Variety's Scores

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For 17,791 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: 9,139 out of 17791
  2. Mixed: 7,015 out of 17791
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17791
17791 movie reviews
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  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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."
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. Maid in Manhattan
    Gets into trouble when it reaches for laughs.
  9. 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.
  10. 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).
  11. 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.
  12. Drumline
    Brimming with heart and humor -- Drumline is a formulaic crowdpleaser set in the competitive world of university marching bands at predominantly black universities.
  13. The Hot Chick
    At best routinely assembled -- at worst barely competent. The slapstick is labored, and the bigger setpieces flat.
  14. About Schmidt
    Films exist for different reasons, and the indisputable raison d'etre for About Schmidt is to showcase Jack Nicholson giving a master class in the art of screen acting.
  15. Analyze That
    The novelty value is completely gone the second time around.
  16. Empire
    Choreographer-turned-filmmaker Franc. Reyes covers familiar ground without stumbling or dazzling.
  17. My Kingdom
    An intriguing spin on the British crime genre that's more a series of strong performances than a fully worked-out character drama.
  18. Equilibrium
    Misses with its blowhard treatment of a silly, obvious script. Results might hazard "Battlefield Earth" comparison if new pic were a tad more fun.
  19. Adaptation.
    All but stealing the film is Cooper, who seizes a rare opportunity as an extroverted, rather than buttoned-up, character to bust loose like an uncaged alligator.
  20. To End All Wars
    Grim in theme yet seldom effective or convincing in execution.
  21. Massoud, the Afghan
    This educational and moving film is must-viewing for anyone who craves a glimpse of the best qualities of a country that many have coveted but which has never been colonized.
  22. Rabbit-Proof Fence
    It succeeds emotionally in the cause of what seems to be its primary aim, to advance an attitudinal change in Australians not normally sympathetic to the aboriginal cause.
  23. Dead or Alive: Final
    It's a silly but enjoyable farrago from the cult quickie-meister, again set in an amoral universe-on-a-budget.
  24. Russian Ark
    Seems destined to go down in film history as a technical tour de force.
  25. They
    They ought to be a whole lot scarier than they are in this tepid genre offering from director Robert Harmon, whose debut film "The Hitcher" set a high bar for screen terror in the 1980s. Pic looks like a holiday gobbler.
  26. Extreme Ops
    Action pics rarely come much more blandly generic than Extreme Ops, an instantly forgettable snow-and-stuntwork extravaganza.
  27. Solaris
    Despite its undeniably pure and earnest intent, Solaris is equally undeniably an arid, dull affair that imposes and maintains a huge distance between the viewer and what happens onscreen.
  28. Eight Crazy Nights
    This is a dark, vulgar, brooding turnoff of a movie, minus the steady laugh quotient needed to appease Sandler's core constituency.
  29. Die Another Day
    Sports some tasty scenes, mostly in the first half, but also pushes 007 into CGI-driven, quasi-sci-fi territory that feels like a betrayal of what the franchise has always been about.
  30. Personal Velocity: Three Portraits
    Impresses with the originality of its observation, storytelling techniques and filmmaking style.
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