Variety's Scores

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For 17,791 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: 9,139 out of 17791
  2. Mixed: 7,015 out of 17791
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17791
17791 movie reviews
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  1. A Good Year
    A simple repast consisting of sometimes strained slapsticky comedy, a sweet romance and a life lesson learned, this little picnic doesn't amount to much but goes down easily enough.
  2. Harsh Times
    A psychotic seizure of a performance by Christian Bale dominates Harsh Times, the directorial debut of David Ayer that channels "Taxi Driver."
  3. The Return
    Forgettable PG-13 pic will particularly strike fans of harder-edged recent horror pix as much ado about not much.
  4. Stranger Than Fiction
    Sometimes becomes too self-consciously clever, and it doesn't entirely resolve its own central dilemma. But it remains inventive and funny to the end, features fine performances from Will Ferrell and especially Emma Thompson.
  5. Iraq in Fragments
    As beautiful as it is unrevealing, James Longley's Iraq in Fragments rests on a debatable but firm premise -- that the embattled country is irrevocably separated by its three dominant groups, Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds -- but brings back nothing journalistically substantial from the war front .
  6. Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus
    Picture is impressively crafted and acted but far too narrowly and benignly conceived to satisfy even on its own terms.
  7. Come Early Morning
    Despite her (Judd's) efforts and those of a generally talented cast, picture just pokes along and offers nothing out of the ordinary in terms of drama, characterization or insight. Judd's presence notwithstanding, this one would be more at home on small than on big screens.
  8. Color of the Cross
    Once the revisionist frisson of a black Jesus, not to mention Mary, Joseph and Judas, has worn off, one is stuck with more mundane matters such as story dynamics, visual style and character verisimilitude, much to the misfortune of the audience.
  9. The Cave of the Yellow Dog
    Davaa's strong visual sense, engaging cast and respect for basic film grammar make this slim exercise in managed reality go the distance.
  10. Copying Beethoven
    Helmer Agnieszka Holland's Copying Beethoven joins 1994's "Immortal Beloved" in the ranks of mediocre dramatic interpretations of Beethoven's biography.
  11. Captive
    Gripping drama.
  12. Fuck
    The offensive word that provides the title for Steven Anderson's penetrating documentary/social critique has either enriched or infected Western culture to the point that we're either drowning in a "floodtide of filth" or blessed with the best verbal relief valve ever devised by man.
  13. Night of the Living Dead 3D
    A juiceless quasi-remake of George Romero's 1968 classic that, cardboard glasses aside, brings absolutely nothing new to the party.
  14. Coffee Date
    Full of unlikely misunderstandings.
  15. Linda Linda Linda
    This aimless, lifeless time-killer about four teenage girls prepping for their rock-band gig in a school talent show proves entirely the wrong choice.
  16. The Magic Gloves
    Sporadically charming and quite amusing, but torpidly paced.
  17. Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
    Uproariously funny mockumentary.
  18. Flushed Away
    Result is a kidpic long on invention but short on likability.
  19. The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause
    Not unlike the shiny snow globe at its center, The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause is a thing of consummate craftsmanship, a smoothly engineered and fundamentally lifeless object that's nevertheless capable of giving even the grinchiest moviegoers a brief attack of the warm-and-fuzzies.
  20. Volver
    Peopled with superbly drawn, attractive characters smoothly integrated into a well-turned, low-tricks plotline, Volver may rep Almodovar's most conventional piece to date, but it is also his most reflective, a subdued, sometimes intense and often comic homecoming that celebrates the pueblo and people that shaped his imagination.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Shottas
    Gangster tale Shottas feels like a Jamaican "Scarface," offering a vivid slice of the underground street culture of Kingston. Still, the violence is senseless and the plot full of holes.
  22. Wondrous Oblivion
    Full of charming moments, but swinging hither and thither between mainstream entertainment and an over-cooked anti-racist tract.
  23. Commune
    Often mocked and rarely understood, the movement in communal living that blossomed with Flower Power in the '60s gets its most honest appraisal yet on film with Jonathan Berman's Commune.
  24. Death and Texas
    Audiences won't show much clemency toward Death & Texas, an uneasy (and very unfunny) marriage of sports culture satire and death penalty polemic.
  25. Unknown
    Brand has assembled a cast of world class improvisers, yet doesn't take advantage of their own particularized, inflected rhythms, as each ritualistically experiences a jump-cut fragmentary flashback in front of the same bathroom mirror.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Great Warming
    A more diffuse and prettier case for global calamity that accents the positive and stresses the possibility of reversing the planet's headlong rush to extinction.
  27. En soap
    Casts an entrancing spell thanks to understated perfs by leads and Christensen's featherlight touch with Kim Fupz Aakeson's screenplay.
  28. Romántico
    Engrossing pic is impressively shot, edited and scored.
  29. Babel
    Effectively building dread and emotional tension as tragic incidents triggered by human stupidity and carelessness steadily multiply, this film, like "21 Grams" in particular, employs a deterministically grim mindset in the cause of its philosophical aspirations, but is gripping nearly all the way.
  30. Catch a Fire
    Stories of resistance to oppression will never become obsolete, but this feels like a picture that should have been made a long time ago.
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