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. The Runaways
    A conventionally enjoyable making-and-breaking-of-the-band saga.
  2. The Killing Jar
    A spectacularly boring chamber thriller.
  3. Vincere
    It's a thrilling, at times brilliant piece of staging that never forgets the emotional pull of either the tragic personal tale or the ramifications of history.
  4. Shutterbug
    Though the low-budget picture is not without interest, its uneven thesping, sound quality and special effects might prove more welcome on the fest fringe.
  5. Mid-August Lunch
    A surefire pleaser for crowds of a certain age.
  6. The Exploding Girl
    Both comely leads offer engaging presences, and there’s some pretty imagery, shot adequately on HD, but it’s all so slight and featherweight one viewer sneezing could blow it all offscreen.
  7. She's Out of My League
    This appealingly cast movie seesaws from unlikely thoughtfulness to imbecilic vulgarity.
  8. Green Zone
    Once Damon's one-man truth squad goes off the reservation and starts behaving too much like Jason Bourne for comfort, the film begins not only spilling more blood but also leaking crucial credibility.
  9. Mother
    Key casting is aces, led by a deglammed Kim, forcefully low-key as the mother who seems capable of anything to protect her son.
  10. Our Family Wedding
    This broad ethnic farce serves up a full-on culture collision, but -- thanks to a handful of diverting performers -- stops just short of becoming a train wreck.
  11. Remember Me
    The modestly scaled film delivers some moving and affecting moments amid a preponderance of scenes of frequently annoying people behaving badly.
  12. Delta
    A beautifully atmospheric vessel that will seem infinitely deep to some and chafingly dry to others.
  13. Severe Clear
    Scotti's amateur camerawork proves strangely compelling.
  14. The White Stripes Under Great White Northern Lights
    While the black-white-and-red-clad duo's mystique survives intact, there's some backstage insight.
  15. Children of Invention
    Urgent, artful and even austerely poetic.
  16. Ghost Town
    At a leisurely 172 minutes, the pic takes on the desultory rhythms of rural stagnation, its rigorous compositions imparting aesthetic weight and meditative scope to everything in its purview.
  17. Stolen
    A technically polished thriller marred by textbook filmmaking that grows increasingly dull as the plot wears on.
  18. Alice in Wonderland
    For all its clever design, beguiling creatures and witty actors, the picture feels far more conventional than it should; it's a Disney film illustrated by Burton, rather than a Burton film that happens to be released by Disney.
  19. Brooklyn's Finest
    It’s more like "Hamlet" -- the ending, at least, with enough blood and corpses to fill a housing project. The only thing missing is a point, which Fuqua circles for two hours without landing.
  20. The Secret of Kells
    With its jewel-bright colors and intricate use of lines, the result is absolutely luscious to behold.
  21. Cop Out
    There's precious little of that tension to be found between co-leads Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan, but more than enough between director Kevin Smith and the shoddy script he's elected to take on, and neither seems willing to budge.
  22. The Crazies
    Delivers the essential suspense goods with overall skill and a modicum of intelligence.
  23. Defendor
    Harrelson shines, particularly in framing scenes with Sandra Oh as a tactful court psychiatrist.
  24. The Yellow Handkerchief
    A thoughtful, niche-oriented portrait of four off-the-beaten-path characters trying to find their way.
  25. Easier with Practice
    Amusingly predicated on the romantic possibilities of phone sex, Easier With Practice pushes past its titillating premise to become a quietly provocative love story about emotionally stunted manhood and the risks some guys will take to connect.
  26. Formosa Betrayed
    A decent political thriller set in Taiwan with the requisite Western-market-friendly lead and a determinedly pro-independence message embedded in a formulaic but diverting tale of intrigue and oppression.
  27. Prodigal Sons
    Sad, compelling documentary leaves a few key questions frustratingly unanswered, but the raw materials here are sufficiently bracing.
  28. Shutter Island
    Even when it's clear Scorsese has decided to employ fakery and allow it to be obvious, it's done with elegance and beauty.
  29. Happy Tears
    A contradictory creature, both insightful and dumb, sometimes innovative and sometimes just plain inept. Dreamy, funny but also weirdly disjointed, it’s as if the very film itself were stoned, just like its two pot-smoking sister protags.
  30. The Good Guy
    Lacking much of a satirical bite, the pic's quasi-celebration of crude laddishness becomes oppressive.
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