Variety's Scores

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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
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  1. Still Life
    Has almost zero plot but molto mood. It will appeal to the most faithful of the director's camp-followers and no one else.
  2. First Sunday
    A near-claustrophobic comedy that manages to be both predictable and preachy. Solid actors in supporting roles offer minor redemption.
  3. In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale
    A plodding patchwork of derivative fantasy-adventure, medieval production design, risible dialogue, unimpressive CGI trickery and haphazardly edited action sequences.
  4. The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: A VeggieTales Movie
    Won't do anything for adult auds, but this second bigscreen adventure from the popular VeggieTales franchise should easily win over tots with its reliable menu of silly songs, easily digestible morals and wholesome (if not always fresh) produce-based characters.
  5. The Business of Being Born
    Documentary seems best suited to cable: Lake's informal, Oprah-like concern invites the intimacy of home viewing. But the chick-chat approach in no way undermines the gravity of the problems the docu addresses.
  6. Woman on the Beach
    A wonderful, serious-minded romantic comedy-drama.
  7. One Missed Call
    This decent if derivative scare machine should benefit from a lack of genre competition.
  8. The Killing of John Lennon
    Anchored by a fearless, commanding lead perf by newcomer Jonas Ball as deranged assassin Mark David Chapman, The Killing of John Lennon is a harrowing, impressionistic, widescreen tour-de-force that unfolds with the propulsive urgency of a scrapbook thrown into a howling wind.
  9. Honeydripper
    The result is one of Sayles' best films. The music, a mix of blues, seminal rock and newcomer Gary Clark Jr.'s performance, will be an obvious draw, as will the performances by some leading African-American actors.
  10. The Orphanage
    A fastidiously grim ghost story that rattles the bones of the haunted-house genre and finds plenty of fresh (but not too bloody) meat.
  11. There Will Be Blood
    Boldly and magnificently strange, There Will Be Blood marks a significant departure in the work of Paul Thomas Anderson.
  12. AVPR: Aliens vs Predator - Requiem
    Provides enough cheap thrills and modest suspense to shake a few shekels from genre fans before really blasting off as homevid product.
  13. Persepolis
    This autobiographical tour de force is completely accessible and art of a very high order.
  14. The Bucket List
    A feel-good film about death, a sitcom about mortality, "Ikiru" for meatheads. It's also a picture about two cancer patients confronting reality, and deciding how they want to spend their presumed last days, that has not an ounce of reality about it.
  15. The Great Debaters
    Tailor-made for maximum inspirational, historical and educational impact, The Great Debaters shines a bright spotlight on a remarkable example of black achievement long forgotten in the sorry history of the Jim Crow South.
  16. The Water Horse
    Though it strikes some predictable coming-of-age notes, this moving, well-wrought adventure should appeal to fans of "E.T." and Carroll Ballard.
  17. P.S. I Love You
    "Ghost" with a brogue, "The Notebook" without the burden of old people, this post-life comedy will have the sentimentally challenged weeping openly, while clutching desperately to the pants-legs of boyfriends and husbands who are trying to flee up the aisle.
  18. Charlie Wilson's War
    Charlie Wilson's War is that rare Hollywood commodity these days: a smart, sophisticated entertainment for grownups.
  19. National Treasure: Book of Secrets
    Graced with some extra star wattage courtesy of Helen Mirren and Ed Harris, this diminishing-returns sequel sends Nicolas Cage on another quest to strike it rich, get young auds excited about history and solve puzzles that are generally less stimulating than yesterday's Sudoku.
  20. Steep
    Like its sister films in the surfing-movie genre, the extreme-skiing movie Steep is less a documentary than a sales pitch -- not for a product or a place, but for a sport, one its practitioners feel requires pugnacious self-promotion.
  21. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
    Both sharp and fleet, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street proves a satisfying screen version of Stephen Sondheim’s landmark 1979 theatrical musical.
  22. Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
    Strums the genre for considerable laughs, with John C. Reilly playing the title balladeer from teen to senior citizen, generating enough goodwill to offset the flat sections and a decidedly juvenile streak.
  23. Alvin and the Chipmunks
    A harmless and frequently humorous trifle.
  24. I Am Legend
    Remarkably eerie yet annoyingly larded with cheap horror-film shock effects, I Am Legend stands as an effective but also irksome adaptation of Richard Matheson's classic 1954 sci-fi novel.
  25. The Kite Runner
    While the largely unknown cast and subtitled dialogue may present a marketing challenge, they also create a feeling of authenticity in this poignant, intimate epic, which should attract a strong following among discerning audiences.
  26. Look
    Conceit often stretches -- and breaks -- the limits of what the tales can handle, though the implication of viewers as voyeurs gives pic a subversive edge.
  27. Youth Without Youth
    Attempting to harness multiple genres, pic is brought down by ponderous dialogue (much of it dubbed) and an inability to connect with its characters.
  28. Outlaw
    Both the pic's power and its problems stem from Love deliberately taking no moral position nor offering any solutions; he gives his audience what it wants at a gut level and doesn't wimp out at the end.
  29. The Perfect Holiday
    Neither perfect nor much of a holiday, more like a fruitcake passed around from arthritic aunt to demented uncle -- stale, predictable and made with fossilized ingredients.
  30. Nanking
    The horrific 1937-38 massacre of more than 200,000 Chinese during the early days of the Japanese occupation gets a polished presentation in Nanking.
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