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. After the Life
    It certainly wraps the trilogy on a very powerful, emotionally draining note. It's refreshing to see the precision and audacity with which Belvaux and his excellent cast succeed in imbuing the increasingly familiar story with completely new angles, insights and nuances.
  2. The Deep End
    Taking film noir material and turning it inside out visually and morally, The Deep End is an absorbing, beautifully made melodrama that succeeds on formal levels more than it does with suspense or emotion.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tumbleweeds
    Has what it takes to becomes the year's first heartfelt sleeper.
  4. Once Upon a Time in the Midlands
    Marvelously involving family saga.
  5. Babí léto
    The trio is so individually and collectively charismatic that the film eventually neglects fully fleshed-out narrative in favor of sublime characterization.
  6. Quo Vadis?
    Bright, glossy, grandly scaled and dramatically stolid, 79-year-old writer-director Jerzy Kawalerowicz's longtime dream project mixes earnest religiosity with the depraved cruelty of Nero's Rome in the classic De Mille tradition.
  7. Charlotte Sometimes
    The deft shading he (Byler) elicits from his thesps is of a piece with his dramatics and his understated, artful approach to compositions and movement.
  8. Big Animal
    A rueful yet gentle fable about the price of individuality and the value of dignity that preserves the intellectually stimulating spirit of Kieslowski's best work while tapping into a universally understandable vein of low-keyed absurdist comedy.
  9. The Deep End of the Ocean
    Michelle Pfeiffer and Treat Williams give such magnetic performances that they elevate the film way above its middlebrow sensibility and proclivity for neat resolutions.
  10. Stoked: The Rise and Fall of Gator
    It's a pungent study of fads, trends and the way everything once genuine ends up being homogenized and exploited beyond recognition by corporate America -- a fine companion piece to Stacy Peralta's "Dogtown and Z-Boys," but with a more raw, punkish aesthetic.
  11. Rana's Wedding
    Though shot from the Palestinian P.O.V., the Dutch/Palestinian Film Foundation co-production is remarkably balanced, offering a convinced message of hope for the future.
  12. Dark Blue World
    Sverak's sheer technical finesse, and ability to spin on a dime between comedy and tragedy, the personal and the historical, makes Dark Blue World succeed where other similarly themed movies, from "Battle of Britain" to "The Blue Max," seem heavy-handed by comparison.
  13. Swimming Pool
    Working predominantly in English for the first time, the French director has crafted an absorbing tale about the merging of fiction with reality, propelled by contrasting performances from Charlotte Rampling and Ludivine Sagnier.
  14. Two Family House
    For all the pic’s sentimentality, De Felitta refuses to back away from some unpleasantly realistic touches.
  15. High Heels and Low Lifes
    An entertaining chick pic for all ages and sexes.
  16. Daughter from Danang
    An intelligent, well-observed and ineffably poignant study of an Amerasian woman's attempt to trace her roots by journeying back to Vietnam.
  17. Dr. Dolittle 2
    Even more family-friendly than its immensely popular predecessor.
  18. Go Tigers!
    Arguably the best sports-oriented documentary since "Hoop Dreams."
  19. The Man Who Wasn't There
    The Coen brothers tread into James M. Cain territory with The Man Who Wasn't There, but with less tasty results than either Cain or the Coens themselves at their best.
  20. Bones
    A sly mix of haunted house melodrama, slasher pic mayhem and retro-blaxploitation iconography, spiced with dollops of grisly, dark comedy.
  21. The Emperor's New Groove
    Light, taut and compact, the zippy adventure is sometimes much too hip for the room.
  22. One Hour Photo
    This immaculately made first feature from noted musicvid and commercials director Mark Romanek provides Robin Williams with one of his creepiest, atypical roles, and the comic star responds with an unusually restrained performance that is, in the end, quite moving.
  23. The Visual Bible: The Gospel of John
    Dramatically powerful, surprising in its strong narrative differences from previous cinematic tellings of "the greatest story" and bold in the extent to which it presents Jesus as a confrontational and threatening figure in the Judean context of the time.
  24. In My Skin
    Delves far more deeply into grisly physical manifestation than psychological motivation, making it seem something of an actorish vanity piece. But the drama is directed with arresting spareness and control.
  25. Zero Day
    Consistently riveting. Anything but sensationalistic, pic powerfully illuminates the banality of evil, as realistically ordinary kids (played brilliantly by non-professional high schoolers) prepare to wreak havoc.
  26. Bossa Nova
    Imagine a '30s screwball comedy played to a sensuous Brazilian beat and you're ready for Bossa Nova, a delightfully amusing romantic roundelay.
  27. The Cuckoo
    Charming, smart and funny.
  28. Love and Diane
    Tremendous emotional force and uncompromising honesty.
  29. Grosse Pointe Blank
    The zeal and good nature of the cast overcome the artificial quality of the situations.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Juliet of the Spirits
    Fellini has put together an imperial-sized fantasy of a physical opulence to make the old Vincente Minnelli Metro musicals look like army training films.
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