Variety's Scores

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For 17,832 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: 9,164 out of 17832
  2. Mixed: 7,031 out of 17832
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17832
17832 movie reviews
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  1. Sky Blue
    The pic plays like one long chase. Nevertheless, fashioned with ultra-sophisticated means, Sky Blue will be a must-see for anime fans around the world.
  2. Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land
    Pedantic, humorless and one-sided -- qualities that won't encourage exposure beyond the activist left.
  3. In Satmar Custody
    Potentially shocking expose is weakened by one-sided reportage that leaves too many questions unanswered.
  4. Almost Brothers
    Unfortunately, Murat's decision to jump back and forth in time makes the film hard to follow for even the most committed viewer.
  5. Yau doh lung fu bong
    A disjointed story of self-discovery, courage and redemption somewhat incongruously billed as a salute to Akira Kurosawa.
  6. Young Rebels
    In striving simultaneously to cover the transplanted rap scene, sample a wide range of groups, and give an unbiased picture of Cuban society, helmers Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, who have hitherto worked in short-form, blur the overall shape of their picture.
  7. Finding Eleazar
    Will be of keen interest to fans but plays to the unwashed as cringingly pompous.
  8. I am Cuba, the Siberian Mammoth
    Pic's rediscovery in the capitalist U.S., and its reappraisal as a masterpiece of visual pyrotechnics, gives Brazilian documaker Vicente Ferraz's tale an upbeat final twist -- after some mid-film doldrums.
  9. America Brown
    Name cast, occasional deft touches and nifty contrast between the two locales cannot overcome script's terminal awkwardness.
  10. 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.
  11. Desert Wind
    Far from encouraging "Survivor"-style competitiveness, the desert setting serves as a serene Club Med-type backdrop to the all-male bonding.
  12. Peaceful Warrior
    Mere recitation of homilies for better living -- which is what Nick Nolte's gas station guru imparts to a struggling young gymnast -- and a half-baked account of the athlete's comeback are no substitutes for a complete movie.
  13. Autumn
    Francophile film buffs and obsessive deconstructionists might be amused, but less indulgent auds will find derivative pic artificial and mannered.
  14. Slow Jam King
    Rambling road-trip comedy Slow Jam King offers agreeable shenanigans as three mismatched characters find themselves stuck together on a long drive from New York City to Nashville.
  15. A/k/a Tommy Chong
    While the picture's reporting on government repression of alternative cultural ideas and lifestyles is noteworthy more than anything, it's a blatant promo for Chong's career.
  16. Guernsey
    Ravishingly lensed, widescreen pic's purely cinematic qualities slightly outstrip its narrative ones as central protag, as a result of the apparent suicide, slowly -- very slowly -- questions whether the aspects of her own marriage she thought were cast in stone may be made of less sturdy material.
  17. Wrestling with Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner
    A golden opportunity to analyze the most vital and probably most creative contempo American playwright is missed in Freida Lee Mock's docu, Wrestling With Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner. Kushner's art demands a filmmaker of equally challenging artistry, able to plumb an opus based in polemics, politics and Brecht, instead of psychodrama.
  18. I Have Never Forgotten You: The Life & Legacy of Simon Wiesenthal
    Since the documentary will likely find its home in the educational market, a more balanced approach might have made it more insightful and educational.
  19. Resilience
    Arthouse audiences who welcome challenging material will find sustenance in film's fractured narrative and unflinching characterizations.
  20. Stolen Childhoods
    In its reliance on emotionally loaded voiceover and its disconcertingly direct appeals for support, Len Morris' old-fashioned docu seems more designed for fund-raising pitches than theatrical release.
  21. The Color of Olives
    Mexican helmer Carolina Rivas obviously intends her slow-paced and contemplative doc as a testimony to the indomitability of the human spirit under dire circumstances.
  22. Masai: The Rain Warriors
    Overall, film may feel too slow and didactic for contempo urban kids conditioned by video games. However, the script is never smarmy or complacent, and shows young people engaged in collective problem-solving and decision-making that is often, quite literally, a matter of life and death.
  23. Glastonbury
    While one can appreciate helmer's resistance to a conventional, chronological overview, what emerges is a long, structureless muddle that does justice to neither the stellar acts nor changing countercultural times event has encompassed.
  24. Summer in Berlin
    The modest splash made by Andreas Dresen's Dogme-styled 2002 drama "Grill Point" raised expectations his projects since haven't quite met, including the new Summer in Berlin.
  25. The Changeling
    As a stripped-to-essentials "canned theater" version of a classic Jacobean drama, The Changeling likely will prove most useful as a teaching tool in college-level drama courses.
  26. Fay Grim
    A strange international odyssey that becomes more complicated and loony by the moment. Some viewers will undoubtedly tune out early, others will follow as far as they can -- and a privileged few might make it all the way.
  27. Hollywood Dreams
    Though it boasts slightly more narrative structure than his other work, Jaglom's script still serves as a catalyst for wild improvisation, suggesting the inside-jokey result was more fun to make than to watch.
  28. Orange Winter
    The documentary works best when it simply offers a concise and cogent account of epochal events.
  29. Miriam
    Despite troubling sexual themes (while in hiding, Miriam is raped by her protector), this remarkable, albeit unpolished, personal history may prove appropriate for religious or teaching purposes.
  30. Lights in the Dusk
    Lights in the Dusk finds veteran Finnish helmer Aki Kaurismaki treading water with an amiable but very undercooked noirish fable about a security guard done wrong by a femme fatale.
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