Variety's Scores

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For 17,810 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: 9,150 out of 17810
  2. Mixed: 7,023 out of 17810
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17810
17810 movie reviews
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  1. Little Children
    Like "In the Bedroom," Little Children, at well over two hours, is somewhat long for an intense, intimate drama, and arguments could run many ways concerning what could be tightened or excised.
  2. Employee of the Month
    Falling short of being truly memorable but sharper than the general slagheap of comedies.
  3. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning
    Liebesman hews close to the 2003 pic’s bile-tinged snuff-film aesthetic. His approach falls somewhere between the overwrought sadism of the “Saw” series and the giddy gore-for-gore’s-sake energy of “The Devil’s Rejects,” sharing those films’ twisted notion that today’s auds are willing to embrace such homicidal maniacs as heroes.
  4. 49 Up
    It doesn't make for involving drama, unless the audience is already invested in the subjects' fortunes. Thus, 49 Up will have more appeal for long-time followers than newcomers.
  5. Black Gold
    The Francises are aces behind the camera, displaying an elegant sense of composition that makes their subject visually ravishing. Andreas Kapsalis' gorgeous score lends doc a grand quality.
  6. El Cortez
    An ambitious, low-budget neo-noir, Stephen Purvis' El Cortez navigates the genre's tawdry twists and crosses and double-crosses with intermittent flair.
  7. Kettle of Fish
    Pic contains its share of viable gags and stars generate a certain degree of convincing chemistry. But eventually, the seams in personality design and artificially stitched-together script construction begin to show.
  8. Shortbus
    Unquestionably the most sexually graphic American narrative feature ever made outside the realm of the porn industry, John Cameron Mitchell's ambitious attempt to merge his characters' active sexual lives with more conventional emotional content is playfully and provocatively entertaining for roughly the first half, but loses staying power thereafter when investment in the uncompelling characters' problems is requested.
  9. Blood Tea and Red String
    Often grotesque, though never in the "Sick and Twisted" juvenile gross-out mode, dreamlike feature is as lovingly crafted as it is unsettlingly sour-sweet, with Mark Growden's avant-garde folk score in perfect synch.
  10. ...So Goes the Nation
    Neither newly revelatory nor formally innovative.
  11. Wrestling with Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner
    A golden opportunity to analyze the most vital and probably most creative contempo American playwright is missed in Freida Lee Mock's docu, Wrestling With Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner. Kushner's art demands a filmmaker of equally challenging artistry, able to plumb an opus based in polemics, politics and Brecht, instead of psychodrama.
  12. The Queen
    Tradition and informality collide -- and mutually benefit -- in the deliciously written and expertly played The Queen.
  13. The Guardian
    The overlong but involving drama has obvious cross-generational appeal.
  14. Open Season
    A witty, warmly crafted chestnut.
  15. School for Scoundrels
    Picture seemed certain to either fly high on outrageous humor or crash under the weight of tastelessness. Instead, the movie just sits there and never comes alive.
  16. Facing the Giants
    For those who felt insufficiently uplifted by "Invincible" and "Gridiron Gang," here comes Facing the Giants, an aggressively inspirational drama about a born-again high school football coach.
  17. A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints
    Writer-director Montiel creates a movie of many parts that don't always congeal. Mix this with the many meaty scenes and a roster of often exceptional actors and the effect is one of a fabulous acting showcase more than a wholly finished work.
  18. loudQUIETloud: A Film About the Pixies
    Picture is targeted at the already initiated, but directors Steve Cantor and Matthew Galkin deftly resolve one often glaring problem with tribute documentaries -- making those who might not care do so.
  19. Be with Me
    A curate's egg of a movie that starts intriguingly but becomes increasingly frustrating.
  20. Broken Sky
    Though the bold treatment of homoerotic love in Mexican helmer Julian Hernandez's feature bow Broken Sky is sure to grab attention, it doesn't take long before the picture's torturously slow pace turns an earnest effort into a tedious aesthetic exercise.
  21. The Last King of Scotland
    In the end, The Last King of Scotland is much better when it plays it cool and amusing than when it tries to ramp up outrage and indignation.
  22. All the King's Men
    Overstuffed and fatally miscast, All the King's Men never comes to life.
  23. Flyboys
    Lovingly and knowledgeably made by director Tony Bill, who got his pilot's license as a teenager, pic nonetheless has a lightweight, airbrushed feel; despite the brutal dogfights and inevitable deaths, there's little gravity or resonance.
  24. Jackass Number Two
    This stunningly shameless follow-up to the 2002 theatrical sleeper (and homdevid mega-seller) offers more of the same -- a lot more -- while repeatedly upping the ante in terms of offensiveness. Which, of course, should greatly -- and profitably -- please is target aud.
  25. Fearless
    Manages to pack a satisfying emotional punch.
  26. Feast
    Forgettable fun for the undiscriminating.
  27. Jesus Camp
    May shock many viewers, especially political liberals.
  28. American Hardcore
    Excellent documentary American Hardcore chronicles the short-lived but influential musical moment when a defiantly anti-commercial underground put a distinctive U.S. stamp on the hitherto Brit-driven punk movement.
  29. The Science of Sleep
    With Mexican star Gael Garcia Bernal energetically playing a vulnerable graphic artist with a hyperactive imagination and little confidence with women, picture has an overriding quality of sweetness that will prove endearing to audiences, especially younger females.
  30. Renaissance
    A melancholy actioner that shines a new light on film noir. A sort of "The Third Man" for the 21st century, chiaroscuro curio's level of graphic invention is exceeded only by its pleasingly mournful approach.
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