Variety's Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
  1. A Touch of Spice
    Using the familiar device of cuisine as a metaphor for national identity and personal feelings, bitter-sweet pic about a man torn between his ethnicity (Greek) and the country of his birth (Turkey) makes its points lightly and entertainingly, with only a routine third act letting down the package.
  2. Eating Out 2: Sloppy Seconds
    Sequel is no more than a cheapo campy goof, but this edition does contain a higher quota of laugh lines and an unsubtle message that efforts to make gay youth "go straight" is destined to fail.
  3. Our Daily Bread
    Looks at the agricultural industry across Europe through sound and images alone. Pic offers a tabula rasa in which some auds will see a horrifying indictment of the industry's cruelties, others a realistic depiction of mechanized farming, and some a soft-spoken tribute to manual labor. Meanwhile, precisely composed lensing and painstaking sound design create moments of sublime beauty.
  4. The Fountain
    Suffered from production fits and starts and reportedly has been cut down from a longer running time to a still tedious and repetitious hour and a half.
  5. Deck the Halls
    A lifeless, workmanlike comedy conceived to provide holiday shoppers an inoffensive respite from the mall.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Deja Vu
    Cinema's natural felicities for time and action have seldom felt as beautifully dovetailed.
  7. Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny
    Not surprisingly, the pic struggles at times to flesh out even its relatively brief 90-odd-minute duration, but it delivers some genuine if generally low-brow laughs along the way.
  8. Backstage
    With its booming soundtrack of songs -- written by Laurent Marimbert and sung by Seigner herself -- and good chemistry between Le Besco and Seigner, pic at times has an operatic emotional intensity that will turn off some viewers but provide a guilty pleasure for others.
  9. Opal Dream
    From the first frames, when lollypops are offered to the camera, there's no escaping the saccharine miasma of whimsy enveloping Peter Cattaneo's Opal Dream.
  10. Sun Kissed
    Without the songs, the underdeveloped bisexual triangle would seem shapeless. Even with the music, the film is a poorly crafted grab-bag of ideas barely elaborated upon enough to sustain a 20-minute short.
  11. The History Boys
    Audiences coming cold to this largely faithful adaptation of Alan Bennett's clever but contrived classroom comedy won't be so wowed, given picture's irrevocably stagy feel. Nicholas Hytner's flat-footed direction doesn't help, nor do picture's younger cast members' over-rehearsed performances, although the seasoned thesps shine.
  12. Casino Royale
    Craig comes closer to the author's original conception of this exceptionally long-lived male fantasy figure than anyone since early Sean Connery.
  13. Happy Feet
    One of the very best directed animated films on record. Not surprisingly from the force behind the "Babe" movies, the attention to detail is phenomenal, the humor ample.
  14. Let's Go to Prison
    Unlike the vast majority of rude bigscreen comedies these days, "Prison" may actually improve with repeat viewings, since its best aspects are offhand enough to be missed the first time around.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Candy
    Life, love and addiction make a mostly bitter, but occasionally sweet, concoction in Oz drama Candy, which is sometimes hard to swallow.
  16. Fast Food Nation
    Richard Linklater's rough-hewn tapestry of assorted lives that feed off of and into the American meat industry is both rangy and mangy; it remains appealing for its subversive motives and revelations even as one wishes its knife would have been sharper.
  17. For Your Consideration
    It will garner critical huzzahs from those it lampoons, which will broaden the duo's (Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy) fan base.
  18. The PianoTuner of EarthQuakes
    Impresses as a visually exquisite, rigorously intellectual but dauntingly obscurantist fable about automatons, opera singers and herniated desire that will appeal exclusively to arthouse auds with rarefied tastes.
  19. Bobby
    Emilio Estevez's Bobby is a passionate outcry for peace and justice in America that becomes deeply involving by the final climactic scene.
  20. The Aura
    The Aura is far from being simply "Nine Queens2." Leisurely paced, studied, reticent and rural, The Aura is a quieter, richer and better-looking piece that handles its multiple manipulations with the maturity the earlier picture sometimes lacked.
  21. Encounter Point
    Picture offers unique glimpses into the hearts and minds of those who have turned reasons for hatred into a crusade for tolerance, braving the scorn of enemies and compatriots alike.
  22. Flannel Pajamas
    Visually, the film is without flair or ambition, conveying no sense of atmosphere or mood. But the performances put it over.
  23. A Good Year
    A simple repast consisting of sometimes strained slapsticky comedy, a sweet romance and a life lesson learned, this little picnic doesn't amount to much but goes down easily enough.
  24. Harsh Times
    A psychotic seizure of a performance by Christian Bale dominates Harsh Times, the directorial debut of David Ayer that channels "Taxi Driver."
  25. The Return
    Forgettable PG-13 pic will particularly strike fans of harder-edged recent horror pix as much ado about not much.
  26. Stranger Than Fiction
    Sometimes becomes too self-consciously clever, and it doesn't entirely resolve its own central dilemma. But it remains inventive and funny to the end, features fine performances from Will Ferrell and especially Emma Thompson.
  27. Iraq in Fragments
    As beautiful as it is unrevealing, James Longley's Iraq in Fragments rests on a debatable but firm premise -- that the embattled country is irrevocably separated by its three dominant groups, Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds -- but brings back nothing journalistically substantial from the war front .
  28. Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus
    Picture is impressively crafted and acted but far too narrowly and benignly conceived to satisfy even on its own terms.
  29. Come Early Morning
    Despite her (Judd's) efforts and those of a generally talented cast, picture just pokes along and offers nothing out of the ordinary in terms of drama, characterization or insight. Judd's presence notwithstanding, this one would be more at home on small than on big screens.
  30. Color of the Cross
    Once the revisionist frisson of a black Jesus, not to mention Mary, Joseph and Judas, has worn off, one is stuck with more mundane matters such as story dynamics, visual style and character verisimilitude, much to the misfortune of the audience.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »