Variety's Scores

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For 17,807 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: 9,148 out of 17807
  2. Mixed: 7,022 out of 17807
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17807
17807 movie reviews
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  1. The Grace Lee Project
    Trivial-sounding hook manages to float a funny but complex meditation on identity, ethnicity and cultural expectations that should be as accessible to teens as adults.
  2. Brokeback Mountain
    This ostensible gay Western is marked by a heightened degree of sensitivity and tact, as well as an outstanding performance from Heath Ledger.
  3. Memoirs of a Geisha
    From a filmmaking point of view, this is a work that the old Hollywood moguls themselves would have been proud to present.
  4. Mrs Henderson Presents
    A bigscreen feature executed with a cookie-cutter small-screen sensibility, this often charming but untextured fact-based period piece is buoyed along by the redoubtable Judi Dench.
  5. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
    An array of supporting craftspeople pull the viewer into a credible alternative world, even if the film itself is more prosaic than inspiring.
  6. Marebito (The Stranger from Afar)
    Japanese horror doesn't get more tedious.
  7. The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear
    A superb, eye-opening and often absurdly funny deconstruction of the myths and realities of global terrorism that is marked by a balance, broadmindedness and sense of historical perspective so absent from many recent political-themed documentaries.
  8. Moonlight
    Menacing atmosphere created by Dutch helmer Paula van der Oest ("Zus & Zo") does not make up for the weak script's multiple improbabilities, flat dialogue or the discomfort of watching children, the handicapped and even animals being abused onscreen.
  9. Isn't This a Time! A Tribute Concert for Harold Leventhal
    Timely and entertaining concert documentary.
  10. Neal 'N' Nikki
    Fluff is hardly the word for Neal 'n' Nikki, a mismatched romantic comedy that makes most Bollywood twosomes look like art movies.
  11. Days of Santiago
    Though convincingly set in the lower depths of Lima, the story embodies a universal truth about the experience of former soldiers in many times and places.
  12. The World's Fastest Indian
    Sometimes shticky biopic overcomes its cornball conventionality to become a genial entertainment, thanks to Anthony Hopkins' exceptionally engaging performance.
  13. No Pain, No Gain
    Painfully sincere yet hopelessly amateurish dramedy.
  14. Æon Flux
    The future looks alternately grim and hysterical in Aeon Flux, a spectacularly silly sci-fier that plays like "The Matrix" crossed with "The Island" and reinterpreted as a long-lost Michael Jackson video.
  15. Transamerica
    Laugh-out-loud funny, tartly off-color and ultimately touching.
  16. First Descent
    Pic displays filmmakers Kevin Harrison's and Kemp Curley's love of snowboarding, but suffers from an unjustifiably long running time, considerable repetition and a generally awkward structure.
  17. The Kid & I
    It's the weird proximity of fact and fiction that could push this Penelope Spheeris-directed comedy into another cultish realm entirely.
  18. Be Here to Love Me: A Film About Townes Van Zandt
    A dignified and wistful look at the unusual life, difficult career and lasting influence of singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt.
  19. The Boys of Baraka
    Feels achingly sad and frustratingly incomplete.
  20. Down to the Bone
    First-time feature director's disciplined objectivity is coupled with humanism in this collaboration with a gifted cast and cinematographer. The artistic success, though, may be a bit too cool.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Mrs Palfrey at The Claremont
    A low-key drama with comedic undertones that will appeal to older auds, arthouse patrons, and Joan Plowright fans.
  22. Seamless
    Unlike "Unzipped," with its single focus on the charismatic Mizrahi, Seamless follows three of the 10 finalists, furnishing a quietly fascinating contrast in persona, approach and design.
  23. The Ice Harvest
    Fine thesping in the service of characters as meaty as they are immoral makes this material a treat for grown up audiences with an ear for sardonic dialogue.
  24. In the Mix
    A pleasantly tuned vehicle for R&B star and budding actor Usher.
  25. Just Friends
    A surprisingly shrewd and energetic romantic comedy.
  26. Rent
    Director Chris Columbus has pasted the grungy "La Boheme" update onto film with slavish respect for the original material but a shortage of stylistic imagination and raw emotions.
  27. Yours, Mine and Ours
    Generally pleasant family-friendly fare.
  28. The Libertine
    Starting out seductive but ending up tiresome, debuting director Laurence Dunmore's pic is an honorable misfire.
  29. Syriana
    A weighty and deeply intriguing look at the many-tentacled beast that is the international oil industry. Wide-ranging and restlessly probing, Stephen Gaghan's second directorial effort uses the same mosaic storytelling technique as in his Oscar-winning screenplay for "Traffic."
  30. Streets of Legend
    Due to digital image manipulation that pushes the picture to the boundary between narrative and avant-garde filmmaking, slightly overlong effort is full of striking, fresh visual interludes showing cars, speed and the sensations surrounding the scene.
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