Variety's Scores

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For 17,777 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: 9,133 out of 17777
  2. Mixed: 7,008 out of 17777
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17777
17777 movie reviews
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  1. Chicken Little
    Lives up to its name by serving up a fraction of what audiences are used to getting in this department from PixarPixar and DreamWorks -- little originality, little humor and little ingratiating characterization.
  2. Jarhead
    Part absurdist drama, part personal observational commentary and part hormonal explosion, all seen through the filter of previous war pics, Sam Mendes' third feature has numerous arresting moments but never achieves a confident, consistent or sufficiently audacious tone.
  3. Brooklyn Lobster
    Character's multiple mid-life crises could make this genuinely engaging drama especially appealing to older viewers.
  4. The Dying Gaul
    Despite a reliable cast led by Scott, Patricia Clarkson and Peter Sarsgaard, the human impact is ultimately lost in a too calculated scenario.
  5. Gay Sex in the 70s
    Magnificent photographs, archival news footage, and location-shot porn add texture and immediacy to Joseph Lovett's fascinating memoir of the sexually explosive 12-year period (1969-1981).
  6. I Love Your Work
    Wallow in Hollywood hipster self-absorption.
  7. Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price
    For all the film's provocations and documentation, however, Greenwald never seems get to the heart of the matter: that it is the consumer who makes Wal-Mart powerful.
  8. Christmas in the Clouds
    Combo of gorgeously shot Western settings (mostly in snowbound Idaho), memorably mismatched characters, and light-touch social commentary.
  9. Derailroaded
    As discomfortingly fascinating as listening to a couple's heated argument at a table near yours in a restaurant.
  10. The Legend of Zorro
    Bigger, louder and considerably less charming than its predecessor…Still, there are enough crowd-pleasing moments amid the frenetic action.
  11. Prime
    Despite a comic Yiddishe mama turn by Meryl Streep and a sensitively nuanced performance by Uma Thurman in a convincing changeup from her recent kickass action roles, Prime remains an oddly juiceless older woman-younger man romance, with a Freudian twist.
  12. Saw II
    New pic lets the air out by divulging the startling mystery that concluded the original. Add this to problematic juggling of police procedural and group-in-distress storylines, and Lions Gate has what looks like a sequel rushed for Halloween.
  13. The Weather Man
    Aiming for an Alexander Payne-style synthesis of wry comedy and unflinching character study, pic has been made with the utmost sincerity, but the frankly lugubrious material and barely compensating spasms of humor are all but impossible to warm to.
  14. New York Doll
    A charmer whose lack of profane language or images renders it unexpectedly viable for general broadcast.
  15. Paradise Now
    Handsomely shot in widescreen, mostly on actual West Bank locations, and well-played by the cast, pic lays out the issues in an accessible but rather too over-correct way, seemingly eager to please all parties at the expense of real passion.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Passenger (re-release)
    Nicholson plays the character with personal flair, as penetrating as Antonioni's handling of the film. (Review of Original Release)
  17. Three... Extremes
    Plenty of vile little secrets and ghastly urges are explored in the stylishly made Asian-fusion horror triptych.
  18. America Brown
    Name cast, occasional deft touches and nifty contrast between the two locales cannot overcome script's terminal awkwardness.
  19. little man
    Pic can be taken as either inspirational or cautionary, but either way rivets attention on the efforts of both medical science and Conn herself to keep the little guy alive.
  20. Ballets Russes
    Enormously absorbing.
  21. 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance
    Intellectually demanding and non-commercial film should be embraced in the festival and arthouse circuits by film students and viewers interested in postmodern, deconstructionist cinema.
  22. Doom
    It's really not all that bad. Ultra-derivative bigscreen transplant of one of the most successful (and controversial) games ever made plays like a mutant cross between a biotech thriller and a zombie movie, with all the alien autopsies, blood-gushing protuberances and meaningless scientific jargon that come with the territory.
  23. Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story
    Modestly engaging but mostly unexceptional.
  24. Shopgirl
    Martin hits all the right notes while subtly conveying both the appealing sophistication and the purposeful reserve of Ray. But he cannot entirely avoid being overshadowed by Dane's endearingly vulnerable, emotionally multifaceted and fearlessly open performance.
  25. Stay
    An ultra-arty "The Sixth Sense" that deliberately inhibits comprehension of the story until the very end -- and arguably continues to inhibit it even then -- pic features certifiably talented people on both sides of the camera collaborating on a project that probably shouldn't have been undertaken in the first place.
  26. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
    Once again making a diverting but insubstantial movie look better than it is, Downey, with haggard charm to burn, is winning all the way. Kilmer is riotous at times as an impeccably groomed, businesslike guy keen to assert his orientation at every opportunity.
  27. After Innocence
    A powerfully affecting documentary.
  28. White King, Red Rubber, Black Death
    A stunning indictment of Belgium's brutal colonization of the Congo in the late 19th century, Brit documaker Peter Bate's White King, Red Rubber, Black Death illustrates how European exploitation in Africa caused irreparable damage to the continent.
  29. Emmanuel's Gift
    Sincere but fairly soft piece of ennobling journalism that gives a positive spin to some of Africa's seemingly intractable problems.
  30. Innocence
    This genuine curio maintains its mystery to the end.
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