Variety's Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
  1. Sputnik Mania
    A seemingly esoteric subject -- the launch of Russia's Sputnik satellite -- is exhumed and made exciting in this important slice of you-are-there documaking.
  2. Hacia la oscuridad
    A convoluted bilingual thriller about a kidnapping in Colombia, Towards Darkness may be too clever for its own good. Frosh director Antonio Negret intertwines so many disparate characters, each with a flashback-studded backstory, that after a while the exhausted viewer, assaulted by sudden time-jumps, agitated handheld camerawork and tediously protracted suspense, ceases to care.
  3. War Made Easy: How Presidents & Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death
    Overlapping with other recent documentaries, picture nonetheless presents a stimulating argument.
  4. Wetlands Preserved: The Story of an Activist Nightclub
    Pays fitting tribute to Wetlands' unique rebirth of '60s idealism within a '90s urban setting.
  5. Blind Mountain
    Low on drama and originality, and high on deja vu, sophomore outing by writer-director Li Yang ("Blind Shaft," 2003).
  6. Meat Loaf: In Search of Paradise
    Helmer Bruce David Klein's near-reverential treatment is a nice contrast to the rough-and-tumble of tour life.
  7. 10,000 BC
    Conventional where it should be bold and mild where it should be wild, 10,000 BC reps a missed opportunity to present an imaginative vision of a prehistoric moment.
  8. The Bank Job
    An engrossing if underwhelming period thriller.
  9. College Road Trip
    This overplayed, underachieving laffer feels thoroughly manufactured to Disney specifications.
  10. Married Life
    The tone, casting and material form a less-than-perfect match in Married Life, a period domestic drama that never quite decides if it wants to be a credible marital study, a noirish meller or a sly comedy.
  11. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
    McDormand's performance slowly builds a solid integrity, and contrasts well with Adams' more flamboyant turn.
  12. Paranoid Park
    Through immaculate use of picture, sound and time, the director adds another panel to his series of pictures about disaffected, disconnected youth.
  13. Snow Angels
    Emotionally harrowing and gentle by turns, this well-acted winter's tale is a more narrative-driven experience than Green's more lyrical Sundance entries, "George Washington" and "All the Real Girls."
  14. CJ7
    "E.T."-inspired comic fantasy about a poor boy adopting a cute alien catches the eye but not fully the heart with its undernourished father-son dynamics, critter hijinks and smattering of social commentary.
  15. Fighting for Life
    The only people who seem immune to the politics of the Iraq War are also at its epicenter: the doctors and nurses who mend and tend to the wounded, and who provide the heart and soul of Terry Sanders' Fighting for Life.
  16. Girls Rock!
    Aggressively upbeat docu, helmed by two males ill-equipped to bring any distance to the camp's pervasive feel-good feminism, tends to relentlessly reiterate points better served by example.
  17. Blindsight
    The deceptively complex picture gradually grows sharp edges and snowballs into a compelling study in culture clash, with spectacular scenery to boot.
  18. City of Men
    Despite its sudsy storyline, this second tour through the punk-infested Rio slums could attract more mature arthouse auds, drawn by character rather than the minutiae of guns 'n' drugs, though it's unlikely to match "God's" muscular $7.5 million U.S. take.
  19. Vivere
    Piles heavy emotional baggage on a slender story frame. Pic looks ravishing, featuring a nocturnal road trip through a cool kaleidoscopic landscape of shifting colors peopled by three commanding thesps of different generations whose interlocking stories form a cohesive whole.
  20. Bonneville
    A bland road movie running on empty. It's depressing to see a deluxe cast wasted on such by-the-numbers material -- from predictable plot to fabricated Hallmark sentiment to strenuous milking of warm-and-fuzzy laughs from the irrepressible spirit of three women whose youth is behind them.
  21. Chicago 10
    A vibrantly crafted evocation of a convulsive moment in 20th century American history, Chicago 10 is far less interested in offering a fresh, probing look at what took place on the streets during the 1968 Democratic National Convention and the circus trial that followed than it is in celebrating the stars of the anti-war movement and rallying the current generation to follow their examples.
  22. The Other Boleyn Girl
    A sexy, good-looking political bodice-ripper with an almost flawless cast at the top of its game.
  23. Penelope
    The whimsical ugly-duckling fable becomes more uneven as it proceeds, straining too hard to manufacture its quirky charms.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Romulus, My Father
    Warmly felt but haltingly told meller Romulus, My Father holds the attention with fine perfs and exquisite lensing, but never really grips the imagination.
  25. Semi-Pro
    Very much in the tradition of "Slap Shot," George Roy Hill's raucously funny and foul-mouthed 1977 laffer about the misadventures of a minor-league hockey team, Semi-Pro scores big laughs with the rowdy play-by-play of hard-luck hoopsters struggling for professional survival.
  26. The Unforeseen
    Observing locally and thinking globally, Laura Dunn's astonishing debut doc feature The Unforeseen is the kind of transformative viewing experience that has made the current period a golden age for nonfiction film.
  27. Jar City
    A taut police procedural that craftily blends ripped-from-the-headlines genetic issues with foreboding Icelandic stoicism, Jar City reps a supremely confident stride into mass-appeal genre fare for Icelandic hyphenate Baltasar Kormakur.
  28. Chop Shop
    Ultimately, the pic will be noted and remembered not for any inherent drama or analysis but for its simply having so thoroughly documented a strange place most people have never seen and never knew existed.
  29. Charlie Bartlett
    Rollicking story of a rich kid whose wildly successful bid for popularity has him playing drug-distributing shrink to an entire high school boasts pitch-perfect faceoffs between upstart Anton Yelchin and alcoholic principal Robert Downey Jr. that could fuel a chemistry lab.
  30. The Signal
    Borrowing heavily from the current trend in zombie comedy and apocalyptic horror but shifting it away from the usual undead norms, pic carves out a fresh angle in the crowded indie horror universe while blatantly stealing ideas from Kiyoshi Kurosawa's "Pulse."
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »