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. The Four Feathers
    There is no one to become attached to in The Four Feathers, no interest or sympathies appealed to or engaged.
  2. The Banger Sisters
    Adult fans of good thesping in the service of a lightweight but thoroughly entertaining story should bask in the antics.
  3. Trapped
    A pretty skillfully handled domestic thriller about a criminal activity that, while always upsetting, is especially noxious now due to the too many recent tragic and highly publicized instances of it.
  4. The Mesmerist
    Plays like a mercilessly extended version of an uninspired "Saturday Night Live" sketch.
  5. Snipes
    Unremarkable but competent in stylistic terms, with good use of Philadelphia locations, sharp casting and the requisite marketable hip-hop soundtrack adding up to a fun genre package.
  6. The Ignorant Fairies
    The well-structured film goes beyond issues of sexuality, giving nuanced consideration to broader questions of love and loss, family and friendship, trust, lies and deception.
  7. 8 Women
    For all its careful plotting, some viewers may find the exercise ultimately hollow and nasty, but thesps make the experience completely worthwhile.
  8. Secretary
    In a very demanding role demanding a vast emotional range from clueless innocent to confident role player and emotional adventurer, Gyllenhaal is outstanding.
  9. Spirited Away
    An out-and-out charmer. It's almost impossible to do justice in words either to the visual richness of the movie, which melanges traditional Japanese clothes and architecture with both Victorian and modern-day artifacts, or to the character-filled storyline, with human figures, harpies and grotesque creatures.
  10. Ciao America
    Never less than pleasant and genteel, but rarely more.
  11. The Experiment
    A solid slice of entertainment without reaching the psychological depths promised by the subject matter.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Elvira's Haunted Hills
    Must-see fare for fans of the bosomy camp horror queen.
  13. Quitting
    What gives Quitting its freshness is its setting in a country that often denies it has such problems and the decision to anchor the film strongly within the Chinese family fabric.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Dogwalker
    There's an infectious, spry quality to much of The Dogwalker, an indie that benefits from amusing characters, strong thesping and taut situational humor.
  15. The Children of the Century
    A generally old-fashioned costumer that runs out of gas even faster than does the tempestuous love affair between writer George Sand and poet Alfred de Musset that it so devotedly recounts.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Igby Goes Down
    Young Kieran Culkin holds his own against a stellar ensemble in Igby Goes Down, a family comedy so dark it turns "The Royal Tennebaums" into latter-day Bradys.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Barbershop
    A rousing celebration of the family-run small business, this Ice Cube-topped ensemble comedy, without offering anything especially new or exciting, provides a springboard for high-voltage comic exchanges that double as wisecrack-coated lessons in community relations.
  18. Stealing Harvard
    Depressingly thin and exhaustingly contrived. Only masochistic moviegoers need apply.
  19. Ted Bundy
    Looks set to unsettle as many conservative auds as it will delight nihilistic film buffs.
  20. The Pinochet Case
    It's hard to walk away unaffected from this heartfelt, well-researched, feature-length documentary.
  21. Swimfan
    A chiller resolutely without chills, in which even the pool water always seems heated. And inasmuch as the pic never owns up to its own trashiness, it's not even enjoyable camp.
  22. City by the Sea
    De Niro's reunion with helmer Michael Caton-Jones doesn't stoke the same fire as their previous pere-fils drama, "This Boy's Life," partly because De Niro's latest portrayal of a troubled cop feels so familiar.
  23. The Execution of Wanda Jean
    At its best, Garbus' account quietly depicts a set of wasted lives, and a closing image of Allen's plywood casket carted away by a bulldozer is emblematic of the tragedy.
  24. In Praise of Love
    The film offers a frequently obscure but (for fans) always watchable look at history, memory and -- in the most rarefied sense -- love.
    • 27 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Heartbreak Hospital
    Tries to combine romantic comedy, soap-opera parody and murder mystery, but the disparate elements never gel, and the film, about homicide at a daytime television serial, bounces around with no clue of how to reconcile or intertwine its genre conventions.
  26. Burning Man: The Burning Sensation
    A knockout documentary with a renegade personality ideally suited to its anarchic subject matter.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Big Carnival
    Billy Wilder's direction captures the feel of morbid expectancy that always comes out in the curious that flock to scenes of tragedy.
  28. FeardotCom
    Never quite realizes its potential to evoke the real horror of the Internet -- Yet, Malone has given the film a distinctive atmosphere and occasional flashes of his perverse sense of humor.
  29. *Corpus Callosum
    Watching *Corpus Callosum and marveling at its sprightliness, its joyous, imaginative air, its effortless attenuation to all that is wonderful and horrible and comical about modern technology, makes you want to jump up and shout for joy, too.
  30. Undisputed
    With Undisputed, writer-director Walter Hill is back in contention as one of Hollywood's last defenders of the muscular, no-nonsense genre movie.
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