Variety's Scores

For 17,765 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 2.3 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:
17765 movie reviews
  1. Richly satisfying both as subversive, music-biz primer and as gritty, true-life underdog story.
  2. "Big Night" meets "The Sopranos" in Dinner Rush.
  3. Highly enjoyable when all its gears are clicking, but rarely as good as it should be.
  4. The few who saw the embalmed adaptation of "Snow Falling on Cedars" will recognize the same stifling approach brought to this more accessible material by director Scott Hicks.
  5. Misses its comic targets as often as it hits them but is endearing all the same for the good-natured cheer with which it skewers the eminently skewerable.
  6. Generates tension from the get-go, albeit of an increasingly unpleasant variety, on its way to a disappointingly generic climax.
  7. This depiction of the trials and tribulations of a working-class Catholic family during the Depression is a far more intimate viewing experience than the similarly themed "Angela's Ashes."
  8. Conveys enough of the stirring true-life drama recounted in Butler's other Shackleton docu to satisfy ticketbuyers who demand substance even in larger-than-life entertainment.
  9. Midnight moviegoers aren't so desperate that they will opt for such trailer trash.
  10. Arguably the best sports-oriented documentary since "Hoop Dreams."
  11. Apocalyptic gobbledygook.
  12. Glitter deserves yet another title: "A Star Is Dull." As phony a vehicle as one could possibly concoct for a wannabe movie star, pic carries Mariah Carey into a swamp of gloppy melodrama.
  13. Belzberg's unsparing camera sometimes portrays a level of cruelty that tests viewers' tolerance, but her fearless aesthetic is also a measure of the film's brilliant indictment of any society that can allow its most vulnerable to slip into oblivion.
  14. This wobbly docu-drama ends up being caught in between the impulse to make theatrical a true story and the usual Imax mission of imparting information about the natural world in an entertaining way for families.
  15. While it plays more like stage or TV sketch-comedy shtick than film material, this modest, visually unimposing production remains entertaining thanks to its ironic observations and winning sense of folly.
  16. There's nothing in genredom quite so unhinged as the badly made psycho-thriller, and long before it's over, The Glass House collapses from wretched design and execution.
  17. There's no cork inside Hardball, but there's more than enough corn. Everything about the movie is geared for maximum uplifting and tear-jerking effect, and seems designed, in the end, to question the old saw that there's no crying in baseball.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    An edgy, energetic romantic thriller in the tradition of "Run Lola Run," "A Life Less Ordinary" and "Out of Sight."
  18. Sheds valuable light on a complex period of post-World War II Czechoslovakia.
  19. A crackerjack serial-killer chiller in "Seven" mold, Tell Me Something cleverly disguises its thoroughly generic content and leaps of logic with highly honed technique and an involving approach to narrative.
  20. Few recent movies have conceived their central female character more contemptuously -- a fanatic for a lifestyle that appears to have come from the bestselling "The Rules."
  21. A handsome but ho-hum swashbuckler that springs to life only during a few spirited scenes of acrobatic swordplay.
  22. A horror movie without horror, a spook pic without spookiness and a metaphysical drama without the slightest spiritual tug, Soul Survivors virtually dwindles away on the screen.
  23. Schroeder's first non-American film in 16 years feels like a rejuvenation; his adaptation of Fernando Vallejo's 1994 novel has a naturalistic freedom and ease that is both refreshing and direct in the way it tells a deeply disturbing story.
  24. Feels particularly like old news after the risks of the rock 'n' roll lifestyle were laid out for the previously uninformed in last year's "Almost Famous."
  25. Its screaming-queen stereotypes will look pretty retro in most Western markets, even if an earnest pro-tolerance message disarms potential offense.
  26. Music has always played a vital role in the films of Tony Gatlif, and in Vengo it finally threatens to take over, submerging the frail, familiar vendetta plotline.
  27. Unfortunately that blast-off heralds an orbit to nowhere, with initial delight fading as pic runs out of ideas all too soon, never building a sense of momentum or narrative thrust.
  28. Emerges as the most conventional and least imaginative of the recent crop of high-class fright movies that includes "The Others," "Session 9" and "Wendigo."
  29. A warm-blooded winner with equal emphasis placed on taste buds and heartstrings.

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