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 Princess and the Frog
    This cheeky update of a classic fairy tale boasts almost as many talking points as merchandising opportunities.
  2. Old Dogs
    Too bad this shrilly tuned comedy doesn't demand more than clock-punching effort from everyone involved.
  3. Ninja Assassin
    Seemingly made to capitalize on a dubious CG innovation -- namely, the slicing of bodies in half by whizzing five-pointed stars -- Ninja Assassin has little else to recommend it, not even laughs.
  4. Me and Orson Welles
    There are moments, especially when Welles is alternating between acting as Brutus and directing everyone else, that it’s possible to forget you’re watching an actor and really believe you’re beholding Orson Welles at work.
  5. The Blind Side
    Uplifting and entertaining feel-good, fact-based sports drama.
  6. The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans
    The film is offbeat, silly, disarming and loopy all at the same time, and viewers will decide to ride with that or just give up on it, according to mood and disposition.
  7. Broken Embraces
    A restless, rangy and frankly enjoyable genre-juggler that combines melodrama, comedy and more noir-hued darkness than ever before, the picture is held together by the extraordinary force of Almodovar’s cinematic personality.
  8. The Twilight Saga: New Moon
    Carried by Kristen Stewart's compellingly dark performance, but also by helmer Chris Weitz's robust visuals.
  9. Planet 51
    There's nothing funny, provocative or involving about what "Shrek" co-writer Joe Stillman and the team from Madrid-based Ilion Animation Studios do with the notion here.
  10. Defamation
    End result is at once intelligent, wry and -- there's no way around it -- quintessentially Jewish, in the best sense.
  11. Fix
    The diversity of visual tactics, characters, settings and incidents keep this shaggy-dog tale consistently diverting.
  12. The Sun
    As usual, Sokurov's unhurried pacing will test the patience of more fidgety viewers, although the script is more accessible than some of his recent efforts.
  13. Mammoth
    A mixed bag, Mammoth is a good-looking, smoothly directed, continent-hopping drama about parents and children, globalization and the disconnect between rich and poor, but comes with too much repetitive exposition and lacks an emotional payoff.
  14. The Missing Person
    An intriguingly plotted mystery that unfortunately forgets to put the noir in film noir. A drab, pale-looking affair without a trace of visual style, this cross-country pursuit yarn fights a losing battle to sustain viewer attention via narrative alone, so much does it flounder for lack of imagistic flair.
  15. The War on Kids
    A startling wake-up call about appalling conditions prevailing in American schools, The War on Kids contradicts popular wisdom.
  16. Red Cliff
    Balances character, grit, spectacle and visceral action in a meaty, dramatically satisfying pie that delivers on the hype and will surprise many who felt the Hong Kong helmer progressively lost his mojo during his long years stateside.
  17. Fantastic Mr. Fox
    The film's style, paradoxically both precious and rough-hewn, positions this as the season's defiantly anti-CGI toon, and its retro charms will likely appeal more strongly to grown-ups than to moppets; it's a picture for people who would rather drive a 1953 Jaguar XK 120 than a new one.
  18. 2012
    The visual effects are pretty sensational, delivering the cutting-edge CGI goods auds want and expect. It will be hard to watch "Earthquake'' ever again after this one.
  19. The Messenger
    Nobody plays angry like Ben Foster, but compassion is something new for the actor, who softens his crazy-man shtick to deliver a complex and moving performance in The Messenger.
  20. Pirate Radio
    Picture generally stays afloat on the strength of its characters but sometimes threatens to sink under its overlong running time and vignettish structure.
  21. Dare
    This "Cruel Intentions"-style cesspool of teenage hanky-panky may be more scandalous than its chaste Disney counterpart, but that doesn't necessarily make it any more authentic.
  22. William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe
    In attempting to address its subject's ideological discrepancies, "Kunstler" lacks the objectivity needed to put the lawyer's shift from '60s fist-pumper to '80s and '90s headline-grabber in proper context.
  23. Oh My God
    Compacts nearly three years' worth of globe-trotting interviews into an often visually vibrant but rhetorically muddled package. So intent on giving (almost) every perspective a fair shake that it winds up saying little of consequence.
  24. Uncertainty
    Half formulaic and half simply unimaginative.
  25. Women in Trouble
    A wildly uneven but compulsively watchable mix of high camp and grand passions, soap opera and softcore sex. Very much in the deliriously lewd style of Pedro Almodovar.
  26. Love Hurts
    An ungainly, at times cringe-worthy succession of tame, telegraphed romantic mishaps, well-intentioned if unconvincing sentimentality, and some of the least authentic teenage dialogue this side of the "Friday the 13th" franchise.
  27. Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire
    An urban nightmare with a surfeit of soul, Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire is like a diamond -- clear, bright, but oh so hard.
  28. The Men Who Stare at Goats
    A superbly written loony-tunes satire, played by a tony cast at the top of its game.
  29. The Box
    Kelly's trademark mix of sci-fi, surrealism and suburbia occasionally entertains.
  30. The Fourth Kind
    Even the most gullible auds will be challenged to buy into the picture, billed as "based on the actual case studies" and, in any case, rendered rather boring by writer-director Olatunde Osunsanmi ("The Cavern").
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