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. Lourdes
    Either a subtly subversive black comedy, a deeply spiritual portrait of physical rebirth or a whole lot of nothing in a self-consciously arty package, Lourdes isn't about to reveal its true colors anytime soon.
  2. The Ghost Writer
    What the picture most needed was a complete cinematic rethink and, yes, even some action to move it along.
  3. Dancing Across Borders
    Dancing Across Borders, Anne Bass' uneven docu debut, traces the fortunes of Cambodian ballet dancer Sokvannara "Sy" Sar from the time Bass first discovered him performing traditional temple dances at Angkor Wat to his conquests on the world stage.
  4. The Last Song
    A soapy meller that transitions the young pop star from the Disney Channel to the bigscreen while giving girls what they'd seem to want and nothing more.
  5. Don McKay
    A film noir set mostly in broad daylight, Don McKay, writer-director Jake Goldberger's mild riff on "Double Indemnity," etc., works best as a showcase for its veteran cast, particularly Elisabeth Shue.
  6. Leaves of Grass
    A mixed bag of often mismatched ideas.
  7. Breaking Upwards
    Happily, "Upwards" picks up immeasurably when three legit luminaries (Andrea Martin, Julie White, Peter Friedman) enter the picture as the couple's parents.
  8. La mission
    Rather predictable in its major plot points and social-issue pleadings, the picture is better suited to cable than the big screen, but nonetheless offers solid drama with nice streaks of humor, warmth and local color.
  9. The Cartel
    A lopsided whine about the state of American public schools, The Cartel is a lesson in dichotomous documaking: Effervescent and tedious, crusading and craven, it's a prime example of that ubiquitous oxymoron: the agenda-driven "expose."
  10. The City of Your Final Destination
    Languid, multi-accented adaptation of the contempo novel by Peter Cameron suffers from an unfocused screenplay and direction.
  11. Handsome Harry
    Beginning promisingly enough, "Handsome" soon turns monotonously angst-ridden, with all humor and personality falling by the wayside.
  12. Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll
    Paul Viragh's script is too bitty to hold it all together, and filigrees of technique fail to disguise the weaknesses in helmer Mat Whitecross' first solo flight.
  13. The Lightkeepers
    Such predictable pap is generally better suited for romance novels or Lifetime movies. Here, it's elevated somewhat by a decent cast.
  14. Ocean of Pearls
    This mix of tepid hospital intrigue plus underdeveloped cultural/relationship conflicts feels like a routine TV episode stretched to feature length, with little dramatic urgency or cinematic style to render its good intentions compelling.
  15. Predators
    Perfs are adequate in a movie lacking much use for better ones, though Brody disappoints by using the stock sotto voce rasp of the uber-macho action hero who really, really means business.
  16. Trash Humpers
    Pity the festival-going fool who stumbles unawares into Harmony Korine's patently abrasive, deliberately cruddy-looking mock-documentary Trash Humpers. All others -- that is, those familiar with Korine's anti-bourgeois oeuvre and know what they're in for -- will have a glorious time.
  17. Metropia
    The characters at first seem photorealistic, but their faces barely move. There are good, basic sci-fi ideas in the script, but they're not satisfyingly developed.
  18. Holy Rollers
    Asch's first feature is intelligent, respectable yet curiously muted in tone and impact, never fully catching the viewer up in either its crime saga or its account of individual rebellion within an insular religious community.
  19. John Rabe
    Despite the emotive subject matter, picture is often too sluggish dramatically, and never knits together its stock Western characters into a satisfying whole.
  20. Two in the Wave
    The demoralizing slide of the relationship between Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard, from artistic comrades-in-arms during the thrilling creation of the nouvelle vague to name-calling enemies from the early '70s onward, is charted in overly academic and constricted fashion in Two in the Wave.
  21. Finding Bliss
    This mildly amusing, resolutely inoffensive outing lacks serious sexual tension -- which might just make it a viable compromise date pick in limited release.
  22. Burzynski
    Despite its infotainment look, Burzynski ultimately proves convincing.
  23. Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky
    On a dramatic level, Dutch-born helmer Jan Kounen's hyper-stylized, emotionally vacuous film is like a pair of designer pants that look great but don't fit, or a rare vinyl recording that keeps skipping at the best parts.
  24. Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole
    Though visually stunning and blessed with immaculate 3D work, film is fatally bogged down by tackling an essentially ridiculous premise (gladiator-attired owls fight genocide) with stony solemnity, and by subsisting on a note of sustained menace and terror in what is ostensibly a children's film.
  25. Love Ranch
    A tawdry look at the early days of Nevada's legalized brothel business that plays more like Lifetime fodder than the Martin Scorsese pictures that serve as its model.
  26. The Girl Who Played with Fire
    This subpar Nordic crimer, leaves ample room for improvement for the inevitable U.S. remake.
  27. The Other Guys
    The laughs ultimately take a backseat to a convoluted white-collar crime story.
  28. Ramona and Beezus
    It's not the personal, distinctive portrait of misfit girlhood it could have been.
  29. Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel
    This fawning docu goes to lengths to portray the octogenarian Playboy magazine founder as among the greatest figures of 20th-century American popular culture, while only cursorily acknowledging his status as a pioneering softcore pornographer.
  30. 36 vues du Pic Saint Loup
    Will interest Rivette admirers at fests and in the niche arena but will do nothing to broaden his appeal.
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