Variety's Scores

Select another publication »
For 17,840 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 2.3 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: 9,167 out of 17840
  2. Mixed: 7,035 out of 17840
  3. Negative: 1,638 out of 17840
17840 movie reviews
view
per page
  1. 80 for Brady
    Kyle Marvin’s directorial debut is a pleasant enough reminder that these gals are still game for a good time.
  2. Players
    Trish Sie’s middling and at times mawkish film not only makes us hate the game, but also its players.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Breathless
    A suitably jazzy, sexy, entertainment.
  4. National Champions
    As timely as last night’s episode of “ESPN Sports Center,” and as riveting as a well-crafted tick-tock suspenser, National Champions adroitly avoids most of the pitfalls common to conventional “message movies” by raising and debating issues in the context of a solid and involving drama that can be enjoyed even by people who couldn’t tell an offside kick from a cheerleader’s cartwheel.
  5. We Are the Giant
    A surfeit of harrowing on-the-ground footage during protest crackdowns, plus the protagonists’ testimonies, make for a frequently inspiring and exciting documentary. But helmer Greg Barker (“Ghosts of Rwanda”) also risks pretentiousness in various forms of stylistic and thematic overreach, while providing viewers scant explanatory info on the regional conflicts.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Black Hole
    What ensues is sometimes talky but never dull. Director Gary Nelson’s pacing and visual sense are right on target.
  7. Waiting for the Barbarians
    Coetzee’s novel, with its measured, interiorized voice and sparse, incrementally devastating narrative, was never an obvious fit for film treatment. After a stiffly mannered, overwritten first act, however, Waiting for the Barbarians gradually gains in poetry and power, while Mark Rylance’s lead performance, as a liberal-minded colonial official undermined and overwhelmed by his tyrannical superiors, gives proceedings a quiet but firm moral core.
  8. The Christmas Chronicles
    With its saccharine score, saturated cinematography, and trite platitudes, the film is formulaic and forgettable except for Russell’s performance as the lovable legend.
  9. Mia and the White Lion
    Despite a heartfelt sentiment that one person has the power to uproot societal structure and inspire change, and the filmmakers’ desire to raise awareness about an abhorrent practice, packaging it in a family-friendly narrative proves to be wildly problematic.
  10. A Working Man
    Jason Statham is good at his job, which explains why he keeps booking the same kinds of movies — well, that and the fact that people keep watching them.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Last Boy Scout
    There’s really nothing special about this entertaining if mindless shoot-’em-up other than an ample supply of amusing juvenile put-downs and elaborate action sequences.
  12. The Spy Who Dumped Me
    The Spy Who Dumped Me is no debacle, but it’s an over-the-top and weirdly combustible entertainment, a movie that can’t seem to decide whether it wants to be a light comedy caper or a top-heavy exercise in B-movie mega-violence.
  13. Nicky's Family
    A valuable albeit overproduced history lesson.
  14. The Sea
    Though solidly crafted, with a host of well-etched performances, film is unable to establish a consistent, engaging tone.
  15. Atlantis: The Lost Empire
    Recycles familiar adventure and cartoon devices with minimal wit and flair, and the lack of imagination will seem all the more dramatic to audiences in comparison to the winningly sophisticated "Shrek."
  16. Dopamine
    A dweeby and unenchanting concoction as romantic comedies go, Mark Decena's debut feature also juggles enough storylines to fill five or six movies in barely 80 minutes of screen time, ending up with a whole distinctly less than the sum of its parts.
  17. Secondhand Lions
    May score higher with parents than the kids they bring in tow. Writer-director Tim McCanlies' ("Dancer, Texas Pop. 81") feel-good celebration of youth and old age enriching each other is carefully leavened with humor.
  18. A Horrible Way to Die
    Where helmer Adam Wingard's prior "Pop Skull" used a jittery style to convey its delusional, possibly meth-addled protagonist's mindset, here, too much handheld camera wobble and wavering image focus only alienate the viewer from this somewhat sluggish tale.
  19. Tai Chi Zero
    Manages the curious feat of being at once relentlessly energetic and almost continually uninvolving; the title more or less sums up the amount of pleasure to be had here.
  20. Ping Pong Summer
    A sweetly amusing ode to the underdog sports movies that proliferated during that widely derided decade.
  21. Justin Bieber: Never Say Never
    As much a legitimate documentary as it is a 3D concert film and teen girl squeal-delivery device, the film possesses surprising moments of candor on the toil of teenage superstardom.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Watcher in the Woods
    The acting and writing are barely professional but the art direction, especially Alan Hume’s stunning camerawork, gives the pic a gloss.
  23. Be Kind Rewind
    It's a quick trip from whimsy to silliness in Be Kind Rewind, a notably ephemeral work by Michel Gondry, whose flights of fancy can't overcome the egregious illogic of the premise.
  24. Fallen
    As a high-concept mating of two familiar genres, the police story and the supernatural thriller, "Fallen," Gregory Hoblit's sophomore effort, is a movie that might frustrate aficionados of both genres, despite some strong elements.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Jamaica Inn
    Superb direction, excellent casting, expressive playing and fine production offset an uneven screenplay to make Jamaica Inn a gripping version of the Daphne du Maurier novel.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Wild at Heart
    Joltingly violent, wickedly funny and rivetingly erotic, David Lynch's Wild at Heart [based on the novel by Barry Gifford] is a rollercoaster ride to redemption through an American gothic heart of darkness.
  27. Every Day
    There’s a playfulness to Every Day, to how the film says to its audience — through the very structure of its Afterschool Special sci-fi design — that if you want to find love, you’ve got to look beyond the surface.
  28. Casa de mi Padre
    A likable enough lark that rarely achieves outright hilarity.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Hook
    Hook feels as much like a massive amusement park ride as it does a film. Spirited, rambunctious, often messy and undisciplined.
  30. 300
    A blustery, bombastic, visually arresting account of the Battle of Thermopylae as channeled through the rabid imagination of graphic novelist Frank Miller.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »