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. Wolf Creek
    Essentially a worst-case-scenario white-knuckler executed with terrifically focused skill and realism.
  2. The Intruder
    A beautiful, complex work that challenges viewers to mentally sift interior and exterior journeys.
  3. Casanova
    A handsome chunk of widescreen entertainment that's as nimble as its rakish hero.
  4. Glory Road
    Slick enterprise buoyed by a Motown-flavored '60s soundtrack and an appealing ensemble cast.
  5. How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (and Enjoy It)
    Lively interviews from a wide range of people, a wealth of excerpted footage stretching over decades, and a story packed with legend are served up by helmer Joe Angio with a verve mirroring the restless creativity of the film's subject.
  6. The Ister
    Tyro helmers David Barison and Daniel Ross have sunk their teeth into a heady intellectual stew, and results are invigorating thanks to the filmmakers' inspired linkage of images and ideas and commentaries from three of the world's leading philosophers.
  7. Love
    The action is compelling, the film good looking, the acting first rate and the circumstances -- people from neglected nations in an alienating if not hostile urban landscape -- is moving.
  8. Battle in Heaven
    Both intensely exciting for its cinematic inventions and terribly uninvolving on emotional and dramatic levels.
  9. Sophie Scholl: The Final Days
    An ace performance by 26-year-old Julia Jentsch ("The Edukators," "Snowland"), as the quietly determined Munich student who was beheaded for distributing counter-propaganda leaflets in 1943, gives pic a focused dramatic power.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Little Fish
    Blessed with stellar performances, especially by lead Cate Blanchett as an ex-junkie looking for a fresh break, this sophomore feature by Australian director Rowan Woods marks a strong return after his powerful debut, "The Boys" (1998).
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Black Orpheus
    Pic is somewhat cerebral, being mainly helped by the fresh playing of the cast, especially Yank actress Dawn. Color is excellent, and director Marcel Camus gives this movement. (Review of Original Release)
  12. Dave Chappelle's Block Party
    A heady spirit of spontaneity permeates the proceedings, suggesting the entire pic, much like the concert it documents, was conceived, planned and completed in a single burst of creative enthusiasm.
  13. Forgiving Dr. Mengele
    An impressively polished documentary by Bob Hercules and Cheri Hughes. Perhaps even more thought-provoking than its co-helmers intended, pic is bound to spark conversations and debate.
  14. The Devil's Miner
    An unforgettable journey through hell under the earth, where Satan is worshipped as king. Straight-as-an-arrow filmmaking raises this docu above the crowd.
  15. Iluzija
    Superbly modulated yet unrelentingly grim, Mirage builds upon a remarkable performance from young Macedonian newcomer Marko Kovacevic to tell the tragic tale of a talented schoolboy driven to violence through neglect and manipulation.
  16. L'Enfant (The Child)
    Those masters of small-scale realism, Belgian brothers Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne, have created yet another beautifully acted, exquisitely observed morality tale in The Child.
  17. Slither
    Slither begins briskly, gradually accelerates and eventually achieves a breakneck momentum that makes the wild ride even more exhilarating.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mountain Patrol
    Exquisite to behold and with a stimulating storyline that mixes guns with ecological consciousness, picture is a considerable change of pace for director Lu Chuan.
  19. The Proposition
    Hillcoat and Cave have here found their most fertile ground yet for allegory-rich examinations of life and death in remote, pressure-cooker environments.
  20. Sketches of Frank Gehry
    Lucid and engaging, Sketches of Frank Gehry provides the enormously gratifying opportunity to spend an hour-and-a-half with an artistic giant.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Overlord [re-release]
    US director Stuart Cooper gives it the right understated, unheroic feel. (Review of Original Release)
  22. Half Nelson
    Avoiding rote inspirational notes as well as boyz-in-the-hood violence, scrupulously low-key drama nonetheless builds to a powerful impact.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Fan-Fan the Tulip
    A rousing, good humored costumer on ribald 18th-century France. (Review of Original Release)
  24. Lassie
    Competent journeyman writer-helmer Charles Sturridge ("Brideshead Revisited") and his overqualified thesp ensemble steer a steady course between dogged fidelity to Eric Knight's sentimental original novel and modern auds' need for a little humorous bite with the barking.
  25. This Film Is Not Yet Rated
    Never really addresses why aspects of the ratings don't work, proposes concrete improvements or compares the system to those in other countries. Still, picture's bracing, hilarious and out-there elements make it a landmark.
  26. The Ground Truth
    The substance of the movie is potent, and so powerfully presented by those who have fought and are still fighting a controversial war, that the message of Ground Truth cannot be dismissed.
  27. Keeping Mum
    Rather dark, decidedly English and exceedingly well played, Keeping Mum is a neatly crafted black comedy with more than a nod in tone toward the Ealing classic "The Ladykillers."
  28. Old Joy
    A beautifully nuanced study in friendship and the irretrievability of the past.
  29. Black Gold
    The Francises are aces behind the camera, displaying an elegant sense of composition that makes their subject visually ravishing. Andreas Kapsalis' gorgeous score lends doc a grand quality.
  30. Deliver Us from Evil
    So harsh and damning is the pic toward the current Catholic leadership -- personified by Los Angeles-based Cardinal Roger Mahony, who oversaw O'Grady's stewardship at various central California parishes in the 1970s and '80s, that charges the church operates "like the Mafia" sound spot-on.
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