Variety's Scores

Select another publication »
For 17,794 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: 9,142 out of 17794
  2. Mixed: 7,015 out of 17794
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17794
17794 movie reviews
view
per page
  1. Meet the Browns
    Often plays more like "Tyler Perry's Greatest Hits" as it recycles various elements from the writer-director's earlier works.
  2. Shutter
    A blandly cast and crafted remake of the same-titled 2004 Thai pic that itself emulated J-horror norms, which seemed a lot fresher back then.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Boarding Gate
    Thrills and drama are left standing on the tarmac in Boarding Gate a limp, sleazy inanity by renowned French critic cum erratic helmer Olivier Assayas.
  4. Love Songs
    Likeable film doesn't measure up to helmer Christophe Honore's previous "Inside Paris," stumbling a bit in capturing the genuine grief that sits at its heart, though once again his feel for family is unerring and some of pic's greatest charms come from the warmth they inspire.
  5. Planet B-Boy
    Often exhilarating docu charts several breakdancing crews' path to the Battle of the Year, which hosts national winners from 18 countries -- not excluding Israel, Belgium or Latvia -- in dazzling competitive displays.
  6. Irina Palm
    Astonishingly, pic reaped hearty guffaws at Berlinale press show, suggesting this might play best in Europe, but Anglophone auds are more likely to give Palm the thumbs down.
  7. Under the Same Moon (La misma luna)
    Wrapping the political hot potato of illegal immigration in the sentimental balm of a mother-son reunion drama, this stirring tale will be embraced most enthusiastically by Mexican audiences on both sides of the border.
  8. Doomsday
    Neil Marshall's flair for visceral action more than compensates for his script's lack of conceptual novelty in Doomsday. Principally South Africa-shot tale of a post-apocalyptic Great Britain cobbles together large chunks of "Escape From New York," "The Road Warrior," "28 Days Later" and "Resident Evil," but those with a taste for revved-up, splattery fantasy thrills won't be complaining.
  9. Horton Hears a Who!
    The real stars of the movie are the animators, who imbue even the overgrowth in Horton's jungle with a certain floppy Seuss-ishness.
  10. Never Back Down
    Best part, though, is the cast: Everyone's a model, everyone beats each other half to death, and no one looks as if they've ever suffered so much as a coldsore.
  11. Sleepwalking
    The overly simplistic script by Zac Stanford (“The Chumscrubber”) hits nothing but high notes, making the whole dramatically less than the sum of its parts.
  12. Heartbeat Detector
    Both pertinent and discomfiting, this sober, well-cast drama remains quietly riveting, despite its 140-minute running time.
  13. City with No Mercy
    Plainly disappointing as a well-sustained kick-butt thriller, and politically toxic.
  14. Funny Games (2008)
    As shocking and deliberately manipulative as the original movie and -- some may reckon -- even more pointless.
  15. Sputnik Mania
    A seemingly esoteric subject -- the launch of Russia's Sputnik satellite -- is exhumed and made exciting in this important slice of you-are-there documaking.
  16. Hacia la oscuridad
    A convoluted bilingual thriller about a kidnapping in Colombia, Towards Darkness may be too clever for its own good. Frosh director Antonio Negret intertwines so many disparate characters, each with a flashback-studded backstory, that after a while the exhausted viewer, assaulted by sudden time-jumps, agitated handheld camerawork and tediously protracted suspense, ceases to care.
  17. War Made Easy: How Presidents & Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death
    Overlapping with other recent documentaries, picture nonetheless presents a stimulating argument.
  18. Wetlands Preserved: The Story of an Activist Nightclub
    Pays fitting tribute to Wetlands' unique rebirth of '60s idealism within a '90s urban setting.
  19. Blind Mountain
    Low on drama and originality, and high on deja vu, sophomore outing by writer-director Li Yang ("Blind Shaft," 2003).
  20. Meat Loaf: In Search of Paradise
    Helmer Bruce David Klein's near-reverential treatment is a nice contrast to the rough-and-tumble of tour life.
  21. 10,000 BC
    Conventional where it should be bold and mild where it should be wild, 10,000 BC reps a missed opportunity to present an imaginative vision of a prehistoric moment.
  22. The Bank Job
    An engrossing if underwhelming period thriller.
  23. College Road Trip
    This overplayed, underachieving laffer feels thoroughly manufactured to Disney specifications.
  24. Married Life
    The tone, casting and material form a less-than-perfect match in Married Life, a period domestic drama that never quite decides if it wants to be a credible marital study, a noirish meller or a sly comedy.
  25. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
    McDormand's performance slowly builds a solid integrity, and contrasts well with Adams' more flamboyant turn.
  26. Paranoid Park
    Through immaculate use of picture, sound and time, the director adds another panel to his series of pictures about disaffected, disconnected youth.
  27. Snow Angels
    Emotionally harrowing and gentle by turns, this well-acted winter's tale is a more narrative-driven experience than Green's more lyrical Sundance entries, "George Washington" and "All the Real Girls."
  28. CJ7
    "E.T."-inspired comic fantasy about a poor boy adopting a cute alien catches the eye but not fully the heart with its undernourished father-son dynamics, critter hijinks and smattering of social commentary.
  29. Fighting for Life
    The only people who seem immune to the politics of the Iraq War are also at its epicenter: the doctors and nurses who mend and tend to the wounded, and who provide the heart and soul of Terry Sanders' Fighting for Life.
  30. Girls Rock!
    Aggressively upbeat docu, helmed by two males ill-equipped to bring any distance to the camp's pervasive feel-good feminism, tends to relentlessly reiterate points better served by example.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »