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. The Boys of Baraka
    Feels achingly sad and frustratingly incomplete.
  2. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. In the Mix
    A pleasantly tuned vehicle for R&B star and budding actor Usher.
  7. Just Friends
    A surprisingly shrewd and energetic romantic comedy.
  8. 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.
  9. Yours, Mine and Ours
    Generally pleasant family-friendly fare.
  10. The Libertine
    Starting out seductive but ending up tiresome, debuting director Laurence Dunmore's pic is an honorable misfire.
  11. 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."
  12. 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.
  13. 39 Pounds of Love
    Dani Menkin's documentary tracks his odyssey, which by nature is hard to be cynical about. Still, the feature feels padded even at 70 minutes.
  14. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
    Last year's "The Prisoner of Azkaban" seemed dark, but this excellent fourth film derived from J.K. Rowling's books is the darkest "Potter" yet, intense enough to warrant a PG-13 rating.
  15. Walk the Line
    Walk the Line is a strongly acted, musically vibrant, conventionally satisfying biopic of country/rock/blues legend Johnny Cash and his second wife, June Carter.
  16. Private
    Political realities are a powerful bonus to, rather than the only reason for, Private, an emotionally gripping drama.
  17. Unveiled
    Several large leaps of faith take some of the dramatic steam out of Unveiled, an otherwise well-acted and accessible lesbian drama that also flirts with issues like loss of identity and anti-Muslim tensions.
  18. Melissa P.
    Though it’s a rare Italian film told from a female p.o.v., “Melissa P.” is pseudo-feminist at best.
  19. Zizek!
    A little bit of Slovene philosopher Slavoj Zizek goes a long way. In the verbose profile documentary Zizek! there's a lot of esoteric, eccentric theories, and little context within his globetrotting life.
  20. Aristide and the Endless Revolution
    A vital if less than objective slice of film journalism on the U.S.'s troubled history in the Third World.
  21. Breakfast on Pluto
    Despite numerous surface pleasures, including a beguiling pop soundtrack and presence of rising star Cillian Murphy in the lead role, dramatic shortcomings spell a mixed overall reception.
  22. Gilles' Wife
    Told primarily via body language and facial expressions with a minimum of dialogue, beautifully observed, emotionally intense tale is an ambitious and rewarding outing for Frederic Fonteyne.
  23. The Syrian Bride
    Ambitious screenplay by helmer Eran Riklis (best known outside Israel for "Cup Final") and former journalist Suha Arraf puts plenty of human flesh on its characters, who span the religious and cultural spectrum of Golan Heights dwellers.
  24. Undertaking Betty
    An enjoyable and entertainingly cast fable about love, death and fitting revenge, "Plots With a View" (AKA Undertaking Betty) strikes a near-miraculous balance between the silly and the morbid.
  25. Pride & Prejudice
    A movie for the age, and a keeper for the ages, Pride & Prejudice brings Jane Austen's best-loved novel to vivid, widescreen life, as well as making an undisputed star of 20-year-old Keira Knightley.
  26. Derailed
    This murky psychological suspenser manages the tricky feat of being as predictable as it is finally preposterous.
  27. Zathura: A Space Adventure
    Its unwieldy title notwithstanding, Zathura: A Space Adventure is arguably the best adaptation of a Chris Van Allsburg book to date.
  28. Bee Season
    The film is ice cold, never finding a way to invite the viewer into the story, and Richard Gere doesn't convince as a Jewish biblical scholar.
  29. Ellie Parker
    Without Watts, Scott Coffey's feature-length expansion of his identically titled short wouldn't amount to much.
  30. Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic
    Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic showcases the comic-actress in her familiar on-stage persona as a blithely self-involved Jewish American Princess whose penchant for perky vulgarity can be explosively funny or unnervingly shocking.
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