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. Al otro lado
    Viewers unaware of the music --hugely popular among Mexicans -- and the often intensely nationalist sentiments behind it, may blanch at the open chauvinism and celebration of outlaw lifestyles. But part of the pic's strength is its presenting the cultural strain as it is, without comment.
  2. Tsotsi
    Powered by a pounding soundtrack of dance hall Kwaito music, the pic has vital, urban energy similar to the Brazilian crossover "City of God" but with a tauter, more conventional storyline.
  3. Madea's Family Reunion
    Tyler Perry offers another blithely unbalanced mix of low comedy, sudsy sentiment and spiritual uplift in Madea's Family Reunion.
  4. Running Scared
    There's no denying that viewers not prepared for the relentless stream of nasty personalities, profane invective and bone-crunching violence are in for a very long sit.
  5. Dirty
    The cop genre receives a shot of adrenaline in helmer Chris Fisher's Dirty, a no-nonsense dramatic response to the LAPD Rampart scandals of the '90s.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Little Fish
    Blessed with stellar performances, especially by lead Cate Blanchett as an ex-junkie looking for a fresh break, this sophomore feature by Australian director Rowan Woods marks a strong return after his powerful debut, "The Boys" (1998).
  7. Unknown White Male
    Bruce's efforts to retrace and recover his life after his memory loss contain all the drama and uncertainty of a fine psychological drama.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Black Orpheus
    Pic is somewhat cerebral, being mainly helped by the fresh playing of the cast, especially Yank actress Dawn. Color is excellent, and director Marcel Camus gives this movement. (Review of Original Release)
  9. Forgiving Dr. Mengele
    An impressively polished documentary by Bob Hercules and Cheri Hughes. Perhaps even more thought-provoking than its co-helmers intended, pic is bound to spark conversations and debate.
  10. Trudell
    More hagiography than history, Heather Rae's long-in-production portrait of Native American activist and poet John Trudell has the uncritically admiring feel of authorized biography.
  11. Workingman's Death
    Pic reps a sequel of sorts to his 12-part "Megacities" about poor folk in separate burgs, and comes soaked in good old-fashioned humanist respect for the dignity of labor, but eventually grows a little monotonous.
  12. Kirikou and the Wild Beasts
    Animation, like dialogue and narration, is simple and direct. Messages of the value of teamwork, pride in shared labor, self-reliance and resourcefulness are nicely embedded into compact, suspenseful adventures.
  13. Street Fight
    Curry's courage in the face of police harassment and what seems a very real threat of something worse is amazing.
  14. Date Movie
    Arguably the lamest of all the free-wheeling genre parodies that have taken flight since "Airplane!," Date Movie is stupefyingly unfunny in its attempts to mock romantic comedies, celebrities, reality TV shows and anything else that pops into the heads of its creators.
  15. Eight Below
    An easy watch, thanks to the splendors of frosty scenery and furry canines.
  16. Freedomland
    Despite a few raw moments, pic feels like a Lifetime movie with a marquee cast.
  17. Battle in Heaven
    Both intensely exciting for its cinematic inventions and terribly uninvolving on emotional and dramatic levels.
  18. Night Watch: Nochnoi Dozor
    Russian-made pic displays pro technique and visual imagination on a par with, if not better than, Hollywood frighteners, but with a distinctive Slavic accent.
  19. The Second Chance
    The crisply made feature delivers an involving if not always persuasive portrait of religious leaders in conflict.
  20. Sophie Scholl: The Final Days
    An ace performance by 26-year-old Julia Jentsch ("The Edukators," "Snowland"), as the quietly determined Munich student who was beheaded for distributing counter-propaganda leaflets in 1943, gives pic a focused dramatic power.
  21. Winter Passing
    Family drama appears content to present the situation without going for anything remotely close to the emotional jugular. Result is unsatisfying and even dreary, despite some fine work from Zooey Deschanel and a becalmed Will Ferrell.
  22. Love
    The action is compelling, the film good looking, the acting first rate and the circumstances -- people from neglected nations in an alienating if not hostile urban landscape -- is moving.
  23. C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America
    More intriguing on paper than when it actually unspools onscreen. Kevin Willmott's small-scaled but ambitious picture is well-researched, sometimes amusing and not unintelligent.
  24. Desert Wind
    Far from encouraging "Survivor"-style competitiveness, the desert setting serves as a serene Club Med-type backdrop to the all-male bonding.
  25. Curious George
    Pitched toward the youngest of kids -- roughly ages zygote to 4 -- with direct-to-video quality animation, plotting and backgrounds.
  26. Final Destination 3
    In the story's one major stroke of invention, the usual premonitions of death have been replaced with a set of photos.
  27. Firewall
    Firewall begins slowly, exhibits hints of promise in the middle and then descends into silliness.
  28. The Pink Panther
    Neither the disaster one might have suspected nor a fully realized madcap farce; rather, Steve Martin's foray as Inspector Clouseau exhibits bursts of wild-and-craziness, but hardly enough to sustain even its relatively brief running time.
  29. The Ister
    Tyro helmers David Barison and Daniel Ross have sunk their teeth into a heady intellectual stew, and results are invigorating thanks to the filmmakers' inspired linkage of images and ideas and commentaries from three of the world's leading philosophers.
  30. London
    For those who enjoy fashion-model-looking twentysomethings yelling at each other in bathrooms while doing too much cocaine, voila! Heaven is a place called London.
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