Variety's Scores

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For 17,782 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: 9,136 out of 17782
  2. Mixed: 7,010 out of 17782
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17782
17782 movie reviews
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  1. Firehouse Dog
    Leaving no heartstrings untugged and no doggie-fart jokes uncracked, scruffy pic reps a very mixed breed of obvious humor, gently moving father-son drama and sub-"Backdraft" trial by fire.
  2. Black Book
    Moves like an express train across almost 2½ hours without any sense of rush and with strong, empathetic characters etched en route.
  3. Blades of Glory
    This Will Speck-Josh Gordon-directed farce is the triple axel of comedy.
  4. The Lookout
    A stealthy neo-noir drama that isn't afraid to take its time developing characters on the way to the payoff of a neatly designed caper scenario.
  5. Meet the Robinsons
    A sharp-minded, plenty entertaining toon that will keep children of all ages wide-eyed and on their toes.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    After the Wedding
    Thanks to a tight script, sharp direction and excellent actors, new film by Danish helmer Susanne Bier manages to be both emotional and engaging.
  7. The Hawk Is Dying
    Already gasping for breath in its opening scenes, picture takes two bleak, unyielding hours to finally expire.
  8. Race You to the Bottom
    It's a bad heterosexual date movie (more a date-gone-wrong), has too limited a gay angle for that demographic, and is about characters who are not particularly likable as individuals or as a couple.
  9. Ten 'til Noon
    Paul Osborne's script delivers an intriguing structure, though dialogue tastes like something warmed over after 12 years in Quentin Tarantino's freezer.
  10. Live Free or Die
    Criminally short on laughs as it tries to wring humor from dull activity by dim bulbs.
  11. Sacco and Vanzetti
    Does a superb job of condensing an overwhelming mass of documentation, archival imagery and artistic representation into a concise yet passionate history lesson whose relevance could not be timelier.
  12. Summer in Berlin
    The modest splash made by Andreas Dresen's Dogme-styled 2002 drama "Grill Point" raised expectations his projects since haven't quite met, including the new Summer in Berlin.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    U-Carmen e-Khayelitsha
    This version of Georges Bizet's frequently reinterpreted "Carmen" is spoken and sung in the click-punctuated African lingo of Xhosa and adapted to fit yarn's shift south, with a semi-cinema verite style cleverly disguising the artifice of the work's legit origins.
  14. Shooter
    An immediately involving yarn of an ace Marine sharpshooter set up to take the fall for an attempted presidential assassination, picture saddles itself with stereotypical villains, hokey contrivances and too-expedient crisis solutions.
  15. The Hills Have Eyes II
    The politics of "Hills 2" won't enlist any new converts to the horror ranks, but existing fans will be drawn to the combination of visceral tension, violent payoff and the patented Craven gift for innovative gore.
  16. The Last Mimzy
    Kids will like Mimzy if for no other reason than it doesn't talk down to them.
  17. Pride
    Despite a second half that feels more routine than its first, Pride is a definite crowd-pleaser.
  18. Reign Over Me
    Sandler (never making a false step while maneuvering though vertiginous mood swings) and Cheadle (deftly commingling instinctive decency with quiet desperation) are individually excellent, and bring out the best in each other. And the picture itself transcends its real but relatively minor flaws to score a satisfyingly potent impact.
  19. TMNT
    Munroe's script denies fans the satisfaction of a decent story or amusing interactions. Rather than waiting for a screenplay that warranted their bigscreen return, TMNT feels like an attempt to exploit the phenomenon further.
  20. Air Guitar Nation
    With equal measures of showmanship, patriotism and irony, hundreds vie at NYC's Pussycat Lounge for the East Coast Division of the first-ever nationwide air guitar championship for the right to eventually represent the U.S. at the world championship.
  21. Boy Culture
    A strong cast, formal visual style and cynical voiceover that propels the action help elevate this Seattle-set gay romp from the ranks of the stereotypical.
  22. Color Me Kubrick
    A sly, enormously entertaining romp based on the antics of real-life Brit conman Alan Conway who rooked his way around '90s London posing as Stanley Kubrick.
  23. First Snow
    Engages but underwhelms.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Journey from the Fall
    A post-Vietnam War boat people saga is launched to compelling effect in Journey From the Fall, a sleek U.S. production.
  25. Offside
    In his most accessible and spontaneous picture, ranking Iranian helmer Jafar Panahi reveals unsuspected comic gifts barely visible in his dramatic festival winners "The White Balloon," "The Circle" and "Crimson Gold."
  26. The Page Turner
    Scripter-helmer Denis Dercourt's sixth feature is spare but classy, with an impressively controlled perf by Deborah Francois (the young mother in the Dardenne Bros.' "L'enfant") opposite popular and spot-on vet Catherine Frot.
  27. Memory
    It's actually considerably better -- and far more intriguing -- than most entry-level horror pics, marrying a retro B-movie setup with the ghostly obsessions of recent Asian extreme cinema.
  28. The Prisoner or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair
    The Prisoner is in many ways a justifiably angry film, simmering with moral outrage. But it is also -- surprisingly, maybe even amazingly -- hopeful.
  29. What Love Is
    Picture looks and sounds like an Off Off Broadway play.
  30. Iluminados por el fuego
    A watchable if none-too-penetrating analysis of the traumatizing effects of a war largely forgotten.
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