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 Time Machine
    Breaks down when it gets to the distant future, which in this case isn't a good place to be stranded.
  2. Miss Wonton
    Cluttered, unfocused script attempts too much.
  3. Esther Kahn
    Senselessly long at two-and-three-quarters hours and with a protracted climax that eradicates any goodwill established in the fastidious first couple of reels.
  4. Stolen Summer
    Plays like an aggressively heart-tugging, exceedingly vanilla Disney telemovie.
    • 98 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Pépé le Moko (re-release)
    Interesting movement holds through the entirety. Life in the native quarter, with its squalor and intrigues, is particularly well presented and photographed.
  6. Borstal Boy
    Mixes a rites-of-passage story with political and sexual elements to solid but finally uninvolving results.
  7. We Were Soldiers
    Gibson has the closest thing to a John Wayne part that anyone's played since the Duke himself rode into the sunset, and he plays it damn well.
  8. 40 Days and 40 Nights
    A self-described abstinence comedy that is funny, sexy and silly in equal measure.
  9. How to Kill Your Neighbor's Dog
    While the direction is a little anonymous and could use some verve, the comedy-drama gets by thanks to a solid script, witty dialogue and engaging performances.
  10. Drift
    Lee crafts actions and situations that are credible without being particularly engrossing -- recognition doesn't necessarily translate into absorbsion.
  11. The Cherry Orchard
    Chekhov has never seemed such a long haul as in this awkward adaptation of The Cherry Orchard by veteran director Michael Cacoyannis, 77, who's assembled a good roster of names but ones that are not necessarily right for their roles.
  12. Big Bad Love
    A flawed and overlong but ultimately affecting account of one man's struggle to regain control of his life.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Maryam
    A lovely, intricate coming-of-age portrait set in a cross-cultural context.
  14. Mean Machine
    OK entertainment but nothing more.
  15. Monsoon Wedding
    Splashy, noisy and downright fun.
  16. Dragonfly
    Costner's earnest performance is a major plus for Dragonfly, keeping the picture grounded in some semblance of reality even as it becomes progressively more fantastical.
  17. Queen of the Damned
    Handsomely mounted, this direly conventional bit of vampire business is enlivened by flashes of humor and game performances. It isn't great entertainment or camp, but pic sets its ambitions so low, it can't help partially delivering on them.
  18. Return to Never Land
    Represents a passable follow-up to the venerable Peter Pan story and mercifully, at 72 minutes, is exactly half the length of the last attempt at same, Steven Spielberg's lamentable "Hook."
  19. Scratch
    Works best as a straightforward appreciation of the music. Though docu's structure wears out full viewer interest after an hour or so, few will come away with staid prejudices (i.e. that turntablism isn't "real" musicianship) intact.
  20. Wendigo
    A mostly superb bit of modern horror from the writer-director-editor previously responsible for the Frankenstein story "No Telling" and the urban vampire pic "Habit."
  21. Hart's War
    Absorbing in a low-key way but more dramatic where its secondary characters are concerned than its leads, and capped by climactic incidents that are less than entirely convincing.
  22. Crossroads
    Awfully lame bigscreen debut for pop diva Britney Spears.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Umberto D (re-release)
    The ending is happy, but the general effect of the film is disturbing, so compelling is De Sica's description of a man's solitude.
  24. Super Troopers
    A fairly sustained barrage of broad undergraduate humor and gross-out gags that should tickle young auds looking for unsophisticated laughs.
  25. John Q
    A shamelessly manipulative commercial on behalf of national health insurance.
  26. Much Ado About Something
    Utterly fascinating, playfully probing mystery story.
  27. Rollerball
    Sheer chaos on wheels, a hysterically edited jumble that defies belief at nearly every juncture.
  28. Big Fat Liar
    Though Muniz and Bynes make a somewhat likable team, their funniest skills are dampened by the material's insistent stupidity.
  29. Collateral Damage
    More than an embarrassment, it's an insult.
  30. Birthday Girl
    Charmingly setting aside glamour for a turn at pure acting, Nicole Kidman zings up the already zingy script of Birthday Girl.
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