Variety's Scores

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For 17,782 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: 9,136 out of 17782
  2. Mixed: 7,010 out of 17782
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17782
17782 movie reviews
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  1. Maborosi
    This visually lush but sometimes ponderously slowfilm is a poetic saga of love and loss.
  2. Gray's Anatomy
    Removing a live audience from the equation, Soderbergh becomes a bold participant in the storytelling. The backdrop keeps changing, from a brick wall to drapes, windows and assorted landscapes. The lighting is in constant flux, often punctuating the text on cue.
  3. The Substance of Fire
    But what presumably was powerful in Jon Robin Baitz's play has been diluted in opening it up for the screen.
  4. Love Jones
    Although it becomes a bit contrived and conventional toward the end, writer-director Theodore Witcher's debut feature shows quite a few good moves, and Larenz Tate and Nia Long make an attractively hot couple at its center.
  5. Private Parts
    A funny and unexpectedly beguiling account of the outrageous humorist's unlikely rise to the pinnacle of radio celebrity.
  6. Jungle 2 Jungle
    An extremely handsome physical production, with breathtaking Venezuelan vistas by Tony Pierce-Roberts, Jungle 2 Jungle is an otherwise modest effort. Simple truths are often the most effective, but in this instance they are only banal and mildly amusing.
  7. The Daytrippers
    Greg Mottola's feature directorial debut, is an amusing farce about the delicate intricacies and imbalances of a modern marriage. A spirited cast, including old pros such as Anne Meara and younger talent such as Parker Posey, elevates the basically sitcom material into something fluffier and funnier than its nature suggests.
  8. Donnie Brasco
    The psychological dimensions of the story remain underrealized, but the loaded central premise and intimate focus the film sustains combine for a very involving and dramatic piece of crime lore.
  9. Hard Eight
    Four excellent lead performances, vividly evoked ambience and a masterfully sustained mood of quiet desperation mark Sydney as an impressive piece of work.
  10. Smilla's Sense of Snow
    An exceedingly sleek and handsome thriller, this ambitious European co-production, like the novel on which it's quite faithfully based, starts intriguingly but fails to stay the distance.
  11. Booty Call
    Though straining at the bounds of good taste (and occasionally spilling over), the story remains vigilant in its primary focus.
  12. Lost Highway
    Although uneven and too deliberately obscure in meaning to be entirely satisfying, result remains sufficiently intriguing and startling to bring many of Lynch's old fans back on board for this careening ride.
  13. Rosewood
    Ultimately, however, the film's ambition, urgency and acute observations prevail over the many stock elements to forge an estimable work that is notably serious and analytical for a Hollywood-produced film in this day and age.
  14. Fools Rush In
    In a role that Tom Hanks might have played a decade or so ago, Perry is pretty bland and doesn't provide any hints as to why Alex is so emotionally stymied.
  15. Vegas Vacation
    Series regulars Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo and Randy Quaid (who joined for "Christmas Vacation") are all back for more, and thank God for Quaid, who injects a few bracing shots of mangy humor into what is otherwise a lukewarm brew.
  16. Absolute Power
    Eastwood is in good, sly form, once again delighting in a character's splendid solitude and singular skill at what he does.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Touch
    Paul Schrader's first feature since Light Sleeper five years ago boasts a colorful cast and some vivid individual scenes, but unsuccessfully mixes tones while strenuously reaching for offbeat humor.
  18. That Darn Cat
    It's not quite a catastrophe, but the updated remake of That Darn cat is a loud and largely charmless trifle. Very small children may be attracted in sufficient numbers for fair-to-middling opening weekend B.O., but this overbearing comedy isn't likely to pussyfoot very long in theaters before it high-tails to homevideo.
  19. Dante's Peak
    Physicality of the second half, then, will keep the audience going, but it is not quite sufficient to camouflage the elemental silliness of storyline.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    SubUrbia
    Writer-director teamings seldom mesh as smoothly or suggest so many creative affinities as does the one at the heart of subUrbia, a brooding, incisive comedy that blends the talents of helmer Richard Linklater and playwright Eric Bogosian.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Waiting for Guffman
    The enterprise comes across like a bunch of talented friends making an elaborate home movie for their own amusement.
  22. Fierce Creatures
    A hilarious farce.
  23. Prefontaine
    This first dramatic feature by "Hoop Dreams" director Steve James has one foot still squarely planted in the docu aesthetic and notably lacks any psychological interest or emotional depth.
  24. Albino Alligator
    Spacey makes an honorable and intelligent helming debut with less-than-dazzling material.
  25. Beverly Hills Ninja
    This sweet saga of an underachiever who makes good is surprisingly appealing and sure to broaden the portly comic's fan base.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Metro
    Murphy and the filmmakers clearly want to establish Murphy as an action hero in the mold of Stallone and Van Damme (Carter wrote the Stallone starrer “Tango & Cash” and co-scripted the Van Damme feature “Nowhere to Run”), but they lack the courage of their convictions. Pic is bracketed by scenes of Eddie the funny man, just in case anybody forgets the performer’s roots.
  27. The Relic
    Still, this strikingly proficient production boasts genuinely scary thrills and first-rate visual and creature effects.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Ghosts of Mississippi
    Tepid and two-dimensional in the manner of many telepics, this “Ghost” bodes to haunt the vid shelves after a short theatrical life.
  29. The People vs. Larry Flynt
    Vastly entertaining.
  30. Evita
    Director Alan Parker has done a dazzling job creating screen images to accompany the wall-to-wall music, resulting in a musical fresco that is much closer to a sophisticated filmed opera than to any conventional tuner.
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