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. Never Been Thawed
    Comes off as lame and unfocused as its draggy dramatis personae.
  2. A Tale of Two Pizzas
    In scope, depth, rhythm and gags, "Pizzas" seems best suited to the small screen.
  3. The Squid and the Whale
    Pic makes up in strong performances and wry observation what it sometimes lacks in narrative drive. Result is a perceptive (and unexpectedly moving) portrait of lives in crisis.
  4. Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
    Park and co-helmer Steve Box stay faithful to the cozy core ingredients that made the clay duo's kudo-reaping shorts and Park's previous pic, "Chicken Run," so well loved. "Curse" delivers a wholesome morsel, happily not too cheesy, that families will nibble on as a treat.
  5. Zombie Honeymoon
    Zombie Honeymoon scores simultaneously as romantic, tragic, grotesque and screamingly funny
  6. Capote
    The mesmerizing performance of Phillip Seymour Hoffman as the celebrated writer dominates every scene, while director Bennett Miller and screenwriter Dan Futterman's penetrating study enthralls in every aspect.
  7. The Greatest Game Ever Played
    Offers an inspiring story, lush visuals and accessible characters to give a black-hat-white-hat view of class struggle in America and England.
  8. Into the Blue
    Not a thriller so much as an extremely violent swimsuit calendar, the lushly lensed but dramatically waterlogged Into the Blue is too infatuated with its scantily clad stars to make sense of all the drug dealers, boat looters and bloodthirsty sharks trying to hunt them down.
  9. Serenity
    What makes Serenity refreshing is its avoidance of CGI, which gives the pic a much more human dimension; the evident chemistry between the cast; and a humor that doesn't rely simply on flip one-liners.
  10. Carlito's Way: Rise to Power
    Conspicuously underwhelming.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Going Shopping
    Item may draw curious women looking to cool their heels, say, while out shopping, but straight men can be expected to stay away in droves and Jaglom regulars will probably wait for the DVD.
  12. Little Manhattan
    Resting almost entirely on the shoulders of its young leads, both they and the pic lack the sparkle to sustain what seeks to be a whimsical premise but, except for a few moments, proves ponderous instead.
  13. MirrorMask
    Emerges as an overproduced novelty pic that looks and feels more like a company promo reel than an engaging piece of storytelling.
  14. The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio
    Even more than in "Far From Heaven," Moore's housebound wife is a study in pent-up brilliance, with extraordinary devotion to her family.
  15. The War Within
    An honorable but failed attempt to dramatize the dynamics that propel a basically good man to become a suicide bomber, The War Within contains provocative points inside a dull package.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Once Upon a Time in the West (re-release)
    Henry Fonda and Jason Robards relish each screen minute as the heavies, and Charles Bronson plays Clint Eastwood's 'man with no name' role. (Review of Original Release)
  17. Sueño
    Brimming with fanciful ideas about life, romance and the rejuvenating power of music, Sueno sings a lovely tune but chokes on its own banal lyrics.
  18. Santo Domingo Blues
    Alternating between New York clubs by night and the colorful streets and countryside of Santa Domingo by day, pic captures the spirit of the music and the nation that gave birth to it.
  19. Three Days of Rain
    Rain strives for a "Magnolia"-type tapestry of quiet desperation. But after 90 unremitting minutes of badly acted, atrociously written histrionic misery, pic leaves one praying for frogs.
  20. Screen Door Jesus
    Winner of the Golden Starfish fiction competition at the Hamptons fest, pic's gutsy, madly ambiguous unleashing of a mixed bag of religious reactions attests to a genuine sense of regionalism.
  21. Forty Shades of Blue
    A muted but nicely observed study of a Russian woman's gradual estrangement from her domineering Memphis music-legend husband.
  22. A History of Violence
    Lack of depth, complexity or strangeness make this a relatively routine entry for the director.
  23. Flightplan
    Largely undone by a script that self-destructs in the third act of an otherwise well-made thriller.
  24. Roll Bounce
    Funky disco-era throwback never fully jells with a surprisingly intense central tale of father-son estrangement, strongly acted by Chi McBride and 18-year-old rapper-thesp Bow Wow.
  25. Daltry Calhoun
    A string of scenes in search of a movie.
  26. Dear Wendy
    Well made but unlikable and dramatically absurd picture.
  27. Dirty Love
    Few pretty actresses have so thoroughly discarded their vanity in an outright vanity piece as Jenny McCarthy does in Dirty Love, so it's unfortunate for her this exercise in comic self-abnegation, which she wrote for herself, falls so awfully flat.
  28. Dorian Blues
    Sharp performances and writing lend it a fresh appeal well above this genre's average.
  29. Occupation: Dreamland
    Helmers Garrett Scott and Ian Olds offer a sympathetic look at the average Joe doing duty in hell -- as well as a sharp indictment of the Pentagon's cavalier support for the troops.
  30. Oliver Twist
    A respectable literary adaptation but lacks dramatic urgency and intriguing undercurrents.
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