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. The Bridge
    Compelling result is handled with enough dignified artistry to quell most fears of exploitation.
  2. The Wild Blue Yonder
    Should stand with the likes of "Fata Morgana" and "Lessons of Darkness" as one of helmer's best efforts at smudging the lines between docu and fiction.
  3. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
    Result: An undeniably clever commingling of a new cast (and spoken dialogue) with a silent classic. But pic fails to engage consistently on its own terms, and begins to coast on novelty value around the midway point.
  4. Exit: The Right to Die
    Pic's quiet lucidity and matter-of-fact procedurals pack a cumulative emotional punch.
  5. Marie Antoinette
    It is far from unpleasant to watch an attractive cast led by Kirsten Dunst parading around Versailles accoutered in Milena Canonero's luxuriant costumes to the accompaniment of catchy pop tunes. But the writer-director's follow-up to her breakthrough second feature, "Lost in Translation," is no more nourishing than a bonbon.
  6. Running with Scissors
    Writer-director Ryan Murphy strives mightily to capture the bracing hilarity, pathos and surreal incident of Burroughs' bestselling memoir, but this rudderless adaptation never gets a firm grip on the author's deadpan tone or episodic narrative style.
  7. Flags of Our Fathers
    Ambitiously tackling his biggest canvas to date, Clint Eastwood continues to defy and triumph over the customary expectations for a film career in Flags of Our Fathers.
  8. Flicka
    It's not really either an animal or a kids' film but rather a young adult drama that rings emotionally true.
  9. The Prestige
    Clearly, director Nolan is aiming for something else. But the delight in sheer gamesmanship that marked his breakout "Memento" doesn't survive this project's gimmickry and aspirations toward "Les Miserables"-style epic passion.
  10. Sleeping Dogs Lie
    A game and winning performance by Melinda Page Hamilton is the only saving grace.
  11. Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple
    PBS-bound docu constitutes a revealing look at a poorly understood chapter in American history.
  12. Requiem
    Stunningly played story of faith vs. family.
  13. Conventioneers
    Filmmakers' own left-leaning sympathies are occasionally felt around the margins, but Conventioneers achievement lies in its honoring the sincerity and passion on both sides.
  14. Masai: The Rain Warriors
    Overall, film may feel too slow and didactic for contempo urban kids conditioned by video games. However, the script is never smarmy or complacent, and shows young people engaged in collective problem-solving and decision-making that is often, quite literally, a matter of life and death.
  15. Sweet Land
    Intelligently written, brilliantly cast and thesped story of a German mail order bride in a Norwegian-American community in Minnesota just after WWI never hits a wrong note.
  16. 51 Birch Street
    A tonal triumph of true-life storytelling told with equal measures of tension and redemption.
  17. Hair High
    While his static backgrounds and stuttering character movement aren't likely to win over traditional animation fans, Hair High reps the high end of this "Sick 'n' Twisted"-type toonery.
  18. Justice
    Already a master of the objective eye, Ramos uses her unobtrusive camera to uncover the frustrations inherent in a vastly imbalanced society where hope is scarce and the future is dim.
  19. The Grudge 2
    Story is incidental here, as auds merely anticipate the scares.
  20. Man of the Year
    A curious hybrid -- a political/action/comedy/thriller in which Robin Williams becomes president of the United States. A movie as uneven as it sounds, "Man" is less laugh-out-loud funny than topical and suspenseful.
  21. The Marine
    Junky, jokey and sometimes both at once, pic marks yet another attempt by World Wrestling Entertainment to establish one of its burly superstars as a movie lead.
  22. Deliver Us from Evil
    So harsh and damning is the pic toward the current Catholic leadership -- personified by Los Angeles-based Cardinal Roger Mahony, who oversaw O'Grady's stewardship at various central California parishes in the 1970s and '80s, that charges the church operates "like the Mafia" sound spot-on.
  23. Driving Lessons
    Basically conservative yet titillatingly "eccentric" British laffer could succeed in the "Full Monty" import slot.
  24. Infamous
    Writer-director Douglas McGrath's boldest stroke is to impose a more overtly gay interpretation on a central relationship in which the attraction was generally supposed to be unspoken.
  25. Nearing Grace
    Without Smith's graceful presence, which more than once resembles Zach Braff's slightly older but observant New Jerseyite in "Garden State," Nearing Grace would be pure video fodder.
  26. The Ritchie Boys
    Christian Bauer's engaging The Ritchie Boys captures the excitement, ironies and "good war" feel of World War II.
  27. Tideland
    Dragged down by a sputtering script and torpid pacing. Way too disturbing for kids and too weird for most grown-ups.
  28. Zerophilia
    Plays like a throwback to such transformative adolescent anxiety romps as "Teen Wolf" and "Just One of the Guys," this time aiming at a slightly less innocent crowd.
  29. Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker
    A shake 'n' bake Brit teen-spy actioner, without a smidgeon of originality, humor or involving characterization, Stormbreaker is a high-profile bust.
  30. One Night with the King
    Blessed with abundant production values and a minimum of campy excess, One Night With the King is a surprisingly satisfying attempt to revive the Old Hollywood tradition of lavishly appointed Biblical epics aimed at mainstream auds.
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