Variety's Scores

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For 17,779 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: 9,134 out of 17779
  2. Mixed: 7,009 out of 17779
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17779
17779 movie reviews
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  1. La Moustache
    Viewers who like their conclusions tidy may rebel, but those who relish outstanding performances in the service of an intriguing idea will be entertained.
  2. Stagedoor
    By turns comical and compassionate.
  3. The Da Vinci Code
    Director Ron Howard and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman have conspired to drain any sense of fun out of the melodrama, leaving expectant audiences with an oppressively talky film that isn't exactly dull but comes as close to it as one could imagine with such provocative material.
  4. Over the Hedge
    Despite a sprinkling of laughs and eye-catching moments, this adaptation of a popular comicstrip reps a middling effort from the house that "Shrek" built, a rather narrowly conceived tale that makes only modest hay from the overworked conflict between wildlife and encroaching humans.
  5. See No Evil
    Throats are ripped, heads are crushed and limbs are severed with brutal efficiency throughout See No Evil, but that's not nearly enough to dispel the sense of deja vu that pervades this generic slasher thriller.
  6. The King
    The story of a veritable devil who comes to test and destroy a family of faith, The King is a noxious film morally and an aggravating one dramatically.
  7. Lemming
    Spooky, intellectually titillating and darkly funny picture is definitely the kind of film where the less you know going in, the better.
  8. Mouth to Mouth
    Emerges an uneven, occasionally vivid, ultimately unsatisfactory treatment of themes that should've packed more punch.
  9. Twelve and Holding
    Deals in sometimes queasy areas of underage sexuality and emotional extremes; again, deftness and confidence ultimately put across a screenplay (this time by Anthony S. Cipriano) overloaded with sensational incident.
  10. Poseidon
    Thanks to its simple construction, Wolfgang Petersen's large-scale liner moves reasonably well, though anyone with the faintest memory of its 1972 predecessor will wonder where most of the plot went.
  11. Just My Luck
    Helmer Donald Petrie seems at times to be making the modern-day equivalent of a Doris Day comedy, setting the pic in a lacquered fantasy New York, piling on cutesy-coy dialogue and mining a fluffy premise for all manner of far-fetched cleverness.
  12. Goal! The Dream Begins
    A slickly mounted slice of can-do nonsense.
  13. Dead Man's Shoes
    Film plays as a quirky Brit riff on everything from U.S. slasher pics to revenge oaters but without Meadows' usual psychological complexity.
  14. Giuliani Time
    Chock-a-block with incisive commentaries both pro and con, pic's sole drawback is its quick finish on that fateful September day without updating Rudy's subsequent rise and fall.
  15. Keeping Up with the Steins
    A sure-fire audience-pleaser, Scott (son of Garry) Marshall's winning comedy bow could have been titled "My Big Fat Jewish Bar Mitzvah."
  16. Saving Shiloh
    May be naive and narratively simple, but it's prime fare for the always underserved family audience.
  17. Wah-Wah
    Flavorsome performances by a seasoned cast, held in check by Grant's traditional but well-crafted, always cinematic direction.
  18. Sketches of Frank Gehry
    Lucid and engaging, Sketches of Frank Gehry provides the enormously gratifying opportunity to spend an hour-and-a-half with an artistic giant.
  19. Light from the East
    Generates genuine suspense as it follows a group of American actors in the former Soviet Union during a fateful period of the Perestroika era.
  20. Russian Dolls
    Viewers who thought the protags were superficial and annoying first time around will find little to change their minds here, but original pictures fans will probably embrace the now-scattered group's marginally more mature dilemmas centered on work and romance.
  21. Mission: Impossible III
    For all its far-fetched formulations, this new entry maintains more of a dramatic throughline and has the bonus of a villain played with unsparing meanness by Philip Seymour Hoffman.
  22. Art School Confidential
    Despite a soulful leading performance from Max Minghella, pic feels insubstantial, echoing without equaling both the coolly ironic edge and heart of "Ghost World" and the incisive art-world outsider portrait of the director's docu feature, "Crumb."
  23. An American Haunting
    A well-made, good-looking movie it is, but between the non-stop tumult and the sense of deliberateness about its period authenticity, An American Haunting produces a lot of screaming, crying and cruelty, but not much drama.
  24. Hoot
    Squeaky-clean, family-friendly opus.
  25. Down in the Valley
    Result is imperfect and overlong, but hugely ambitious and often breathtaking.
  26. The Proposition
    Hillcoat and Cave have here found their most fertile ground yet for allegory-rich examinations of life and death in remote, pressure-cooker environments.
  27. One Last Thing...
    Plays closer to an after-school special (with HBO-standard dialogue) than a satisfying feature film.
  28. The Mistress of Spices
    Beautiful but lifeless, poetic but unelevated, The Mistress of Spices reps a brave but flawed attempt at that most unforgiving of contemporary genres, magical realism.
  29. How I Killed a Saint
    Though weak in the drama department, the story of a brother and sister who love each other but have different political ideas and personal agendas effectively captures the tension of the time.
  30. United 93
    The result is a tense, documentary-style drama that methodically builds a sense of dread despite the preordained outcome.
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