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. Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon
    An ingeniously twisted mockumentary.
  2. Nomad
    Picture fits seamlessly together although it is somewhat generic in flavor, with an off-the-shelf narrative arch and characterizations drawn using broad brushstrokes.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Dead Silence
    Only those in a cold sweat for their weekly horror fix will bother with this formulaic and rather lazy exercise in booga-booga scare tactics.
  4. I Think I Love My Wife
    The main drawback is that under director Rock, actor Rock doesn't possess quite the chops to pull off this character, and the humor and flights of fancy are simply too low-key.
  5. Premonition
    This slick exercise about a housewife whose spouse might or might not be dead is effective until a downright maudlin close.
  6. Caffeine
    Nonsense, hysterics and many cuppas spill in Caffeine, an ensembler that serves up a menu's worth of forced and trite situations.
  7. My Brother
    A heavy-handed redemption story.
  8. The Wind That Shakes the Barley
    Though tastily lensed and with a convincing cast led by Cillian Murphy, essentially small-scale picture lacks the involving sweep of Loach's earlier historical-political yarn, "Land and Freedom."
    • 51 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Adam's Apples
    A funny, politically incorrect and, somewhere deep down, thoughtful black comedy, Adam's Apples is the third and final film in helmer-writer Anders Thomas Jensen's excellent trilogy centered on oddballs and misfits in Denmark.
  10. Tortilla Heaven
    As flat as a tortilla and considerably less nourishing.
  11. American Cannibal: The Road to Reality
    Fails to draw any conclusions and, thanks to legal issues, leaves too many questions unanswered.
  12. Blockade
    Told without voiceover, explanatory subtitles or any other contextualizing material, Russian docu Blockade looks unlikely to show up on the History Channel as it stands now. Nevertheless, this absorbing account of the 900-day siege of Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) during WWII, told entirely through re-edited archive footage with freshly made sound, reps poignant viewing as it focuses on the daily lives of the city's inhabitants.
  13. The Go Master
    Perhaps the least accessible of Tian's films, this serenely elliptical poser will elude all but the most devoted arthouse auds.
  14. 300
    A blustery, bombastic, visually arresting account of the Battle of Thermopylae as channeled through the rabid imagination of graphic novelist Frank Miller.
  15. The Host
    On almost every level, there's never quite been a monster movie like The Host. Egregiously subverting its own genre while still delivering shocks at a pure genre level, and marbled with straight-faced character humor that constantly throws the viewer off balance.
  16. Believe in Me
    Even with ties to the true story of high school hoops coach Jim Keith and his unlikely triumph with a 1960s Oklahoma high school girls' squad, the hackneyed, overlong Believe in Me is much too similar to a recent flood of inspirational basketball pics to distinguish it.
  17. Beyond the Gates
    Although in many respects a more stylish, authentic, tougher-minded film than "Hotel Rwanda," director Michael Caton-Jones' respectable and well-intentioned Beyond the Gates (aka Shooting Dogs) still falls into the trap of filtering an inherently African story through the eyes of a noble white protagonist -- in this case, two of them.
  18. Maxed Out: Hard Times, Easy Credit and the Era of Predatory Lenders
    Intelligent, informative and unusually entertaining documentary errs only when it yanks too insistently on heartstrings while focusing on worst-case scenarios involving desperate debtors driven to suicide.
  19. The Namesake
    A richly compelling story of family and self-discovery.
  20. The Ultimate Gift
    Although cynics likely will reject The Ultimate Gift as warmed-over Capra-corn, this predictable but pleasant drama based on Jim Stovall's popular novel may be prized by those with a taste for inspirational uplift and heart-tugging sentiment.
  21. The Exterminating Angels
    Brisseau trains his deft camera on the crescendo of female sexual pleasure and how women can heighten the intensity of already blissful sensations via transgressive flourishes. If exiting viewers could all be asked "Was it good for you?" the likely answer is "Yes."
  22. The Border Post
    A flashback to the playfully tender East Euro cinema of yore with a forceful if predictable punch in the closing reel, Rajko Grlic's Border Post marks a virile comeback for the Croatian veteran after his weak-kneed "Josephine."
  23. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time
    Animated combo of laughs and life lessons charts its heroine's adventures in such an accessible and cheery way, it's easy to imagine her leaping into a Stateside remake.
  24. Zodiac
    Conveying an astonishing array of information across a long narrative arc while still maintaining dramatic rhythm and tension, this adaptation of Robert Graysmith's bestseller reps by far director David Fincher's most mature and accomplished work.
  25. Wild Hogs
    Given his writer-producer credits on good-to-great recent sitcoms ("My Name Is Earl," "Arrested Development," "Grounded for Life"), one might expect more situational wit, or at least some snappy patter, from Brian Copeland's first bigscreen script. Instead, the humor rests primarily on slapstick wipeouts that have no physical consequence.
  26. The Cats of Mirikitani
    Always surprising documentary makes excellent use of its many serendipidities.
  27. Black Snake Moan
    Mix Brigitte Bardot in "And God Created Woman" with Carroll Baker in "Baby Doll," sex it up times 10 and you have a notion of the effect of Christina Ricci in Black Snake Moan.
  28. Full of It
    Hormonally charged comedy is bound to make parents uncomfortable, as writers Jon Lucas and Scott Moore add a sexual dimension to the kind of after-school-special premise that might appeal to 10-year-olds (but is here twisted to suit older teens).
  29. Into Great Silence
    With a painterly eye and a deep appreciation for the hermetic world set apart from, rather than at odds with, modern life, helmer Philip Groening takes the viewer into their cloistered world.
  30. Wild Tigers I Have Known
    Striking and self-indulgent in equal measure, Cam Archer's first feature, Wild Tigers I Have Known, is an impressive declaration of talent that nonetheless gets a little drunk and disorderly at the trough of High Art. Arresting visual and sonic textures frequently overwhelm sketchy narrative, leaving surface provocation too seldom ballasted by deeper psychological truths or emotional impact.
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