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. Mammoth
    A mixed bag, Mammoth is a good-looking, smoothly directed, continent-hopping drama about parents and children, globalization and the disconnect between rich and poor, but comes with too much repetitive exposition and lacks an emotional payoff.
  2. The Missing Person
    An intriguingly plotted mystery that unfortunately forgets to put the noir in film noir. A drab, pale-looking affair without a trace of visual style, this cross-country pursuit yarn fights a losing battle to sustain viewer attention via narrative alone, so much does it flounder for lack of imagistic flair.
  3. The War on Kids
    A startling wake-up call about appalling conditions prevailing in American schools, The War on Kids contradicts popular wisdom.
  4. Red Cliff
    Balances character, grit, spectacle and visceral action in a meaty, dramatically satisfying pie that delivers on the hype and will surprise many who felt the Hong Kong helmer progressively lost his mojo during his long years stateside.
  5. Fantastic Mr. Fox
    The film's style, paradoxically both precious and rough-hewn, positions this as the season's defiantly anti-CGI toon, and its retro charms will likely appeal more strongly to grown-ups than to moppets; it's a picture for people who would rather drive a 1953 Jaguar XK 120 than a new one.
  6. 2012
    The visual effects are pretty sensational, delivering the cutting-edge CGI goods auds want and expect. It will be hard to watch "Earthquake'' ever again after this one.
  7. The Messenger
    Nobody plays angry like Ben Foster, but compassion is something new for the actor, who softens his crazy-man shtick to deliver a complex and moving performance in The Messenger.
  8. Pirate Radio
    Picture generally stays afloat on the strength of its characters but sometimes threatens to sink under its overlong running time and vignettish structure.
  9. Dare
    This "Cruel Intentions"-style cesspool of teenage hanky-panky may be more scandalous than its chaste Disney counterpart, but that doesn't necessarily make it any more authentic.
  10. William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe
    In attempting to address its subject's ideological discrepancies, "Kunstler" lacks the objectivity needed to put the lawyer's shift from '60s fist-pumper to '80s and '90s headline-grabber in proper context.
  11. Oh My God
    Compacts nearly three years' worth of globe-trotting interviews into an often visually vibrant but rhetorically muddled package. So intent on giving (almost) every perspective a fair shake that it winds up saying little of consequence.
  12. Uncertainty
    Half formulaic and half simply unimaginative.
  13. Women in Trouble
    A wildly uneven but compulsively watchable mix of high camp and grand passions, soap opera and softcore sex. Very much in the deliriously lewd style of Pedro Almodovar.
  14. Love Hurts
    An ungainly, at times cringe-worthy succession of tame, telegraphed romantic mishaps, well-intentioned if unconvincing sentimentality, and some of the least authentic teenage dialogue this side of the "Friday the 13th" franchise.
  15. Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire
    An urban nightmare with a surfeit of soul, Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire is like a diamond -- clear, bright, but oh so hard.
  16. The Men Who Stare at Goats
    A superbly written loony-tunes satire, played by a tony cast at the top of its game.
  17. The Box
    Kelly's trademark mix of sci-fi, surrealism and suburbia occasionally entertains.
  18. The Fourth Kind
    Even the most gullible auds will be challenged to buy into the picture, billed as "based on the actual case studies" and, in any case, rendered rather boring by writer-director Olatunde Osunsanmi ("The Cavern").
  19. A Christmas Carol
    Shortchanging traditional animation by literalizing it while robbing actors of their full range of facial expressiveness, the performance-capture technique favored by director Robert Zemeckis looks more than ever like the emperor's new clothes in Disney's A Christmas Carol.
  20. Storm
    A potentially gripping legal thriller about what happens when Western Europe attempts to solve Central European problems ends up as dull entertainment in Storm.
  21. Collapse
    Unnervingly persuasive much of the time, and merely riveting when it's not.
  22. Splinterheads
    Writer-director Brant Sersen's amiable indie comedy -- even less edgy than Greg Mottola's theme-park-set "Adventureland" -- attempts to compensate for its too-familiar romantic setup by defining its characters through idiosyncratic hobbies and traits.
  23. That Evening Sun
    Deliberately paced, richly atmospheric drama also boasts first-rate work by a splendid supporting cast and impressive production values.
  24. The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day
    Feels larger in scope yet sorely lacking in originality.
  25. Gentlemen Broncos
    Napoleon Dynamite seems perfectly well-adjusted (not to mention downright charismatic) compared to homeschooled mama's boy Benjamin Purvis in Gentlemen Broncos, the latest oddball character portrait from one-trick helmer Jared Hess.
  26. The House of the Devil
    Call it the best '80s babysitter-in-peril movie never made. The House of the Devil delivers about as much as one could reasonably hope from the not-quite-alone-in-the-house category, with the bonus of authentically re-creating the low-budget look and feel of that era's classic horror entries.
  27. Labor Day
    For every engrossing rank-and-file story, there are endless self-congratulatory explanations and podium highlights.
  28. Looking for Palladin
    Amiable but uneven.
  29. Skin
    One of the more bizarre illustrations of racial injustice under apartheid is dramatized in Skin.
  30. This Is It
    There’s an incredible amount to enjoy here, and the star’s fans will be in rapture.
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