The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 10,414 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 51% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 46% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 2.6 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 62
Highest review score: 100 Badlands
Lowest review score: 0 A Life Less Ordinary
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 5,571 out of 10414
  2. Mixed: 3,736 out of 10414
  3. Negative: 1,107 out of 10414
10414 movie reviews
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  1. A Bigger Splash
    The cast is uniformly strong, and willing to go wherever Guadagnino takes them, in however little clothing he deems necessary; the ensemble-wide equal-opportunity nudity is almost frequent enough to qualify as confrontational.
  2. Tabloid
    McKinney may well be a madwoman, but Morris connects so deeply to her obsessions that the film's tone never seems exploitative or mocking.
  3. Monkey Business
    In casting the brothers as stowaways on an ocean liner, Monkey Business gets laughs from broad Keystone Kops chase scenes, but extends the absurdity even further with bizarre one-liners (Groucho claims he "licked his weight in wild caterpillars") and a sequence in which all four brothers try to get off the boat by impersonating Maurice Chevalier.
  4. What Maisie Knew
    If the idea is for the audience to feel similarly yanked around, then What Maisie Knew succeeds wildly, but it fails to bring much insight to what essentially amounts to a massive parental guilt trip.
  5. Augustine
    It’s ironic that a movie about social restrictions is at its best when it restrains itself—that is, when it treats its characters as characters rather than figures, and its plot as drama rather than statement.
  6. Janis: Little Girl Blue
    Whenever the story starts to drag, Berg cuts to a scene like Big Brother’s era-defining performance of “Ball And Chain” at Monterey, which had even Los Angeles’ prematurely jaded rock superstars gaping in justified awe. They knew they were watching something explosive, in a package too fragile to contain it.
  7. Frankenweenie
    While Frankenweenie is pleasant enough as a curated tour through horror's past, it doesn't add much to its present.
  8. Divine Intervention
    What Suleiman is trying to say becomes less important than the increasing boldness with which he says it. In the end, Divine Intervention has too many visionary setpieces, and not enough insight.
  9. For a Few Dollars More
    While it doesn’t have the lunatic fervor of The Good, The Bad’s climatic cemetery shootout, For A Few Dollars more feels like its successor’s equal, which is about as great a compliment as I can bestow.
  10. Beans
    A specifically French-Canadian and Native coming-of-age story that’s heavy handed in some ways and delicate in others.
  11. Strawberry Mansion
    There’s a lot to appreciate about Strawberry Mansion as an aesthetic object, a flight of imagination, and a sci-fi vision.
  12. Southside with You
    The first feature from writer-director Richard Tanne is sweetly speculative historical fiction — a date movie with some very recognizable lovebirds.
  13. Rize
    Rize eventually gets a little preachy and sentimental, but a little sermonizing seems a small price to pay for such an industrial jolt of kinetic electricity.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Bottoms
    If Bottoms doesn’t land every single punch, we can be happy that at least someone is out here swinging.
  15. Wild
    People tend to equate great acting with demonstrative emoting, but knowing when not to telegraph what a character is feeling is just as crucial. Sometimes, walking from point A to point Z — simply, without fuss — is all that’s required.
  16. Beastie Boys Story
    It’s all there in the outtakes: The Beastie Boys story is simply too big, too strange, too unwieldy for Beastie Boys Story to contain it.
  17. On the Count of Three
    On The Count Of Three is not didactic, and thank goodness the filmmakers at least have the good sense to recognize that preachiness helps no one and solves nothing. But the film dumbs down a complex and taboo topic by placing blame squarely on bogeymen like bullies and abusers.
  18. The Ground Truth
    Foulkrod's film covers little new ground, but some painful truths are worth repeating.
  19. The Sea Beast
    Overall, the narrative, performative, and visual splendor of The Sea Beast are enough to vastly outweigh minor issues in presentational consistency. This is a richly realized nautical world, with the animation team expressing an obvious love for the adventure stories that inspired it and a passion for telling a story as hopeful as it is exciting.
  20. Bombay Beach
    This aestheticizing of troubled lives proves problematic over the long haul.
  21. Iron Island
    Iron Island is at its most compelling early, as Rasoulof explores his human-scaled ant farm, detailing how people make lives for themselves in cramped quarters, using cardboard partitions and jerry-rigged appliances.
  22. Raya and the Last Dragon
    When Raya And The Last Dragon takes the time to ruminate on grief and recovery from trauma, it meaningfully distinguishes itself from the rest of the princess oeuvre. Just as unique as the film’s world-building is its sense of hope burnished by loss, not undermined by it. Only the Disney boilerplate messaging—believe in yourself/others—obscures the power of this moving tale and how it captures, intentionally or not, a specific form of sorrow.
  23. My Favorite Blonde
    Hard-to-follow action and a silly, inconsistent tone work against the film, but Hope's reluctant can-do attitude and wry comments keep the energy level up.
  24. Humpday
    Humpday carefully raises the stakes until it hits a finale loaded with humor, tenderness, and delicious ambiguity. It’s like "Old Joy" by way of Judd Apatow.
  25. The Heartbreak Kid
    Not especially gag-driven, May's deadpan style clears the way for some remarkable performances by Jeannie Berlin, Eddie Albert, and especially Grodin, who has to remain likable even while doing stupid, mean things.
  26. The Burial
    The Burial is dramatic yet also funny. It works because it isn’t afraid to be “inspired by” the story’s actual people and isn’t just content to retell the events of this little-known but highly consequential civil court case.
  27. My Mother's Smile
    As absurd as the situation gets--and the film occasionally launches into surreal asides that only heighten the absurdity--director and star both keep it grounded in the situation's emotions.
  28. Jawline
    Mandelup does, however, treat both the internet personalities and the fans beholden to them with great respect.
  29. Polisse
    The best moments of Maïwenn's Polisse, about the dedicated members of a Child Protection Unit in northern Paris, have the same quality, a fly-on-the-wall docu-realism that feels eerily like the real thing.
  30. Miracle Mile
    Miracle Mile is uniquely weird, and one imagines that audiences who caught it in the theater (among the few who did, anyway) walked out feeling shaken by its ending, even in a world where the Doomsday Clock had safely clicked back.
  31. The Sea Inside
    When pinned mostly in the man's bedroom, Amenábar's flashier instincts are stifled by a bolted camera and a procession of issue-of-the-week clichés.
  32. Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child
    The artist's arresting images speak for themselves, even though now only the bystanders are left to tell his story.
  33. Flushed Away
    As with the Wallace & Gromit films, most of the fun is in the deft characterizations, the zippy banter, and the joyous sight gags.
  34. Catherine Called Birdy
    Dunham has taken her oft-articulated concerns about women’s empowerment and self-determination and transported them to 13th-century England in Catherine Called Birdy, a charming, clever, and altogether delicious comeback film that redefines Dunham in a way that just recently seemed unlikely.
  35. Mary and The Witch's Flower
    It’s a movie with no greater ambition than to charm and occasionally delight. Mission accomplished.
  36. The Measure of a Man
    Brizé doesn’t have the Dardennes’ gift for narrative complexity, and he stacks the deck against his hero more than is really necessary.... But The Measure Of A Man’s beating heart is Lindon’s performance.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Western
    The film toys with the idea that your identity is determined not by where you're from but where you find love. It's an intriguing theory that makes the otherwise simple movie seem more complex and frequently affecting.
  38. My Old Ass
    Though its bold genre gamble and strong lead turn from Maisy Stella keep My Old Ass from the YA slush pile, its feint towards being a more cerebral movie about hope and regret, two opposing forces separated only by time, infects the mediocrity of its more traditional story with disappointment.
  39. Thirteen Conversations About One Thing
    In spite of the uniformly strong performances, 13 Conversations largely factors out human nature, leaving a giant puzzle where each piece is pre-determined to fall into place. In the end, the Sprechers have a movie for people who brag about finishing the New York Times Sunday crossword in pen.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Hunchback of Notre Dame
    A remarkably faithful adaptation of Victor Hugo's epic 1831 novel about a lovable, golden-voiced hunchback and his trio of zany, wise-cracking gargoyle sidekicks, The Hunchback of Notre Dame should please both Disney fans and 19th century French romanticists alike.
  41. Jackass Forever
    It’s the group’s most joyous installment to date, even if the series itself is starting to show some wear and tear.
  42. Duck Season
    Mexican writer-director Fernando Eimbcke got his start in short films and documentaries, and his first feature reveals a gift for concision: It doesn't overexert itself trying to come to big conclusions about these characters, and even the comedic scenes settle for gentle quirks over broad guffaws.
  43. Inception
    The film is an imposing, prismatic achievement, and strongly resistant to an insta-reaction; when it’s over, Nolan still seems a few steps ahead of us.
  44. Serenity
    Serenity is still taut, immersive, and alternately hilarious and heartbreaking, a well-balanced blend of whooping Wild West action and space opera.
  45. Mysterious Object at Noon
    All of this free association falls under the wide umbrella of "experimental" cinema, meaning that the often flagging pace and incoherent stretches are balanced by sublime moments of inspiration.
  46. Ghost Town Anthology
    The gradual, matter-of-fact way that Côté transforms Ghost Town Anthology into an actual ghost story is quite impressive.
  47. Computer Chess
    What’s more, it’s fun, generating pleasure not from canned jokes or clichéd plot twists but simply from a sense of unhindered freedom.
  48. Casting JonBenét
    The film ends on a strangely moving theatrical exercise, as the various performers gather together on a soundstage recreation of the Ramsey home to dramatize all the major theories in tandem, creating an overlapping spectacle of speculative horror.
  49. The Last King of Scotland
    The Last King Of Scotland makes a stronger case when it's demonstrating how opulent power-lunches corrupt absolutely.
  50. After Innocence
    Taylor does her cause no real favors by trotting out only the most articulate, most clearly railroaded exonerees. It should be just as chilling to learn that even the shady get screwed.
  51. Gun Crazy
    Joseph H. Lewis’ kinetic, psychosexual B-movie laid many of the creative foundations of the American cinema of the 1970s, though it took a round trip to Europe for the movie to develop a reputation at home.
  52. Tomboy
    It's so much fun that as Tomboy moves toward its conclusion, the inevitable end of Héran's days as Mikael feels like watching someone die.
  53. Farewell
    As a political thriller, Christian Carion's Farewell is fairly feeble, rendering some of the oldest clichés of Cold War potboilers without much urgency or stylistic flair.
  54. The Orphanage
    While some of the trappings and even some of the plot elements could easily be called unoriginal, Bayona and screenwriter Sergio G. Sánchez arrange them in a fresh way, crafting an emotionally resonant, nerve-jangling experience.
  55. Bones and All
    Guadagnino’s formidable crew deserves credit for shaping the movie’s world too, including Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor and regular film composing partner Atticus Ross, who contribute a striking score that imaginatively combines spare acoustic strumming with intense synthesizer blasts. Like Bones And All itself, it’s simultaneously freaky and from the heart in a special, singular way.
  56. The Bleeding Edge
    [An] overstretched look at the poorly regulated medical devices industry.
  57. Dune: Part One
    However inconclusive as a story, the resulting film is a rarity among the overlong effects-heavy blockbusters of the last decade: One actually wishes it didn’t have to end so soon.
  58. Le jour avant le lendemain
    As the movie’s title implies, everything is about to change for these two. These are the last happy days before destructive modernity encroaches.
  59. Welcome to Pine Hill
    Welcome To Pine Hill is a short, docu-realistic film, with very little plot and scenes that play like loose improvisations. Miller is mainly interested in the various spaces Harper inhabits, and how he inhabits them.
  60. Cheatin'
    As is, Cheatin’ offers little narrative or emotional advantage over watching a series of the director’s more concise works. At 76 minutes, it should play like a short feature. Instead, it’s more like an extra-long short.
  61. The Invitation
    Kusama expertly manipulates the tone throughout, ratcheting up tension and releasing it in quick bursts of nervous laughter, only to build it up again.
  62. A Woman's Life
    Mostly, though, A Woman’s Life frustrates because it’s neither entertaining nor illuminating to watch a character passively absorb constant misery.
  63. Roxanne Roxanne
    By shaping Roxanne Roxanne as a character profile, Larnell accentuates his actors’ performances and crafts a nuanced community portrait, two strengths exhibited in his delightful first feature, "Cronies."
  64. End of the Century
    As for the unfortunates who aren't already in love with The Ramones, End Of The Century should give them a better understanding of what they've been missing, and leave them wondering why they've missed out on it for so long.
  65. Red Lights
    With ruthless efficiency and wit, Kahn ratchets up unbearable tension and releases it in startlingly visceral fashion, but his placid denouement is the most chilling scene of all.
  66. Raja
    Even without all the other complications, Doillon's handling of the language gap alone gives Raja a pungent dramatic edge.
  67. In the Shadow of Women
    Shot on black-and-white film that has the luster of hard coal, In The Shadow Of Women is often quite beautiful—and it has some jokes, too.
  68. Forty Shades of Blue
    Investing a lot of time on each corner of his three-sided character piece, director Ira Sachs (who co-wrote the film with Michael Rohatyn) has created a film as dramatically intense as it is opaque.
  69. Mysterious Skin
    Only half a great movie, because the other half follows a separate but related thread that isn't nearly as compelling.
  70. Rush
    Rush, in other words, is a foursquare sportsmanship movie, offering little in the way of surprises but plenty of earnest, satisfying thrills.
  71. The Time That Remains
    By making the jokes more personal, Suleiman charts the process by which the concept of "home" loses its meaning.
  72. Mean Creek
    Dyslexic, talkative, and permanently tethered to a video camera that documents his solitary life and vivid fantasy world, Peck, in a stunning performance, resonates as both monster and victim, predator and prey.
  73. Bully
    There are many appalling moments witnessed and described in Lee Hirsch's documentary Bully: children beaten and humiliated, ostracized by their peers and misunderstood by their parents, left to face an apparently heartless world without a soul to turn to.
  74. The Half of It
    Although The Half Of It mostly sticks to what’s swiftly becoming the Netflix teen rom-com house style (moody amber lighting, Wes Anderson-inspired framing, and nostalgia for John Hughes’ oeuvre), Wu creates several compellingly original images as well.
  75. The Magnificent Seven
    Well-crafted, star-driven entertainment doesn't come much better.
  76. Kundun
    A slow, meditative movie-an appropriate choice given the subject matter-that ultimately fails, in spite of clearly heartfelt good intentions, because of its almost inhuman detachment.
  77. Winnie the Pooh
    Winnie The Pooh is a storybook brought to life with intelligence, wit, and palpable affection; where so many kids' films try desperately to come off as hip and timely that they often feel tacky and instantly dated, Winnie The Pooh is bravely quiet, old-fashioned, and wry.
  78. Armageddon Time
    It asks more questions than it answers, and doesn’t let anybody off the hook. It’s also a great movie for anyone who grew up in New York City area in 1980, with the right needle drops and art direction. This is James Gray’s eighth feature and, in the end, his simplest. It may also be his best.
  79. Munich
    Breaking from the Spielberg oeuvre, Munich isn't a particularly hopeful movie, but it's a fair and morally dignified one.
  80. Lovesong
    What stands out most are the performances, delivered by two actresses capable of generating a little emotion, even in a film that insists on keeping the volume “realistically“ low. The reality between the two of them is the one that really counts.
  81. Thelma
    Trier’s first foray into the fantastic—his college Carrie—gets stuck in an odd middle ground: It’s at once too metaphorically muddled and too dramatically straightforward.
  82. Plan B
    Though this particular trip hits a few creative speed bumps along the way, it’s buoyed by great comedic specificity and two (hopefully) star-making performances.
  83. Take My Eyes
    Take My Eyes might look and sound like an earnest message movie, but its bone-deep understanding of the tricky psychology of abuse feels effortlessly authentic.
  84. Colette
    Colette too frequently coasts on its timeliness, preferring catharsis to nuance.
  85. Little Sister
    A slight, sweetly cynical indie dramedy about family and belonging and the ways we cope with life’s disappointments.
  86. The Workshop
    Cantet remains a gifted filmmaker — The Workshop’s semi-improvisational aspects are no less impressive than those in "The Class," and he’s at least superficially engaged with the current state of the world — but this isn’t the return to form that his fans have awaited over the past decade.
  87. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
    Quippy, zippy, and punchy, this teen-focused take on everyone’s favorite pizza-loving vigilantes is a refreshing reappraisal of a property that could very well have felt stale in 2023.
  88. Millions
    A little broad comedy keeps things perky, but the kids' excellent, restrained acting and the low-key script by "The Claim" screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce hold the whole sprawling project together, from weepy revelations to silly fantasy-saint sequences.
  89. Disobedience
    Plotting has never been a strong suit for Lelio, who made his name with character studies of unconventional women. Here, he tries his hand at something akin to classicism, and ends up mounting a compelling drama. Curiously, its main shortcoming parallels the human flaw that is its main theme: our yearning to leave often loses out to our inability to let go.
  90. My Big Night
    My Big Night, pitched in a state of perpetual frenzy, whiffs out in its ending.
  91. Pin Cushion
    Pin Cushion is as quirky and as prickly as its title, an unclassifiable dramedy about bullying and mother-daughter relationships that proposes that mean-girl behavior doesn’t go away after high school.
  92. Commune
    It's fascinating to see how the Black Bears got onto their current path, but we don't see enough of the journey.
  93. Becoming Cousteau
    What this fascinating, thoughtful documentary is really about is how even an icon can evolve. The “becoming” part of a life never really ends.
  94. Eat That Question: Frank Zappa in His Own Words
    If there’s one major criticism to level at Eat That Question, it’s that Schütte too often satisfies fans of Zappa’s personality at the expense of those who prefer his music.
  95. Woman of the Hour
    This is a self-assured take on a story that stretches far, wide, and deep.
  96. Love, Gilda
    The emotional impact is ultimately surprisingly muted; she dies too soon, and the movie ends. Then again, it’s hard to blame anyone for assuming that consistent access to Radner’s voice, in moments both public and candid, would be enough. She radiates such joy, all these years later, that it nearly is.
  97. Hidden Figures
    For all of its current touchstones, Hidden Figures feels far too late, both in the recognition these women deserve and the filmmakers’ goodhearted but dull approach to their stories.
  98. Sylvie's Love
    Sylvie’s Love lacks the ineffable spark that keeps it from fully transcending its period dress-up. There’s a pervasive self-consciousness on display that veers from delightful to forced depending on the goals of each scene. Sometimes the cast and the production design embrace the artifice strongly enough to make it look and sound organic. Other times, it just appears… artificial.
  99. Eno
    More than a biographical documentary, Eno emerges as a brilliant and endlessly inspiring creative manifesto.
  100. Gods and Monsters
    While McKellen's sharp performance provides the main attraction, the film wouldn't work without both Fraser, who brings something extra to a character who could easily have been a mere lunk, and director Bill Condon's careful integration of larger themes.
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