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. Youth in Revolt
    Cera and his gifted comic co-stars elevate the mediocre source material into a semi-iconic coming-of-age story.
  2. Leap Year
    Pleasant enough overall, if also somewhat gratingly old-fashioned.
  3. Waiting for Armageddon
    The documentary's open-endedness offers something for everyone.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Wonderful World
    Joshua Goldin's directing debut has soulful qualities that have been compressed into a paint-by-numbers production.
  5. Bitch Slap
    Overblown and underwhelming, Bitch Slap is a desperately unfunny attempt to satirically recycle cliches and archetypes from sexploitation actioners of the 1960s and '70s within the time-trippy, multiple-flashback framework of a Quentin Tarantino. extravaganza.
  6. Crazy on the Outside
    Looking and sounding like a second-tier '80s made-for-cabler, Crazy on the Outside is the sort of bland trifle one might watch to kill time during an extended flight.
  7. In Search of Memory
    Petra Seeger's beautifully crafted documentary about neurobiologist Eric Kandel, In Search of Memory, interweaves experience and experiments, autobiography and science as seamlessly as the Nobel Prize winner's same-titled book.
  8. Garbage Dreams
    Mai Iskander's stunning documentary-helming debut.
  9. The White Ribbon
    Immaculately crafted in beautiful black-and-white and entirely absorbing through its longish running time, Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon nonetheless proves a difficult film to entirely embrace.
  10. The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond
    The fragrant aroma of magnolias is undercut by the distinct smell of mothballs throughoutThe Loss of a Teardrop Diamond, an admirably earnest but curiously flat attempt to film a long-unproduced scenario by Tennessee Williams.
  11. The Chaser
    Pulse-pounding third act expertly pushes the audience’s buttons, to excruciatingly ironic and ultimately devastating effect. Pic does turn overwrought in the final stretch and would have been wise to end on an earlier note, though action fans won’t mind.
  12. Sherlock Holmes
    Ritchie has never worked on a scale anything approaching this before and, while some of the directorial affectations are distracting, he keeps the action humming.
  13. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
    With Ledger onscreen more than might have been expected, the film possesses strong curiosity value bolstered by generally lively action and excellent visual effects.
  14. It's Complicated
    Cute and clever though the plot may be, everything is played out in the broadest possible terms without an iota of nuance or subtlety.
  15. Sita Sings the Blues
    Paley sustains a consistently funny, sometimes even self-deprecatory comic tone.
  16. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel
    A frenetic but undeniably funny follow-up that offers twice the number of singing-and-dancing rodents in another seamless blend of CGI and live-action elements.
  17. Police, Adjective
    Porumboiu is one of the few helmers working today who so completely understands both the power of language and the power of visuals.
  18. Did You Hear About the Morgans?
    But the charm of the film is that it resists turning people into cliches and lets Parker and Grant work their particular magic -- before they get to Wyoming, their performances are as stressed out as their characters, and while it's a dubious conceit that going cowboy is a cure-all, they put the notion across as convincingly as possible.
  19. Avatar
    Avatar is all-enveloping and transporting, with Cameron & Co.'s years of R&D paying off with a film that, as his work has done before, raises the technical bar and throws down a challenge for the many other filmmakers toiling in the sci-fi/fantasy realm.
  20. Nine
    Sophisticated, sexy and stylishly decked out, Rob Marshall's disciplined, tightly focused film impresses and amuses.
  21. The Young Victoria
    Well-groomed, upscale, three-hankie entertainment for the “Masterpiece Theater” crowd.
  22. The New Daughter
    Kevin Costner starrer boasts an impressive English-language debut from Spanish teenager Ivana Baquero ("Pan's Labyrinth") and a well-constructed first half, but its many cliches begin to undo its spell long before a ridiculous third act squanders all remaining goodwill.
  23. Crazy Heart
    Ever-youthful in his looks and energy, Bridges now stands as one of Hollywood's great old pros, incapable of making a false move.
  24. A Town Called Panic
    A sparkly little gem.
  25. Ricky
    Because Ozon doesn't develop his characters once Ricky shows his true nature, the movie's slightly overcooked working-class realism quickly morphs into a grotesque -- and admittedly funny -- story of a mutant baby.
  26. Invictus
    Inspirational on the face of it, Clint Eastwood's film has a predictable trajectory, but every scene brims with surprising details that accumulate into a rich fabric of history, cultural impressions and emotion.
  27. The Lovely Bones
    Jackson undermines solid work from a good cast with show-offy celestial evocations that severely disrupt the emotional connections with the characters.
  28. A Single Man
    Like the speck of sand that seeds a pearl, it’s the tiny fleck of kitsch at the heart of “A Single Man” that makes it luminous and treasurable, despite its imperfections.
  29. The Slammin' Salmon
    It is the presence of Duncan as a Mike Tyson-esque, malaprop-spouting ex-champion that, at least momentarily, lifts the pic out of its mediocrity.
  30. The Vicious Kind
    Before it bogs down in one too many moments of cathartic reckoning, The Vicious Kind is an unpredictable, off-kilter and scabrously funny piece of work.
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