Variety's Scores

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For 17,777 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: 9,133 out of 17777
  2. Mixed: 7,008 out of 17777
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17777
17777 movie reviews
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  1. Close, Closed, Closure
    Israeli filmmaker Loevy questions in voiceover whether one can ever really see the other's side, and the strain of this divide is felt in over-dramatic attempts to highlight individual victims.
  2. Just Married
    The filmmakers themselves betray a lack of knowledge about the Old World, while unfailingly repeating physical hijinks one time too many.
  3. The Slaughter Rule
    Strong performances, a few dramatically potent scenes and a vividly specific evocation of locale barely offset hackneyed and muddled elements in a script that plays like a first draft.
  4. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
    A powerful and creative film.
  5. Love Liza
    Todd Louiso's directorial debut emerges at once as compelling and as a bit of a specimen due to the entirely singular nature of the protagonist's behavior.
  6. Sonny
    Besides "Midnight Cowboy" and "American Gigolo," there aren't many mainstream movies centered on straight male prostitutes. Sonny is a worthy, if indie-style, addition to the list.
  7. Nicholas Nickleby
    A delightful experience.
  8. Max
    The film is ultimately too glib in its suggestion that Hitler's discovering his career path was a matter of sheerest chance, even an accident.
  9. The Hours
    Considerable intelligence and strategic finesse have been brought to bear on this handsomely mounted adaptation of Michael Cunningham's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, which was hardly a natural for the bigscreen.
  10. The Pianist
    Surprisingly lacks a feeling of personal urgency and insight that would have made it a distinctive, even unique contribution to the considerable number of films that deal with the war in general and Holocaust in particular.
  11. Chicago
    First-time feature director Rob Marshall and Oscar-winning "Gods and Monsters" screenwriter Bill Condon have spun the dark tale of two murdering floozies into a widely palatable entertainment, but the long-gestating film comes up short in rhythm and personality.
  12. Pinocchio
    The spirit of the late Federico Fellini -- with whom Benigni talked of doing the project together -- surfaces repeatedly. But that spirit fails to enliven a film substantially lacking in personality, energy, magic and humor.
  13. Catch Me If You Can
    Like a trot around the track for the thoroughbreds involved, and one of the results is that it takes them far too long to get to the finish line.
  14. The Wild Thornberrys Movie
    Balances intelligent humor, slapstick, Blighty reserve and Yank spunk along with environmentalism.
  15. Smokers Only
    A walk on the "dark side" that moves far more slowly than limited character insight requires.
  16. Thorns
    An involving, often kinetic 2½-hour ride for auds who can accept their entertainment overboiled as well as just hardboiled.
  17. Two Weeks Notice
    An affable but undernourished romantic comedy that fails to match the freshness of the actress-producer and writer's previous collaboration, "Miss Congeniality."
  18. Spider
    This slow but brilliantly sustained journey into madness is fronted by a remarkable performance from Ralph Fiennes and superb backup from Miranda Richardson in a triple role.
  19. Narc
    A darkly textured, powerfully suspenseful genre piece.
  20. Gangs of New York
    Bears all the earmarks of a magnum opus for Martin Scorsese: Fascinating and fresh material about his beloved New York City, an epic reach, an equally epic gestation period, a dynamic criminal element, combustible socio-political-religious elements, outstanding actors and sophisticated allusions to cinema history that inform and enrich the experience.
  21. Antwone Fisher
    Washington reveals himself to be a filmmaker with a clean, uncluttered storytelling style. Too often, overtly inspirational material such as this can become strident or mawkish.
  22. 25th Hour
    Lapses into melodramatic self-importance and gratuitous stylistic flourishes that take the audience out of the action -- are outweighed by the steadily amplified emotional power of this ultimately moving drama.
  23. Devils on the Doorstep
    Has all the classic faults of a picture not only directed by an actor but by an actor who is his own producer.
  24. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
    Has a sharper narrative focus and a livelier sense of forward movement than did the more episodic "Fellowship."
  25. The Guys
    An adept if necessarily limited translation of uncinematic material, The Guys retains the potency of its stage original as a poignant, ingeniously simple tribute to firefighters lost in the World Trade Center disaster.
  26. Evelyn
    The star plays Doyle as just rough enough around the edges to warrant the character's setbacks, but not so unpleasant that the twinkle in his eye is extinguished.
  27. Maid in Manhattan
    Gets into trouble when it reaches for laughs.
  28. Star Trek: Nemesis
    Despite the intriguing set-up, there's something unambitious and scaled-back about Star Trek Nemesis, so that most of the time it feels like a slightly suped-up episode of the "Next Generation" TV series.
  29. Intact
    A self-aware, intriguing and technically accomplished fantasy thriller firmly in the Hollywood tradition, Intact has a confidence and expertise not seen from a Spanish tyro since Alejandro Amenabar's "Thesis" (1996).
  30. The Jimmy Show
    Pic has a stagy, boxed-in feel. Both visually and energetically, it suggests something that has been done onstage to the point of mechanized repetition. And even though Whaley is supposed to be playing a disillusioned character, it's the actor himself who seems fatigued and over-rehearsed.
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