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. Scooby-Doo
    Just fast, frenetic and funny enough to amuse both new fans and longtime devotees of the characters who have inspired more than 30 years worth of animated TV episodes and made-for-video features.
  2. The Bourne Identity
    A first-rate thriller with grit and intrigue to spare.
  3. The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys
    The film's chief shortcoming is perhaps its failure to convey a stronger, more atmospheric sense of the repressive 1970s Catholic school environment that breeds the titular boys' rebellion and wild flights of fancy.
  4. Cuba feliz
    Not quite a documentary, it's more like a musical travelogue that doesn't quite sustain feature length and seems ideally suited to a shorter TV version for music webs.
  5. Virgil Bliss
    Two superb, nervy and delicately nuanced performances by newcomers Clint Jordan and Kirsten Russell enliven and momentarily elevate writer-director Joe Maggio's Virgil Bliss above the familiar post-prison-drama cliches to which it so strenuously adheres.
  6. Secret Society
    Charmingly eccentric light comedy.
  7. Bad Company
    It's almost impossible to enjoy this uneven but mostly exciting popcorn pic without flinching at a few plot elements that feel a bit too real for comfort.
  8. Ivansxtc
    Achieves a certain poignancy through its sensitivity to mortality in a context where illness and death are often thought of primarily in terms of gossip, blown deals and lost money.
  9. Cherish
    Good performances and quirky humor make this slick if less than fully satisfying mix of romantic comedy and mystery an easy sit.
  10. Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
    As a rich, gum-chewing matron who tools around in her canary-yellow Rolls-Royce, Flanagan is the picture's real scene-stealer.
  11. Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner
    The first-ever screenplay written in the Inuit language, Inuktitut -- and the first time's a charm.
  12. The Mad Songs of Fernanda Hussein
    While refraining from excess melodrama or overt preachiness, pic makes no secret of its dismay at this chapter in American history.
  13. The Sum of All Fears
    Director Phil Alden Robinson -- has done just about everything he can do to build a sleek, involving and -- for a few minutes -- terrifying movie that can get viewers past the young Ryan factor.
  14. Undercover Brother
    A frequently inspired hit-and-miss burlesque that definitely hits more than it misses.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Elling
    A darkly funny, very human comedy.
  16. The Sleepy Time Gal
    Bisset throws herself into what is by far the most emotionally demanding role of her career and emerges honorably.
  17. Nijinsky: The Diaries of Vaslav Nijinsky
    Despite its occasional visual interest, avant-garde package is far from the accessible tortured-artist portrait helmer essayed 15 years ago in "Vincent." Even committed dance and experimental cinema fans are likely to find this rough sledding.
  18. Bartleby
    Although closer in tone to "Office Space" than Herman Melville, Jonathan Parker's absurdist update of Bartleby is surprisingly faithful to the spirit, if not the letter, of the "Moby-Dick" author's 1853 novella about an under-achieving Wall Street copy clerk.
  19. CQ
    Roman Coppola's first film has sympathetic aims but is distressingly lacking in flair, style, wit or fun.
  20. Thirteen Conversations About One Thing
    This intelligent, engaging indie sets out to find a few answers and in the process introduces a clutch of interesting, very human characters.
  21. Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron
    Saddled with a sentimentally "sincere" subject and lacking the stylistic and humorous cachet of the recent computer-animated smashes.
  22. Enough
    The latest model in the recent spate of underwhelming female star vehicles, Enough, a thriller detailing how a good wife gets back at an evil, possessive husband, is never provocative enough to generate strong emotional response.
  23. Insomnia
    Gripping, highly dramatic thriller that more than confirms the distinctive talent of young Brit helmer Christopher Nolan.
  24. The Back of the World
    A gripping, superbly constructed indictment of the way governments contribute to the destruction of their citizens' lives.
  25. The Importance of Being Earnest
    A comedy in the last century and a drama in the new one. At least, that's the dumbfounding impression left by writer-director Oliver Parker's utterly miscalculated film adaptation of Wilde's play.
  26. Late Marriage
    As wrenching as it is funny.
  27. The Believer
    Those who see it at fests, and in carefully tailored specialized release, will be struck by the adroitness with which it addresses touchy issues, as well as by the outstanding performance of Ryan Gosling in the difficult leading role.
  28. About a Boy
    Pleasant and engaging, rather than laugh-out-loud funny or emotionally involving.
  29. Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones
    George Lucas has reached deep into the trove of his self-generated mythological world to produce a grand entertainment that offers a satisfying balance among the series' epic, narrative, technological and emotional qualities.
  30. Cremaster 3
    Matthew Barney delivers his masterpiece in Cremaster 3, unquestionably the 35-year-old sculptor-performance artist-filmmaker's most linear, most narratively inclined work to date.
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