Variety's Scores

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:
17782 movie reviews
  1. Excellent documentary American Hardcore chronicles the short-lived but influential musical moment when a defiantly anti-commercial underground put a distinctive U.S. stamp on the hitherto Brit-driven punk movement.
  2. With Mexican star Gael Garcia Bernal energetically playing a vulnerable graphic artist with a hyperactive imagination and little confidence with women, picture has an overriding quality of sweetness that will prove endearing to audiences, especially younger females.
  3. A melancholy actioner that shines a new light on film noir. A sort of "The Third Man" for the 21st century, chiaroscuro curio's level of graphic invention is exceeded only by its pleasingly mournful approach.
  4. If all that Ian Inaba's latest Guerilla News Network missive, American Blackout, wants to do is get left Democrats worked up into a lather of righteous anger at crafty Republicans, it does so at the expense of speaking to any other group of Americans. As such, docu is extremely limited and almost without purpose except as an organizing tool for party foot soldiers.
  5. An unusually low-key Filipino drama whose neo-realist air generally triumphs over the script's violent, tearful contrivances.
  6. The attention given to constructing each shot makes for a hypnotic visual experience, while lack of a progressive narrative telescopes film's running time into infinity.
  7. A beautifully nuanced study in friendship and the irretrievability of the past.
  8. Though no "Love and Diane," this modest film nevertheless reveals the fragility of hope in survivalist mentalities pre-programmed to expect the worst.
  9. "Chinatown" it ain't, not in any department. On its own level, however, new pic generates a reasonable degree of intrigue.
  10. Neither a grand slam nor a strikeout, Everyone's Hero is minor-league animated entertainment.
  11. A crowd-pleasing, uplifting, feel-good and not-so-rare hybrid -- the sports/prison movie -- in which Los Angeles gangbangers are taught the virtues of trading violence on the streets for violence on the field.
  12. All-American adaptation by Paul Haggis of Gabriele Muccino's 2001 Italian hit "L'Ultimo bacio" is chummy, consensual and always watchable in Tony Goldwyn's polished rendition of emotional messiness.
  13. Alternately breezy and profound, pic hits enough emotional chords to connect with audiences, which will be charmed by a newly mature Joshua Jackson, a deeply aged Donald Sutherland and a friskily romantic Juliette Lewis.
  14. Picture is reminiscent less of Richard Curtis' romcoms and more of Christopher Guest's mockumentaries, with a dash of early Mike Leigh.
  15. The substance of the movie is potent, and so powerfully presented by those who have fought and are still fighting a controversial war, that the message of Ground Truth cannot be dismissed.
  16. A seesaw chronology and generally chaotic approach plagues Haven, an overly ambitious, multicharacter love story-cum-underworld revenge drama set on a fleetingly exotic island.
  17. To track the transformation of John Lennon from adored Beatle to government-stalked peace advocate is David Leaf's stated intention for The U.S. vs. John Lennon, and the pic persuasively chronicles an artist sticking to his guns through activism.
  18. A slight but lightly amusing sitcom-style comedy, strongly recalls dinner theater fodder of three decades ago.
  19. Rather dark, decidedly English and exceedingly well played, Keeping Mum is a neatly crafted black comedy with more than a nod in tone toward the Ealing classic "The Ladykillers."
  20. Sloppy but unconcerned about it, pic offers a trip back in time to a pre-PC and feminist era when men were sexist Neanderthals, women supported them from the sidelines and the guy with the biggest mouth scored.
  21. Despite these flashbacks, however, God Spoke never really delves into the reasons and/or motivations behind Franken's transformation from monologist and sketch-comedy performer to political pundit and liberal activist. Indeed, even during intimate moments, Franken rarely comes across as someone given to explaining himself.
  22. First-time scripter Paul Bernbaum's framing story, designed to stir up suspicion that George Reeves was a murder victim rather than a suicide, unfortunately proves far less intriguing than does the melancholy tale of a limited actor reaching the end of the line during a transitional period in Hollywood.
  23. Boasting the same refreshing avoidance of CGI and wire work as "Warrior," slickly made production (largely by the same team) is more consciously aimed at the international market, with its Australian setting and multilingual dialogue.
  24. Muddled and most unmagical offering.
  25. Deftly mixing alternating tracks of playful rowdiness, thoughtful introspection, ferociously slamming rock and not-so-quiet desperation, helmer Manu Boyer scores impressively with I Trust You to Kill Me, arguably the best rockumentary since "Some Kind of Monster."
  26. Gyllenhaal, in her most substantial role since "Secretary," does a fine, unshowy job of limning Sherry's faults without alienating the viewer or pleading for sympathy.
  27. Seems so determined to reproduce the drudgery of police work, it's boring for the first hour, and only marginally more exciting for the second.
  28. An example of spare, slice-of-life indie cinema at its most unpretentious, Man Push Cart adeptly and subtly layers facts about the protag's history and character into his story.
  29. Neo Ned may be ludicrous on paper, but it has what fans of independent film are looking for -- atmosphere, humanity and just a dash of fantastic drama.
  30. A lightly feminist, good-naturedly comic sketch of a Chinese-American family in crisis. But despite pic's earnestness and obvious good intentions, narrative elements, carefully set forth though they may be, fall back on overfamiliar, underdeveloped tropes.

Top Trailers