Variety's Scores

For 17,779 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:
17779 movie reviews
  1. Stays resolutely grounded thanks to miscasting of Juliette Binoche and Jean Reno as the leads and a script that contrarily breaks every rule of the genre.
  2. Solidly entertaining for those who like their dialogue crisp and with a main verb in every sentence.
  3. Competently made but unconvincing melodrama.
  4. An attempt to merge a semi-jokey buddy movie with a more realistic account of cops' messy private lives, Hollywood Homicide falls short on both counts.
  5. Screechily abrasive and sorely lacking in elements that engage the imagination.
  6. A savvy, fast-paced political thriller dealing with the meteoric rise and fall of a new Russian businessman.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Provocative, well-shot and vastly entertaining in its malice.
  7. Fitfully amusing prequel.
  8. Doesn't ring true as a love story between a cocky scam artist and a clever biology student, despite a game effort by Charlotte Ayanna in an impossible role and Adrien Brody at his loosest.
  9. While this John Singleton-directed sequel provides a breezy enough joyride, it lacks the unassuming freshness and appealing neighborhood feel of the economy-priced original.
  10. Combines straightforward coming-of-age narrative with Maori mysticism to most engaging effect.
  11. Michele Maher's Garmento appears more shocked at the fashion industry's cynical side than moviegoers are likely to be, making its drama of corruption a preordained snooze.
  12. Assembled in a straightforward, television-style presentation that gets the better of it.
  13. Fresh and offbeat tale of vendetta.
  14. Has the stench less of rotting flesh than the whiff of a thoughtless quickie.
  15. The plucky music student who overcomes adversity is a staple subgenre of mainland cinema and, though Chen Kaige directs with greater slickness and more finesse and humor, there's still little to differentiate Together from any other state-studio pic.
  16. The forthcoming line of high-octane summer entertainments will be hard-pressed to top this one for both thrills and wit.
  17. The clear ambition here is to recapture the raw, explosively violent atmosphere of such hallmark 1970s shockers as "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "The Hills Have Eyes." Nice try, but no cigar.
    • Variety
  18. There's a kind of rawness on the screen that most movies never approach.
  19. Very clever and imaginative indeed, and its pictures are so gorgeous that they alone could warrant a second viewing.
  20. The 2003 edition written by Nat Mauldin and Ed Solomon and helmed by Andrew Fleming places the Douglas-Brooks combo inside a much more complicated if not quite as funny world.
  21. Harris effectively interweaves home movies of his 8th birthday party and his two-year stay in Tanzania into a mesmerizing autobiography.
  22. It's shiny, amusing, incessantly clever, but sometimes a tad too snarky for its own good.
  23. Crialese's first feature in his native Italy is a small but distinctive drama that displays a firm command of his cast, an arresting visual sense and an admirable avoidance of facile sentiment or cliche.
  24. There's remarkably little done with a premise snatched from high-concept heaven, adding yet another file to the growing cabinet of under-realized comedies.
  25. Completely over-the-top yakuza actioner -- featuring nonstop mayhem, gore, torture and S&M -- duly reflects its comic book origins in both style and barely coherent narrative frenzy.
  26. As weak and banal as its thoroughly uninvolving central character.
  27. Too stylistically scattered to appeal to all tastes…but its unique combo of slick art direction, sweet romance, supercharged eros, low comedy and out-there melodrama –--
  28. Though solidly crafted, with a host of well-etched performances, film is unable to establish a consistent, engaging tone.
  29. Unusually slick, mini-budgeted and broad piece of slapstick that liberally borrows from Neil Simon and "The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight'' with the twist that gay hit men are the romantic heroes.

Top Trailers