Variety's Scores

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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:
  1. Positive: 9,133 out of 17777
  2. Mixed: 7,008 out of 17777
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17777
17777 movie reviews
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  1. Reuniting the Rubins
    Its humor and sentimentality equally labored, this by-the-numbers picture will look better, albeit still not good, as a latenight cable or streaming time-killer.
  2. October Baby
    Newcomer Rachel Hendrix grabs attention and sustains sympathy as a lovely yet troubled 19-year-old student determined to unlock the secrets of her past after learning the circumstances of her birth.
  3. Musical Chairs
    This would-be inspirational picture has its heart in the right place, but with default-setting characters, loudly telegraphed emotional beats and lack of any real sizzle to enliven its maudlin moralizing, it all feels like a cursory run through a well-trodden routine.
  4. All In: The Poker Movie
    Loaded with history, interviews, hole-cam drama and some rather grand digressions, Douglas Tirola's picture seems a bit late for the poker craze, and at any rate will be preaching largely to the converted.
  5. Brake
    Mannion's script goes a bit too far in terms of twists, capping the third-act suspense with a plot U-turn, and then another, that leaves audiences feeling played. Worse, the final development loses credibility in retrospect, reducing the film to the level of an exercise in paranoia, effects and one actor's ability to hold attention for nearly 90 minutes.
  6. Fake It So Real
    The title is an apt one, suggesting that for all its staging and overt theatrics, independent (read: non-WWF) pro wrestling makes huge demands on the body and spirit.
  7. Pray for Japan
    It's hard not to be moved by the words of love, gratitude and resilience spoken by earthquake/tsunami survivors and volunteers in Pray for Japan. But well-meaning platitudes go only so far in this sincerely felt, raggedly structured compilation of footage.
  8. The Deep Blue Sea
    Davies is in fine form here, with luminous performances, especially from Rachel Weisz, rounding out a classy package whose only major problem is it may be a bit too true to its period sensibility and legit origins.
  9. The Hunger Games
    A watchable enough picture that feels content to realize someone else's vision rather than claim it as its own. Any real sense of risk has been carefully ironed out: The PG-13 rating that ensures the film's suitability for its target audience also blunts the impact of the teen-on-teen bloodshed.
  10. The Wise Kids
    An unusual example of what can be termed a "gay Christian" film, Cone's feature is among the best of a recent spate of dramas observing American Christian life.
  11. Delicacy
    Tautou is fine but clearly typecast as another whimsical pixie with strong melancholy undercurrents.
  12. The Understudy
    Marin Ireland makes a winning lead, but the script by helmers David Conolly and Hannah Davis ran out of gas in 2008, which is when the film was made.
  13. Natural Selection
    This filmed-in-Texas road movie finds a smooth groove between self-conscious quirkiness and broadly played farce.
  14. The Kid with a Bike
    The breakout here is 13-year-old Doret, the Dardennes' latest stunningly naturalistic, non-professional acting discovery.
  15. Jeff Who Lives at Home
    Graced with Susan Sarandon's radiant turn as Jeff's all-patient mother-enabler, this sweet but slight effort could modestly expand their audience beyond the slacker set to include middle-aged women.
  16. The FP
    This unabashedly derivative, vaguely post-apocalyptic riff on well-worn '80s-movie tropes plays its boilerplate premise with endearing earnestness, but runs thin in no time.
  17. Free Men
    A satisfying wartime espionage drama focused on little-noted intersections between Arabic emigres and the French Resistance.
  18. Detachment
    Scripter Lund, himself an ex-teacher, delivers a story that lacks nuance, and mixes badly with Kaye's impatient edits, Dutch angles and extreme close-ups.
  19. Casa de mi Padre
    A likable enough lark that rarely achieves outright hilarity.
  20. Shakespeare High
    Alex Rotaru's very busy documentary focuses more on the kids' stories than on their work; considering how sensational some of them are, it's probably a strategic advantage.
  21. The Raven
    The Raven is a squawking, silly picture that never takes flight.
  22. The Cabin in the Woods
    Not since "Scream" has a horror movie subverted the expectations that accompany the genre to such wicked effect as The Cabin in the Woods, a sly, self-conscious twist on one of slasher films' ugliest stepchildren: the coed campsite massacre.
  23. A Thousand Words
    Alas, even Murphy's largely wordless, physically adroit performance can't redeem this tortured exercise in high-concept spiritualist hokum.
  24. Convento
    Documentarian Jarred Alterman emphasizes oddball lyricism in the one-of-a-kind Convento, in which a 400-year-old Portuguese monastery provides the canvas for a Dutch family's artistic experimentation.
  25. Good for Nothing
    A droll New Zealand parody with a tone so deadpan it becomes laugh-out-loud funny.
  26. Apart
    Editor-turned-writer-helmer Aaron Rottinghaus has a keen eye, but doles out the details of this mystery at such a dysfunctional pace, it's difficult to get engaged.
  27. John Carter
    Stanton has been given the resources to create an expansive, expensive world, but lacks the instincts to direct live-action, a limitation that shows most in the performances. Bare of chest and fair of feature, Kitsch doesn't exhibit enough charisma to carry a project of this scale.
  28. 21 Jump Street
    By casting Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum as fish-out-of-water buffoons, the irreverent result feels fresher than most '80s-show reboots, effectively flipping the address Johnny Depp made famous.
  29. Sound of Noise
    A delightful comic cocktail of modern city symphony, police procedural and love story.
  30. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen
    Like one of those kitchen machines that can turn nearly any ingredient into ice cream, Lasse Hallstrom has sweetened the satire right out of Paul Torday's side-splitting political sendup Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.
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