Variety's Scores

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For 17,807 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: 9,148 out of 17807
  2. Mixed: 7,022 out of 17807
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17807
17807 movie reviews
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  1. American Radical: The Trials of Norman Finkelstein
    For some, the documentary will represent the endorsement of a self-hater spouting traitorous ideas; for others, it celebrates the courage of a reviled, truth-telling martyr to the cause of academic freedom.
  2. 3 Idiots
    3 Idiots takes a while to lay out its game plan but pays off emotionally in its second half.
  3. Tano da morire
    Humor is inconsistent, and the film suffers from lack of shape and fluidity, playing more like a series of disjointed sketches. But there are more than enough high points to compensate.
  4. From Paris with Love
    To his credit, Travolta hams it up with the kind of laissez-faire irony that might have made the film a tongue-in-cheek pleasure, had his attitude extended to the filmmakers.
  5. Dear John
    Ultimately, the story feels as if it's killing time before throwing the next hurdle at the couple.
  6. District 13: Ultimatum
    The fight sequences (choreographed by Raffaelli) are especially creative, with the combatants using any available object, including a priceless Van Gogh painting, to get the job done.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Shinjuku Incident
    Though hyped as a rare straight dramatic outing by Chan, the picture still has him displaying his action skills, if less sensationally than usual.
  8. Frozen
    Don't be surprised if the movie's most wince-inducing moments come not from the "disturbing images" (as the MPAA describes the sight of a leg bone sticking six inches out of one character's ski pants) but rather of the bad acting and worse dialogue.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Terribly Happy
    Entertaining and full of surprising twists, this highly cinematic tale of a Copenhagen policeman working punishment duty in the provinces plays with genre in a manner that can be compared with the Coen brothers or David Lynch.
  10. Eyes Wide Open
    Quietly devastating picture reps a natural draw for gay, Jewish-interest and upscale audiences.
  11. Ajami
    Time shifts may overcomplicate the narrative for some, but the pay-off packs a major punch.
  12. Edge of Darkness
    Campbell's topnotch production team yields predictably polished results, but the director's decision to revisit the late Troy Kennedy Martin's teleplay, finally, feels lacking.
  13. When in Rome
    Predictable but pleasant comedic fantasy.
  14. For My Father
    Israeli helmer Dror Sahavi's well-meaning but simplistic terrorist melodrama, gingerly counterbalancing religious fanatics on either side of the Israeli-Palestinian divide, utilizes a lyrical "Romeo and Juliet"-type encounter between a reluctant suicide bomber and a Jewish escapee from Orthodox closed-mindedness to plead mutual tolerance.
  15. Off and Running
    What at first looks like a heartwarming portrait of a highly blended modern family turns into a no less engrossing illustration of that situation's possible pitfalls in Off and Running.
  16. North Face
    An often grippingly staged mountain movie that's good but not great.
  17. Falling Awake
    Underacted, overheated and uses a pair of purloined, high-end sneakers as a 400-pound allegory for getting your priorities straight.
  18. Legion
    Even when the blood-and-thunder hokiness of the over-the-top plot tilts perilously close to absurdity, the admirably straight-faced performances by well-cast lead players provide just enough counterbalance to sustain audience curiosity and sympathy.
  19. Extraordinary Measures
    Doesn't reach far beyond its smallscreen genotype as a disease-of-the-week telepic, despite the star power of Brendan Fraser as the desperate dad and Harrison Ford as an eccentric, ornery researcher.
  20. The Girl on the Train
    From this polarizing lie, Techine fashions a brilliantly complex, intimate multi-strander, held together but somewhat skewed by the central perf of Emilie Dequenne ("Rosetta"), whose radiant physicality threatens to eclipse even Catherine Deneuve.
  21. Creation
    Isn't about science vs. faith so much as that well-worn dramatic hook, the loss of a child.
  22. To Save a Life
    Just as representations of human sexuality on film are often unpleasantly twisted by the grotesqueries of the porn industry, so, too, are filmic representations of religious conversion homogenized by the faith-based entertainment industry. Case in point: Debutante director Brian Baugh's To Save a Life.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Tooth Fairy
    Scores a goal for kids and adults alike.
  24. Drool
    Writer-director Nancy Kissam's inexplicably named feature feels a tad Frankensteinian, sewing second-hand ideas together most inorganically.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Pop Star on Ice
    Smartly structured, crisply lensed docu Pop Star on Ice is a fascinating portrait of outspoken Olympian and three-time U.S. figure skating national champion Johnny Weir.
  26. The Book of Eli
    Some mordant comic touches would have been welcome throughout the picture, which has a somber tone that suffers a bit from lack of modulation and nuance.
  27. Fish Tank
    What makes the picture feel special is its unflinching honesty and lack of sentimentality or moralizing, along with assured direction and excellent performances.
    • 27 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Spy Next Door
    Chan struggles gamely to charm, but the picture's cartoonish jokes and misfired gags are likely to elicit more eye rolls than laughs.
  29. 44 Inch Chest
    On the debit side, and it's a doozy, the picture's narrative trajectory fails to deliver a third act that takes the story anywhere of note except into a silly realm of cut-rate surrealism. Final reel ends not with the expected bang but with an almost inaudible whimper.
  30. Daybreakers
    The script doesn't wring many surprises or much character involvement from the premise, and the brothers' helming, while slick, is short on scares, action setpieces and humor.
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