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. Casi divas
    Gloriously flamboyant comedic extravaganza, fuses soap opera and "American Idol"-type competition, following four wildly different women vying for the star role in a feature filmization of a popular telenovela.
  2. Still Walking
    Its modest surface belies the depths of a lovely seriocomedy that concisely lays bare all kinds of uncomfortable dynamics in seemingly casual, low-key fashion.
  3. The Headless Woman
    A simpler and more taut, if slightly less interesting version of the oblique but mesmerizing studies of family life in fetid, hothouse atmospheres the Argentine helmer offered up in "La cienaga" and "The Holy Girl."
  4. District 9
    Though compelling throughout, District 9 never becomes outright terrifying, largely because Blomkamp is less interested in exploiting his aliens for cheap scares than in holding up a mirror to our own bloodthirsty, xenophobic species.
  5. Ponyo
    Though targeted at tots, Ponyo may appeal most to jaded adults thirsty for wondrous beauty and unpackaged innocence
  6. The Time Traveler's Wife
    May not make a lick of sense, but it does make for fairly irresistible nonsense.
  7. Bandslam
    High school musicals have their scrappiest number in Bandslam, an awkward, earnest, almost irresistible indie.
  8. The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard
    The movie simply doesn't deliver -- living hard, selling hard and, before it's over, finally dying hard.
  9. Earth Days
    A moving, elegiac, deeply contemplative work that leaves the viewer not with a save-the-world checklist, but rather a spirit of hopeful reflection.
  10. Grace
    In the showdown between mother and mother-in-law, the proceedings are peppered with spasm of violence that are alternately sick-funny and downright chilling, but don't cancel out the intelligence, or at least drollery, with which so much of the film is put together.
  11. It Might Get Loud
    Musically and visually sumptuous.
  12. Spread
    With "Shampoo" and "American Gigolo" now distant memories, the time evidently seemed ripe for another Hollywood stud movie. Despite Ashton Kutcher’s believability as an older woman’s kept boy, Spread isn’t a patch on those previous films.
  13. Taxidermia
    Taxidermia sets a benchmark for body horror in the cinema.
  14. The Way We Get By
    Although the trio's work as "troop greeters" is the film's ostensible subject, their renewed and somewhat tenuous sense of purpose gives the doc its bite.
  15. A Perfect Getaway
    A big-reveal thriller with surprises that really do surprise -- and are worth waiting for through an audaciously long buildup -- A Perfect Getaway finds writer-director David Twohy in popcorn form with a muscularity not seen since 2000's "Pitch Black."
  16. Julie & Julia
    This middling melange of Child biopic and contempo dramedy feels overstuffed and predigested as it depicts two ladies who found fame and fulfillment in their respective eras by cooking and writing about it.
  17. Cold Souls
    An amusing slice of existential whimsy with an Eastern European bent, Cold Souls posits a world in which humans can have their souls extracted and implanted in each others’ bodies.
  18. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
    While thesping is not the main game here, having a cast of bright young things certainly helps, and Quaid gets in a few nice John Wayne-like moments as the no-nonsense boss.
  19. Beeswax
    Beeswax, the third feature from American indie auteur Andrew Bujalski ("Funny Ha Ha," "Mutual Appreciation"), offers yet another low-key take on twentysomethings finding their way.
  20. I Sell the Dead
    Antic horror comedy I Sell the Dead nods to the '60s Hammer heyday of fog-swirling Victorian chillers, as well as that period's penchant for teaming genre favorites (Boris Karloff, Basil Rathbone, Peter Lorre, etc.) in genial sendups.
  21. Paper Heart
    There may be a fairly sharp line dividing those who find the whole delightfully odd, and those irked by what could be read as a faux childlike simplicity to the enterprise.
  22. Second Skin
    The human dramas of individual gamers are what really make this technically polished documentary so fascinating and potentially commercial.
  23. Funny People
    Amusing and engaging yet lacking in snap and cohesion, this insider's look at the world of standup comics in contempo Los Angeles rings true in its view of the variously warped, stunted and narrow lives of its mostly male denizens.
  24. The Cove
    Eco-activist documentaries don't get much more compelling than The Cove, an impassioned piece of advocacy filmmaking that follows "Flipper" trainer-turned-marine crusader Richard O'Barry in his efforts to end dolphin slaughter in Taiji, Japan.
  25. Thirst
    An overlong stygian comedy that badly needs a transfusion of genuine inspiration.
  26. Aliens in the Attic
    Performances are unremarkable but acceptable pretty much across the board, and the vocal talents -- particularly Thomas Haden Church as the belligerent Tazer and Josh Peck as the lovable Sparks -- are well cast.
  27. The Collector
    With both feet planted firmly on the sticky accelerator of the torture-porn vehicle, The Collector is a surprisingly stylish and confident high-concept thriller.
  28. Lorna's Silence
    The film doesn't pack the same cumulative wallop as the brothers' earlier work, but its low-key artistry, immaculate construction and fine performance by relative newcomer Arta Dobroshi should rouse the usual fest acclaim and arthouse interest.
  29. Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation!
    Aussie genre pics of the 1970s and '80s get a rip-roaring salute in Not Quite Hollywood, complete with endorsement by Quentin Tarantino as chief onscreen fanboy.
  30. Flame and Citron
    An absorbing, shades-of-gray look at home-front intrigue in Nazi-occupied Denmark during World War II. Ole Christian Madsen’s accomplished fourth feature plays out on a much larger canvas than he’s used previously and offers nuance and ambiguity in equal measure with violence and tragedy.
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