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. When the Road Bends: Tales of a Gypsy Caravan
    A potent combination of ethnography and concert film, Brit helmer Jasmine Dellal's joyous celebration of tzigane music follows the 2001 U.S. "Gypsy Caravan" tour, which showcased five bands from four countries.
  2. Strike
    Continuing the late-career renaissance of historically urgent, politically engaged fiction filmmaking that began with 1999's "The Legend of Rita" and 2004's "The Ninth Day" German vet Volker Schloendorff stumbles slightly, but doesn't fall, with Poland-set Solidarity saga Strike.
  3. The Trials of Darryl Hunt
    Advocacy cinema at its most searingly direct, The Trials of Darryl Hunt is a powerful and unsettling chronicle of the 20-year struggle to free a man twice convicted of a crime he didn't commit.
  4. Beyond Hatred
    Verite docu Beyond Hatred movingly accompanies the family of Francois Chenu, a gay man murdered by three skinheads in 2002, down the road to forgiveness.
  5. Macbeth
    Something indeed wicked this way comes in a mangled Macbeth set in contempo gangland Melbourne.
  6. Noriko's Dinner Table
    Although told through a cascade of flashes forward and back, the puzzle doesn't quite form a complete picture by the end, which may leave genre fans frustrated but the arthouse crowd intrigued.
  7. Lights in the Dusk
    Lights in the Dusk finds veteran Finnish helmer Aki Kaurismaki treading water with an amiable but very undercooked noirish fable about a security guard done wrong by a femme fatale.
  8. Ocean's Thirteen
    As smooth as a good mojito, as stylish as an Armani suit and as meaningful in the grand scheme of things as yesterday's Las Vegas betting odds, Ocean's Thirteen"continues the breezy good times of the first two series entries without missing a beat.
  9. Hostel: Part II
    In this twist-filled sequel, the real shocker is just how smart and satisfying such degradation can be. There's no question "Part II" outgrosses the original "Hostel" in the blood-and-guts department.
  10. Surf's Up
    Every bit as entertaining as the early Christopher Guest efforts.
  11. The Last Confederate: The Story of Robert Adams
    Undone by a thorough lack of visual craft.
  12. Miriam
    Despite troubling sexual themes (while in hiding, Miriam is raped by her protector), this remarkable, albeit unpolished, personal history may prove appropriate for religious or teaching purposes.
  13. 12:08 East of Bucharest
    The buoyant little comedy 12:08 East of Bucharest puts its finger on the problem in the best tradition of East European humor, savvy but concrete, gentle but sharp as a knife.
  14. Knocked Up
    Uproarious. Line for line, minute to minute, writer-director Judd Apatow's latest effort is more explosively funny, more frequently, than nearly any other major studio release in recent memory.
  15. Gracie
    Modestly engaging but thoroughly predictable.
  16. Mr. Brooks
    Mr. Brooks is most effective when it's dealing with Earl and his conscience. Hurt and Costner are terrific together as two sides of the same personality and, again, the casting is what it's all about.
  17. Crazy Love
    While the competent filmmaking package lacks much of its own personality, the sheer fascinating strangeness of the people documented could earn the picture a minor cult following a la "Grey Gardens."
  18. Day Watch
    Bursting with incident and FX, Day Watch will delight fans of its predecessor, "Night Watch," but further annoy those antipathetic to the Russkie-made supernatural franchise.
  19. I'm Reed Fish
    Pitch-perfect dialogue, quietly dynamic helming and small-scale action on a widescreen canvas make for a very appealing film.
  20. Ten Canoes
    Anthropology and entertainment are marvelously married in Rolf de Heer's Ten Canoes. The first feature in an Australian Aboriginal language feels authentic to the core as it tells a cautionary tale set 1,000 years ago.
  21. Radiant City
    In the end, helmers have some nifty tricks up their verite sleeves.
  22. Bug
    A ranting, claustrophobic drama that trades in shopworn paranoid notions, William Friedkin's overwrought screen version of Tracy Letts' play assaults the viewer with aggressive thesping and over-the-top notions of shocking incident, all to intensely alienating effect.
  23. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
    The third voyage in the "Priates" trilogy could be touted as "The biggest, loudest and second-best (or second-worst) 'Pirates' ever!" -- not necessarily a ringing endorsement, but honest.
  24. Angel-A
    For his (Besson) fans, Angel-A is an achingly sincere but protracted effort to trade mostly action for mostly dialogue.
  25. Golden Door
    An imaginative, intelligent and attractive Italo pic precisely when the country needs it most, Emanuele Crialese's Golden Door reps a solid piece of cinema that neither panders nor preaches.
  26. Paprika
    With its brainy scientist heroine, and surreal, super-kitsch imagery, above-average Japanese anime sci-fi pic Paprika has a better chance than most Nipponese toons of breaking out of the specialty ghetto by appealing to femme auds as well as the genre's core constituency of fanboys.
  27. Amu
    Admirably idealistic but dramatically awkward.
  28. Steel City
    Its honest, unshowy performances and textured depiction of life in a working-class community in a nowhere Southern Illinois town make this modest indie feature an affecting experience.
  29. 9 Star Hotel
    In dangerous and downright cruddy conditions, the personable Palestinians share stories, lodgings and camaraderie with the young Israeli filmmaker, whose handheld camera follows them everywhere.
  30. The Boss of It All
    For all its slightness, pic is helmer's least pretentious and most sheerly enjoyable for years.
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