Variety's Scores

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:
17777 movie reviews
  1. A visually exalting, emotionally horrifying view of Afghanistan under the Taliban regime.
  2. A wonderfully acted, acutely observed psychological drama.
  3. It's a timely, noble undertaking ill-served by a dry, history-textbook style that is at once too much and not enough.
  4. Hectic, sketchy and finally dull.
  5. A triumph on the casting side but less so dramatically, Richard Eyre's Iris fails to do full justice to its subject.
  6. A nail in the coffin if not the heart of teen comedies.
  7. Underachieves in its own way by trapping an expansive, probing story in a brittle, highly artificial style that constricts character and emotional development.
  8. The picture has vitality, a fine cast and excellent craft
  9. Consummately crafted and stunningly shot in magnificent locations deep in Brazil's remote northeastern badlands, the film unapologetically courts the commercial curve of the international arthouse arena with its rustic exotica and sensory overload of poetic imagery, giving it something of a grandiose air.
  10. "It's the ultimate Dogme movie, before the birth of Dogme," is how 79-year-old Lithuanian-born independent mainstay Jonas Mekas describes peaceful, enthralling assemblage encompassing home movie footage from last three decades of his life.
  11. Highly engaging, beautifully played romancer.
  12. A thoughtful, restrained, refreshingly nonjudgmental melodrama that reflects on interesting questions regarding sexuality, identity and self-acceptance.
  13. A fine cast brings the believable, sometimes humorous characters to life and gradually draws the viewer into a well-crafted, well-paced story.
  14. Starts out slow but ends up engaging both heart and mind, despite occasional slips into straight melodrama.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    It is a Holocaust story from a different angle, not the traditional depiction of a concentration camp or a rescue effort.
  15. Delicately handled and superbly textured, this fine adaptation of Graham Swift's Booker Prize-winning novel deals with all the really big subjects: love, friendship, death, life.
  16. Sometimes spare to a fault (especially scriptwise), low-key effort nonetheless holds attention with its naturalistic, nonsensationalized approach.
  17. While it could have used a punchier final act that distilled its themes more cogently and conclusively, this intelligently scripted drama about power and its many channels nonetheless delivers thanks to Stettner's stylish visual sense and, most of all, to the smart, commanding performances of leads Stockard Channing and Julia Stiles.
  18. As a tyro auteur, Tanovich has a heavy-handed way of delineating characters and situations that makes this well-meaning film awfully familiar at times.
  19. An all-star remake of the all-star original, Ocean's Eleven is a lark for everybody concerned, including the audience. Breezy, nonchalant and without a thing on its mind except having a little fun.
  20. Even in a more fluid package, this mix of camp comedy and bathos would seem artificial.
  21. Filmmaker Hartmut Bitomsky needs nothing more than the cold facts surrounding this awesome weapon to get across a message about the importance of peace.
  22. Has the frustrating feel of a rousing, epic oater sadly compromised.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Richard Chamberlain is highly effective as a young lawyer caught up in a case of an aborigine murdered by some others in town.
  23. Would have worked better with a few more ersatz coming-attraction trailers and considerably less filler. More than likely, it would have worked best of all as an hourlong special on Comedy Central.
  24. A staggeringly misguided stab at making the past come alive by people who have absolutely no feel for period filmmaking. Banal at best and laughable at worst.
  25. An unembarrassed, high-octane demonstration of the virtues of a U.S. military with a mission, the latest war pic from 20th Century Fox -- a studio with a proud tradition in this field -- couldn't be better timed to fit the popular mood.
  26. Over-long, under-written and needlessly obscure instead of genuinely atmospheric.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Enjoyable in an undemanding way, and with a few interesting flourishes.
  27. Beautifully acted by a diverse ensemble, this Good Machine production is carefully crafted and deliberately paced.

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