Variety's Scores

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For 17,786 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: 9,137 out of 17786
  2. Mixed: 7,013 out of 17786
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17786
17786 movie reviews
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  1. Reykjavík
    A funny, touching, off-the-wall relationer that's one of the freshest helming debuts in world cinema this year.
  2. America's Sweethearts
    Begins as a smartly promising, gently farcical comedy of manners and ends as sourly and haphazardly as the lives it is poking fun at.
  3. Brother
    The mix feels flat and the story remains a fairly banal account of underworld exploits whose emotional gears never fully engage.
  4. Hedwig and the Angry Inch
    Despite some imaginative packaging too often proves a drag in more than the sartorial sense. Taking Mitchell's sketchy book far too seriously, the movie grows leaden between its terrific songs.
  5. Ghost World
    By sharp turns poignant, disturbing and hysterically funny.
  6. Jurassic Park III
    Game ride that makes the two previous installments look like models of classic filmmaking.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Downtown 81
    Extraordinary real-life snapshot of hip, arty, clubland Manhattan in the post-punk era.
  8. Made
    Fitfully amusing and two leads generate engaging chemistry.
  9. Legally Blonde
    The mildly engaging silliness of its premise is never transformed into something more substantial, and the attempt at a fine-tuned "Clueless"-like tone is only sputteringly achieved.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    That Obscure Object of Desire
    A gem-like, almost hypnotic, tale of an older man's obsession with a young woman.
  11. Bully
    By turns turgid, embarrassing and plain off-putting.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Score
    Meticulously detailed thriller.
  13. Adanggaman
    Dramatically naive at times, but still represents a refreshingly ambitious, imaginative film in a period of creative underachievement for African cinema.
  14. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
    As computer game-derived features go, it sure beats "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider."
  15. Off the Hook
    Building blocks of tale are not new, but there's an appealingly rough-hewn and convincing tone to the proceedings.
  16. Kiss of the Dragon
    Slick, straight-ahead action-thriller that marks a small step back and two bounding leaps forward for toplined Jet Li.
  17. Lost and Delirious
    All the dramatic stops are pulled out as the script goes into serious literary overload.
  18. Jump Tomorrow
    Hopkins delivers a genuinely charming example through the generosity and affection with which he treats his characters, a racially and culturally mixed bunch that could have seemed schematic and forced.
  19. Cats & Dogs
    This comically intended battle of the species is family entertainment for families that will buy anything.
  20. Scary Movie 2
    Technically and comedically strained by the demands of its special effects-filled haunted house setting. Worse, the need to top the first pic's outlandish stunts is ghoulishly unfulfilled and terribly ironic.
  21. The Closet
    A clever premise that's good for many laughs.
  22. Pandaemonium
    Never quite dull, neither does it ever find a viable rhythm, narrative arc or crux of emotional engagement.
  23. The Crimson Rivers
    Adequately entertaining but not particularly memorable.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Quadrophenia (re-release)
    Sting, as the weekend super-Mod whose image collapses when he's revealed to work as a bellhop, cuts a slick dash in the dancehall sequences.
  25. Pootie Tang
    Has the distinction of being one of the most amateurish features ever released by a major studio.
  26. Crazy/Beautiful
    The significant potential of its premise is squandered by an increasing reliance on teen movie cliches, silly plotting and the urge to be upbeat rather than to communicate life lessons.
  27. A.I. Artificial Intelligence
    This is not "E.T.," nor is it a kid's film nor even necessarily a major mass-audience film, although Spielberg's name, high public anticipation and the child-oriented campaign will make it perform like one.
  28. Come Undone
    The elusive, quicksilver nature of young love is often reduced to crude simplicities by the movies, but director Sebastien Lifshitz and writing partner Stephane Bouquet have observed it with a superb balance of aesthetics and insight in Come Undone.
  29. Lumumba
    An impassioned, at times thrilling re-creation of the birth of the country that became Zaire and is now known as Congo again.
  30. Baby Boy
    Can be taken to task for its overt point-making, lackluster style and some late-on dramatic contrivances seemingly dragged in to provide a little violence.
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