Variety's Scores

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For 17,791 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: 9,139 out of 17791
  2. Mixed: 7,015 out of 17791
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17791
17791 movie reviews
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  1. Otto; or, Up with Dead People
    Meandering at the same draggy pace as its titular gay zombie, eroto-horror-satire mixes movie-within-a-movie machinations with graphic sex scenes that will titillate anyone who's ever wanted to see someone shagging an open wound.
  2. Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father
    The way Kuenne presents the material, with an aggressive style that lingers less than a second on most shots, it's impossible not to feel emotionally exhausted.
  3. Eden Lake
    Eden Lake doesn't feel like torture porn so much as a rural-jeopardy thriller in extremis.
  4. The Haunting of Molly Hartley
    This softcore thriller runs strictly by the numbers.
  5. Splinter
    A spare, effective and genuinely frightening retro-nightmare.
  6. Zack and Miri Make a Porno
    It would be too much to say that what Smith has come up with here is inspired, but it is pretty funny and very energetic.
  7. My Name Is Bruce
    Cheerfully embracing his status as cult B-movie genre megastar even as he sends it up, Bruce Campbell's sophomore directorial excursion, My Name is Bruce, is a big in-joke of definite if limited appeal.
  8. The Other End of the Line
    As cross-cultural bridge-builders go, picture is smart, funny and sweet enough to make you reassess your attitude next time you get reach tech support in New Delhi.
  9. What Just Happened
    A story very much by, about and for middle-aged men, and with the commercial limitations that implies, this intermittently amusing outing is graced by one of Robert De Niro’s more engaging performances of recent vintage.
  10. The First Basket
    A humorless, relentlessly ethnocentric docu about Jews in basketball.
  11. Let the Right One In
    Calling to mind the work of Anne Rice and Stephen King, atmospheric adaptation of Swedish author John Ajvide Lindqvist's bestseller is well directed by his countryman Tomas Alfredson ("Four Shades of Brown") and should click with cult and arthouse auds.
  12. Synecdoche, New York
    A wildly ambitious and gravely serious contemplation of life, love, art, human decay and death, the film bears Kaufman’s scripting fingerprints in its structural trickery and multiplane storytelling.
  13. Changeling
    Emotionally powerful and stylistically sure-handed, this true story-inspired drama begins small with the disappearance of a young boy, only to gradually fan out to become a comprehensive critique of the entire power structure of Los Angeles, circa 1928.
  14. I've Loved You So Long
    A movie that is utterly engrossing despite being, on the surface, about very little.
  15. Passengers
    Cruising somewhere between therapy drama and paranoid thriller, this middlebrow tone poem aims for ambiguity but often veers into soporific, suspending answers (and often, viewer interest) en route to an ending that explains all.
  16. Pride and Glory
    Feels like a film that should have been made at least 25 years ago. Or made as a period piece. Heavy, doom-laden and, unfortunately, entirely predictable.
  17. High School Musical 3: Senior Year
    While Ortega and fellow choreographers Charles Klapow and Bonnie Story stretch their imaginations, there's something almost lazy about the picture's underachiever script.
  18. Johnny Got His Gun
    Ably filmed by veteran stage producer-director Rowan Joseph, Bradley Rand Smith's theatrical script provides a bravura thespian workout for Ben McKenzie.
  19. Roadside Romeo
    Scores high on the tech front but considerably lower on script smarts.
  20. The Universe of Keith Haring
    Warmly affectionate yet curiously hollow, The Universe of Keith Haring is a straightforward biodoc about the Gotham-based artist and style-setter.
  21. Fear(s) of the Dark
    An omnibus of black-and-white animation with a couple exceptionally clever episodes tied together by an unnecessary recurring monologue.
  22. Stranded: I've Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains
    A documentary constructed from re-enactments, talking heads and no actual footage of the story it tells, but that still packs a knock-out punch.
  23. W.
    For a film that could have been either a scorching satire or an outright tragedy, W. is, if anything, overly conventional, especially stylistically.
  24. The Elephant King
    The film may be too mainstream for arthouses, and too arty for the mall.
  25. Filth and Wisdom
    Ineptly written and helmed story of three Londoners, although quite bad, does have a few redeeming features.
  26. Max Payne
    Stylishly made, armed to the teeth and ludicrous in the extreme.
  27. Morning Light
    The film feels more like the ultimate scrapbook for the participants than the vicarious thrill the pair no doubt imagined for audiences.
  28. The Secret Life of Bees
    Like a mouthful of honey, The Secret Life of Bees is cloyingly sweet and gooey, and you're not quite sure you can swallow it undiluted.
  29. Sex Drive
    Since the new pic contains little that's genuinely amusing or minimally original, it likely will fail on its own merits.
  30. Frontrunners
    Ultimately, picture's fascination lies with the personalities and strategies of the candidates themselves.
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