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. Daughter from Danang
    An intelligent, well-observed and ineffably poignant study of an Amerasian woman's attempt to trace her roots by journeying back to Vietnam.
  2. The Santa Clause 2
    Festooned with cute, mugging kids; lots of jazzy redos of beloved Christmas tunes on the soundtrack; and enough tug-at-your-heartstrings moments to make an entire theater feel warm on a blustery winter afternoon.
  3. I Spy
    It's precisely the lineup of familiar past work that makes I Spy pretty dull goods, invigorated mainly by the sharp interplay between Murphy and Wilson, both of whom shine best when they have a sidekick to work with.
  4. Santa vs. the Snowman
    The lively visuals, busy story, zippy pace and TV show running time will make this go down very easily with the target moppet audience.
  5. Food of Love
    Pons has aimed for a performance-driven drama whose virtues are of the small-scale, low-key variety, with the director working within narrow dramatic limits as always but here doing so brilliantly.
  6. The Bank
    Will connect with anyone who ever had a bad experience with a bank or finance company, and provides a satisfyingly loathsome character in Anthony LaPaglia's engaging protrayal of a corporate shark.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Quai des Orfèvres [re-release]
    In every respect it is outstanding.
  8. Time Changer
    There is something sweetly naive about pic's astonished contention that this is because morals were taught in a nonreligious context. But it's not a compelling argument for the Apocalypse.
  9. All the Queen's Men
    Not bad enough to qualify as a memorable dud, multinational production nonetheless misses mark on every level.
  10. Frida
    Salma Hayek makes the character an icon of female independence, courage and nonconformity, forecasting special appeal for women viewers.
  11. By Hook or by Crook
    No movie like this about friendship between two young lesbians and their various adventures, punctuated with laissez-faire jump-cutting, should be this boring.
  12. The Truth About Charlie
    Dazzlingly nimble and light on its feet, this breezy but densely textured love letter to modern, multicultural Paris in the guise of a romantic suspenser returns its director to the vibrant vein of his pre-Oscar work in "Something Wild" and "Married to the Mob."
  13. Waking Up in Reno
    A hillbilly romantic comedy in which the hillbillies show up but the romance and comedy never do.
  14. Paid in Full
    Begins as a serious, straightforward account of the origins of the cocaine trade and "gangsta" culture in 1980s Harlem, but then downward spirals due to a weak plot and gratuitous violence.
  15. All or Nothing
    The wealth of behavioral detail and observational humor make for some rewarding drama that will resonate with many viewers.
  16. Roger Dodger
    fFts into that weird, dialogue-heavy quasi-genre that includes "In the Company of Men" and "The Business of Strangers" where high-stakes sexual power games mix with cutthroat office politics.
  17. Ghost Ship
    Launched with a few surprising touches and a disturbingly bloody prelude, horror pic collapses under the weight of its own dull conception and weak direction, dialogue and character portraits.
  18. Jackass: The Movie
    It's plotless, shapeless -- and yet, it must be admitted, not entirely humorless. Indeed, the more outrageous bits achieve a shock-you-into-laughter intensity of almost Dadaist proportions.
  19. Derrida
    An affectionate but aptly complex view of one of our epoch's great philosophers.
  20. Fidel
    Worth seeing for its wealth of archival footage hitherto little-seen outside Communist bloc nations, Fidel nonetheless errs badly by slapping a quasi-objective journalistic tenor onto content so flattering and uncritical it might pass for an old "This Is Your Life" episode.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Le bossu
    Consistently enjoyable, if rarely exceptional, mass entertainment.
  22. Under the Moonlight
    Though its subject has curiosity value, its critical view of religious institutions is compromised by an ending that evidently was necessary for the film to be made and released at all.
  23. The Business of Fancydancing
    Stalled character development in the second half of the pic reduces the impact of the whole.
  24. Naqoyqatsi
    Possessed of another outstanding wall-to-wall score by Philip Glass but rather fuzzy in its message, entry differs from its predecessors in that roughly 80% of its images are derived from existing sources and have been "tortured and recontextualized" to unusual and sometimes extreme effect.
  25. Real Women Have Curves
    Delightful coming-of-age comedy-drama.
  26. Abandon
    Passably interesting psychological study of emotionally wounded characters until it commits dramatic suicide by showing its true colors as a tricked-up "Fatal Attraction" wannabe.
  27. The Grey Zone
    Staccato, Mamet-style dialogue exchanges, breathless pacing and remarkably healthy, well-fed-looking actors create a cumulative sense of artificiality that seriously undercuts the devastating effect clearly being sought.
  28. Hansel & Gretel
    Pity the children for whom this is their intro to the world of Grimm, for while pic stays to basic outline of the original story in opening and closing sections, the large middle is stuffed with badly staged slapstick and painful stabs at hip dialogue in an arch attempt to cater to modern kids.
  29. Goyangileul butaghae
    Engaging, highly accessible movie that marks a slick feature debut by helmer Jeong Jae-eun.
  30. Auto Focus
    Schrader directs with a very smooth hand, providing a good-natured and frequently amusing spin to eventually grim material that aptly reflects the protagonist's almost unfailing good humor.
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