Variety's Scores

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For 17,786 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: 9,137 out of 17786
  2. Mixed: 7,013 out of 17786
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17786
17786 movie reviews
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  1. Art School Confidential
    Despite a soulful leading performance from Max Minghella, pic feels insubstantial, echoing without equaling both the coolly ironic edge and heart of "Ghost World" and the incisive art-world outsider portrait of the director's docu feature, "Crumb."
  2. An American Haunting
    A well-made, good-looking movie it is, but between the non-stop tumult and the sense of deliberateness about its period authenticity, An American Haunting produces a lot of screaming, crying and cruelty, but not much drama.
  3. Hoot
    Squeaky-clean, family-friendly opus.
  4. Down in the Valley
    Result is imperfect and overlong, but hugely ambitious and often breathtaking.
  5. The Proposition
    Hillcoat and Cave have here found their most fertile ground yet for allegory-rich examinations of life and death in remote, pressure-cooker environments.
  6. One Last Thing...
    Plays closer to an after-school special (with HBO-standard dialogue) than a satisfying feature film.
  7. The Mistress of Spices
    Beautiful but lifeless, poetic but unelevated, The Mistress of Spices reps a brave but flawed attempt at that most unforgiving of contemporary genres, magical realism.
  8. How I Killed a Saint
    Though weak in the drama department, the story of a brother and sister who love each other but have different political ideas and personal agendas effectively captures the tension of the time.
  9. United 93
    The result is a tense, documentary-style drama that methodically builds a sense of dread despite the preordained outcome.
  10. Stick It
    Bridges gives the movie its only genuine pulse as a gym coach known for his hard and manipulative ways.
  11. Akeelah and the Bee
    This earnest weepie plays like "The Karate Kid" with a pro-literacy agenda, pushing all the right emotional buttons yet hitting quite a few wrong ones in the process.
  12. RV
    RV works up an ingratiating sweetness that partially compensates for its blunt predictability and meager laughs.
  13. Guys and Balls
    A by-the-numbers ensemble dramedy that hits every underdog and gay-fish-out-of-water cliche on the nose.
  14. The Lost City
    A handsomely produced, deeply passionate, but seriously flawed historical epic whose reach far exceeds its grasp. Somewhere inside this overlong, sometimes engaging, often tedious affair, there may be a solid, 100-minute movie.
  15. Water
    Deftly balancing epic sociopolitical scope with intimate human emotions, all polished to a high technical gloss, Deepa Mehta's Water is a profoundly moving drama.
  16. The Whore's Son
    Cool, stylized lensing by onetime Fassbinder d.p. Jurgen Jurges lifts The Whore's Son above simple meller status, but uneven character development mars this otherwise commendable feature debut by Michael Sturminger.
  17. Lady Vengeance
    A wildly inventive, highly cinematic director's showcase that looks likely, at least in the West, to enthuse fans of Asian -- especially Korean -- genre movies more than general auds.
  18. Killer Diller
    Premise is formulaic and execution is predictable, but Brock maintains a lively pace while eliciting first-rate work from thesps.
  19. Havana Suite
    The surprisingly watchable delight strikes universal chords.
  20. Police Beat
    Distinctive, physically ravishing indie is a natural for fests, but it's questionable whether this sometimes involving, sometimes obscure pic will have appeal beyond the specialty market.
  21. The Death of Mr. Lazarescu
    Picture's dour take on the dehumanizing process of medical treatment is leavened by black humor and dialogue that always rings true.
  22. Three Times
    Less accessible than recent "Cafe Lumiere," picture will appeal strongly to fans.
  23. American Dreamz
    Combining a gallery of targets including President Bush, "American Idol," the Iraq War and the overarching theme of a nation of citizens held in the thrall of phony dreams, pic and its ambitions are undermined by insistent cartoonishness and comic ineptitude.
  24. The Sentinel
    A half-hearted exercise in political paranoia, The Sentinel unravels its wrong-man scenario with business-like efficiency and an impressively jittery visual scheme, but falls far short of providing visceral or emotional thrills.
  25. Silent Hill
    In the end, Silent Hill degenerates into an overblown replay of all those "Twilight Zone" and Stephen King stories in which outsiders stumble upon a time-warped location from which there's no escape.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Somersault
    Sexual compulsion accelerates adolescent angst in the arty Down Under drama, but while Shortland shows a notable eye for detail, her distracted approach to narrative and an attitude to her characters that's cold as the movie's snowfields make pic most likely to be embraced by serious-minded fest auds.
  27. Mongolian Ping Pong
    A charming but overextended yarn about some prairie tykes who mistake a table-tennis ball for a glowing pearl from the gods.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Repulsion (re-release)
    Repulsion is a classy, truly horrific psychological drama in which Polish director Roman Polanski draws out a remarkable performance from young French thesp, Catherine Deneuve. (Review of Original Release)
  29. The Celestine Prophecy
    Celestine Prophecy demands all skepticism be left in the lobby. That's a leap few may be willing to take -- few beyond those millions who bought the book, that is.
  30. In Her Line of Fire
    With Mariel Hemingway a credible Sapphic Stallone, this passable action trash should satisfy as fun original programming for gay-targeted Here! cable net.
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