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. The Emperor's Club
    A rather stodgily directed pic by Michael Hoffman which extols the virtues of Greek and Roman thinking in the guise of Kevin Kline's classics teacher.
  2. The Quiet American
    One of Caine's meatiest roles, and he handles it with power, humanity and remarkable emotional fluidity; from the opening moments, an enormous amount comes through his eyes alone.
  3. Power and Terror: Noam Chomsky in Our Times
    Offers a lively introduction to the highly articulate political dissident and to his controversial views on 9/11.
  4. Talk to Her
    An engaging, well-crafted and imaginative meditation on solitude and communication.
  5. Friday After Next
    Surely one of the most frantic, virulent and foul-natured Christmas season pic ever delivered by a Hollywood studio.
  6. Better Housekeeping
    A triumph of indie casting of unknowns, Good Housekeeping is knee-deep in delicious thesping.
  7. Hell House
    Hell House is a slice of contempo life many viewers will find bizarre and disturbing, not necessarily in the precautionary-moral way its subjects intend. Briskly paced docu is well handled in tech departments.
  8. The Way Home
    Utterly unsentimental but profoundly moving,The Way Home" is a tiny gem from South Korea.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Standing in the Shadows of Motown
    The film works on both a human-interest level -- focusing on the travails of the band members now finally receiving their well-earned due -- and as a slice of Motown's early history.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Interview with the Assassin
    Satisfying picture that like a pot of water on the stove keeps heating up until it explodes.
  11. Half Past Dead
    In recent years, Steven Seagal has been steadily losing any firm standing as even a B-grade actioner icon, and by the genre's most basic standards, he now displays a visible fatigue and lack of interest that proves deadlier than any of his hero's skills.
  12. The Crime of Padre Amaro
    Respectably crafted to avoid lurid excess, feature is nonetheless a bit potboilerish in its pileup of sexy, violent, duplicitous circumstances that plague the consciences of latter-day clergymen.
  13. Revolution #9
    Looks with fresh eyes at a new millennium in which, seemingly, the entire world is bought and sold in neatly wrapped packages engineered for mass consumption.
  14. Ararat
    Egoyan's pedantic, lecturing approach makes the film a bit of a slog, although the basic material has an intrinsic interest that makes one at least want to know more about the historical events.
  15. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
    Darker and more dramatic, this account of Harry's troubled second year at Hogwarts may be a bit overlong and unmodulated in pacing, but it possesses a confidence and intermittent flair that begin to give it a life of its own apart of the literary franchise, something the initial picture never achieved.
  16. Bánk bán
    While it creaks along at times, director Csaba Kael's new film version of a Hungarian opera masterpiece, Ferenc Erkel's Bank Ban, is ultimately an invaluable entry in the opera-on-film library.
  17. Hush!
    Meandering melodrama about gay relationships, friendship, loneliness and the elastic notion of family is considerably overlong and hampered by too many superfluous scenes.
  18. The Rising Place
    An ultra-touchy-feely race-relations, civil-rights drama as imagined by theme-park organizers, with every character painted in broad strokes in a story that eagerly tugs at every available heartstring -- and rings false at every turn.
  19. Dieu est grand, je suis toute petite
    Choppy and fragmented to the point of irritation, pic overuses blackouts between scenes, self-conscious camera movements, narrative ellipses and other jangly techniques.
  20. The Bread, My Sweet
    Lightweight but likable.
  21. Far From Heaven
    An accomplished marriage of elaborate style and content.
  22. 'R Xmas
    Despite some hazy plot points, the tough, compelling drama comes together quite satisfyingly, standing alongside 1996's "The Funeral" as perhaps the most controlled and cohesive of Ferrara's uneven work of recent years.
  23. 8 Mile
    The rough power, as well as the humor and sensitivity, of pop phenom Eminem is delivered intact in 8 Mile.
  24. Leela
    Succeeds only as a cultural exchange of cinematic cliches.
  25. Femme Fatale
    An extravagant suspense cocktail of wacky and lascivious ingredients that goes down fine.
  26. Strange Fruit
    Where pic excels is in the depiction of a rich leftist movement, with several cultures interacting expressively in the 1930s and '40s.
  27. Justifiable Homicide
    Film makes a strong case for some form of miscarriage of justice and subsequent high level cover-up in the Rosario shootings.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Treasure Planet
    The film's total appeal may be undercut by a script that rarely feels inspired.
  29. The Weight of Water
    Despite recurrent narrative and dramatic problems, each of Bigelow's pics provides a visual treat, and this film is no exception.
  30. Love in the Time of Money
    This kind of episodic chain of interlocking encounters has become a formulaic favorite in American indie cinema, and Mattei's take on the genre is narrow and schematic.
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