Variety's Scores

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For 17,805 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 17805
  2. Mixed: 7,020 out of 17805
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17805
17805 movie reviews
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  1. Quantum of Solace
    Stripped of "Royale's" humor, elegance and reinvented old-school stylishness, Quantum has little left except its plot, which is rudimentary and slightly barmy, in the line of the Roger Moore pics of the '70s and '80s.
  2. A Christmas Tale
    Largely thanks to the snappy editing, short scenes and a strong cast led by a matronly Deveuve and Amalric's enjoyable perf as the black sheep of the family, A Christmas Tale never devolves into a tedious two-and-a-half hours of self-examination. But it also never goes very far, either.
  3. Eden
    Picture loses its delicate edge when it builds to a prescribed dramatic flashpoint within an overly compressed timeframe
  4. We Are Wizards
    Meandering mindlessly, Wizards comes off as yet another humdrum Pottery artifact.
  5. Dostana
    Gay's the way, but the way's not really gay, in the fluffy and largely entertaining Dostana.
  6. The Dukes
    With Davi and Chazz Palminteri fronting a first-rate ensemble cast, and a tasty soundtrack of golden oldies, this unpretentious indie dramedy has much to recommend.
  7. How About You ...
    Comedic and sentimental beats are as predictable as the storytelling is sloppy.
  8. Slumdog Millionaire
    Driven by fantastic energy and a torrent of vivid images of India old and new, Slumdog Millionaire is a blast.
  9. Role Models
    Laden with more than enough profane humor to warrant its R rating, this is nonetheless a formulaic crowd-pleaser.
  10. JCVD
    A French-language meta-movie parody par excellence, constitutes the headiest stretch of the beefy star's career since, well, ever.
  11. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
    Opening half-hour has some of the best stuff in the movie, walking a precarious line between black irony and showing the war from a totally German viewpoint, without tipping over into gallows humor or parody.
  12. Gardens of the Night
    Well-meaning but underachieving drama.
  13. Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
    Lively and quite funny without being obnoxious, this follow-up smoothly mixes the original's New York Zoo escapees with a number of engaging new characters.
  14. Pray the Devil Back to Hell
    Gini Reticker's lucidly impassioned film, filled with strong, eloquent spokeswomen, garnered Tribeca's docu award.
  15. Repo! The Genetic Opera
    So over-the-top it's purple. At the same time, it's not too many lengths of intestine beyond some mainstream movies, "Sweeney Todd" being the most obvious comparison.
  16. Soul Men
    There's a nice chemistry between Mac and Samuel L. Jackson in this latest variant of the road movie, which contains comedic elements but actually works better as a drama.
  17. Otto; or, Up with Dead People
    Meandering at the same draggy pace as its titular gay zombie, eroto-horror-satire mixes movie-within-a-movie machinations with graphic sex scenes that will titillate anyone who's ever wanted to see someone shagging an open wound.
  18. Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father
    The way Kuenne presents the material, with an aggressive style that lingers less than a second on most shots, it's impossible not to feel emotionally exhausted.
  19. Eden Lake
    Eden Lake doesn't feel like torture porn so much as a rural-jeopardy thriller in extremis.
  20. The Haunting of Molly Hartley
    This softcore thriller runs strictly by the numbers.
  21. Splinter
    A spare, effective and genuinely frightening retro-nightmare.
  22. Zack and Miri Make a Porno
    It would be too much to say that what Smith has come up with here is inspired, but it is pretty funny and very energetic.
  23. My Name Is Bruce
    Cheerfully embracing his status as cult B-movie genre megastar even as he sends it up, Bruce Campbell's sophomore directorial excursion, My Name is Bruce, is a big in-joke of definite if limited appeal.
  24. The Other End of the Line
    As cross-cultural bridge-builders go, picture is smart, funny and sweet enough to make you reassess your attitude next time you get reach tech support in New Delhi.
  25. What Just Happened
    A story very much by, about and for middle-aged men, and with the commercial limitations that implies, this intermittently amusing outing is graced by one of Robert De Niro’s more engaging performances of recent vintage.
  26. The First Basket
    A humorless, relentlessly ethnocentric docu about Jews in basketball.
  27. Let the Right One In
    Calling to mind the work of Anne Rice and Stephen King, atmospheric adaptation of Swedish author John Ajvide Lindqvist's bestseller is well directed by his countryman Tomas Alfredson ("Four Shades of Brown") and should click with cult and arthouse auds.
  28. Synecdoche, New York
    A wildly ambitious and gravely serious contemplation of life, love, art, human decay and death, the film bears Kaufman’s scripting fingerprints in its structural trickery and multiplane storytelling.
  29. Changeling
    Emotionally powerful and stylistically sure-handed, this true story-inspired drama begins small with the disappearance of a young boy, only to gradually fan out to become a comprehensive critique of the entire power structure of Los Angeles, circa 1928.
  30. I've Loved You So Long
    A movie that is utterly engrossing despite being, on the surface, about very little.
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