romances.
  8. The Other Side of the Bed
    A nicely contempo mood, engaging characters energized by solid perfs from a good-looking, high-profile young cast, and genuinely witty scripting are let down only by over-length and some generally turgid tunes.
  9. A Night at the Roxbury
    The track record of SNL-drawn movies is dire ("It's Pat," "Stuart Saves His Family," "Blues Brothers 2000"), and this one stands just a peg higher, as an amiable, if flyweight, di-version.
  10. Waterworld
    A not-bad futuristic actioner with three or four astounding sequences, an unusual hero, a nifty villain and less mythic and romantic resonance than might be desired.
  11. Seven Years in Tibet
    Despite some magnificent widescreen lensing, faultless ethnographic detail and a timely sympathy for the plight of the Tibetan people, director Jean-Jacques Annaud's true-life tale about a self-obsessed Austrian mountaineer who learns selflessness in the Himalayas too rarely delivers at a simple emotional level.
  12. 10 Things I Hate About You
    10 Things doesn't take much time before ditching its pitch idea in favor of a mishmash of newer formulas, never quite settling on a cogent game plan or directorial tone.
  13. Scooby-Doo
    Just fast, frenetic and funny enough to amuse both new fans and longtime devotees of the characters who have inspired more than 30 years worth of animated TV episodes and made-for-video features.
  14. Blow
    Respectable but unmemorable end result may suffer from comparison with the similarly themed, albeit differently angled, “Traffic.”
    • 49 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Reckoning
    Has its flaws, among them a certain self-righteousness and a complicated storyline, but it is never less than gripping thanks to its gifted international cast.
  16. Before Sunrise
    While pic remains sympathetic and appealing, the endless dialogue and repetitive settings become wearing through the couple's one long night together, and the artifice of the premise may contribute to the difficulty the film has in coming to romantic life.
  17. Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry
    Butler is in no way a hot-headed or contentious piece of agit-prop, unlike so many other election year documentaries; like Kerry himself, the film speaks to the mind, not the emotions.
  18. Levity
    Despite an effectively low-key performance by Billy Bob Thornton in the leading role, pic is no more spiritually insightful or illuminating than Sunday School instructional story, and a lot less dramatically coherent.
  19. Tea with Mussolini
    Some fine individual perfs by the tony cast, plus fine period detail and costumes, make the time pass fairly agreeably, but Tea With Mussolini suffers from a fatal lack of focus and emotional center, reducing potentially involving material to a succession of individual scenes.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Who Framed Roger Rabbit
    An unparalleled technical achievement... Yet the story amounts to little more than inspired silliness about the filmmaking biz where cartoon characters face off against cartoonish humans.
  21. 'R Xmas
    Despite some hazy plot points, the tough, compelling drama comes together quite satisfyingly, standing alongside 1996's "The Funeral" as perhaps the most controlled and cohesive of Ferrara's uneven work of recent years.
  22. Spun
    Outrageously grungy and whacked-out walk on the wild side.
  23. The Out-of-Towners
    Lightweight but likable entertainment.
  24. An Everlasting Piece
    It's a film of myriad minor pleasures but scant compelling qualities.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Bridget Jones's Diary
    Misses its mark, failing to capitalize on the staccato rhythms and sardonic wit of Bridget's inner life.
  26. Brother to Brother
    The film's transitions between periods are not entirely seamless and its discourse often becomes didactic. However, the depth and intelligence it brings to issues of black politics and sexuality could help carve an appreciative theatrical audience in upscale gay and/or urban niches.
  27. The Sixth Sense
    Borderline dull to sit through, The Sixth Sense is actually rather interesting to think about afterward because of the revelation of its ending.
  28. 21 Grams
    Ambitiously structured in non-chronological fragments that form a fascinating puzzle, this raw drama about grief, guilt and redemption becomes ultimately overextended and overwrought in its final stretch.
  29. Holes
    Holes will no doubt speak clearly and appealingly to its intended early teen audience.
  30. The Alamo
    Refreshingly revisionist in the sense that it takes a relatively clear-eyed view of the messy lives and equivocal circumstances of many of the key participants.
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