Variety's Scores

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For 17,839 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 17839
  2. Mixed: 7,035 out of 17839
  3. Negative: 1,638 out of 17839
17839 movie reviews
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  1. The Burnt Orange Heresy
    Watching The Burnt Orange Heresy, you may find yourself wishing one of two things: that Claes Bang and Elizabeth Debicki had been around to make elegant little mystery capers with Alfred Hitchcock in his prime, or that Hitch were around today to direct this one, a marble-cool art-fraud thriller that begins lithely and sexily before, somewhat mystifyingly, it takes a terminal turn for the dour.
  2. Mardi Gras: Made in China
    An obviously sincere but didactically repetitive documentary.
  3. Dreamland
    Jason Matzner's woozily romantic, gorgeously lensed directorial debut about a trailer park love triangle seems to unspool in a dream of its own, and despite some sketchy story elements, much of it is pretty intoxicating -- that is, until the unambiguous life lessons bring pic down to earth with an earnest splat.
  4. 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.
  5. Ten 'til Noon
    Paul Osborne's script delivers an intriguing structure, though dialogue tastes like something warmed over after 12 years in Quentin Tarantino's freezer.
  6. Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay
    An over-the-top and beyond-PC comedy that sometimes deftly, sometimes slapdashedly infuses party-hearty anarchy with hectoring moral outrage.
  7. Defendor
    Harrelson shines, particularly in framing scenes with Sandra Oh as a tactful court psychiatrist.
  8. City of Ghosts
    Despite a name cast, with Dillon playing an insurance crook, pic is holed by a plot-heavy script that's unsatisfying at a character level and plays like a cut-down version of a much longer, more ambitious saga.
  9. My Life Without Me
    With a glowing performance by Sarah Polley as the doomed woman, this Spanish-Canadian co-prod, filmed in English, is surprisingly adept at avoiding the worst cliches and most manipulative elements inherent in such a story.
  10. Titus
    Taymor makes the action clear and easy to follow with her bold physicalization of the story and forceful direction of an astutely chosen cast.
  11. Amen.
    Despite fine performances and the care lavished on the production, Amen. is never as emotionally powerful as it should be.
  12. Hannibal
    The continuing saga of one of contemporary literature and cinema's most fascinating villains, as played once again with exquisite taste and riveting force by Anthony Hopkins.
  13. Faster
    An often thrilling, always compelling intro to the sport.
  14. Code 46
    An intriguing but only partly successful co-mingling of film noir and sci-fi.
  15. Catching Out
    Rambles into unexpected places, some more interesting than others, but it stays on track long enough to take auds somewhere special.
  16. The Cloud of Unknowing
    In service of an eerie Japanese ghost story, the spooky atmospherics prove surprisingly compelling.
  17. Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land
    Pedantic, humorless and one-sided -- qualities that won't encourage exposure beyond the activist left.
  18. Winning Girls Through Psychic Mind Control
    Track record of helmer Barry Alexander Brown, and scads of clever writing from scripting producer Dan Harnden, should help this little gem find a home, although it is probably too intimate and original to win more than a cult following.
  19. Yat luk che
    An utterly charming retro romancer set against a background of '70s movie going. Full of lovely touches and well-etched performances, and flawed only by a bland male lead.
  20. Derailroaded
    As discomfortingly fascinating as listening to a couple's heated argument at a table near yours in a restaurant.
  21. Light from the East
    Generates genuine suspense as it follows a group of American actors in the former Soviet Union during a fateful period of the Perestroika era.
  22. Gandhi, My Father
    Classy production values and a textured lead performance by Darshan Jariwala are undercut by a lack of real drama in Gandhi My Father.
  23. Laura Smiles
    Sharp dialogue, idiosyncratic characters and a wickedly brilliant structure that subtly derails expectation make Laura Smiles a rarity among mellers.
  24. War Made Easy: How Presidents & Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death
    Overlapping with other recent documentaries, picture nonetheless presents a stimulating argument.
  25. The Stone Angel
    Prolific helmer Kari Skogland draws a fiery performance from vet Burstyn and a beguiling one from Christine Horne as the young Hagar. Yet the book's sheer "Giant"-like scope necessitates generational cross-cutting that's both rushed and cluttered; pic would have have been better served as a more leisurely miniseries.
  26. Sixty Six
    While mazel tovs are due for efficient playing and execution, predictable script seldom scores big laughs.
  27. The Infidel
    The Infidel takes some all-too-predictable detours into moralizing and sentimentality, but remains consistently sharp as long as it sticks to its acerbic tone and saucy comic sensibility.
  28. Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll
    Paul Viragh's script is too bitty to hold it all together, and filigrees of technique fail to disguise the weaknesses in helmer Mat Whitecross' first solo flight.
  29. Here and There
    Slight, extremely likable picture, a sly variant on recent immigrant movies like "The Visitor" and "Goodbye Solo."
  30. Shake Hands with the Devil
    Spottiswoode's lackluster film fails to offer any fresh perspective on these now well-known events.
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