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. Hoppers
    While there’s plenty of familiarity in Pixar’s small-scale animated romp Hoppers, there’s also a smart, unruly variation at its center.
  2. Montana Story
    This is a deeply felt work anchored by two earthy performances that stay small-scaled no matter how melodramatic the slowly revealed secrets become.
  3. Cold Mountain
    Though Law and Kidman spend much of the movie apart, Minghella and ace editor Walter Murch arrange their interweaving subplots like a running dialogue between two lovers, each compelled to survive on the thin hope that they'll be reunited.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    I'm Glad My Mother Is Alive
    Until the film takes an abrupt, annoyingly melodramatic late turn, the Millers handle Rottiers' character with great delicacy, aided by strong lead performances and a refusal to show Rottiers' adopted home as either idealized or seriously lacking.
  5. Jim: The James Foley Story
    Jim: The James Foley Story is more than just a tribute to a fallen journalist. It’s a deeply moving testament to a man who dared to face the worst of humanity and somehow managed to maintain his sense of empathy in spite of it all.
  6. Emergency
    It’s easy to imagine Williams taking this story and crafting either a boisterously funny, obstacle-filled mad dash to the hospital or an indignant, op-ed baiting thesis on post-George Floyd America. Instead, he turns down the heat and blends the two, creating a buddy comedy of errors shot through with an ever-darkening undercurrent of racial commentary.
  7. Flowers of Shanghai
    Flowers Of Shanghai is concerned with the commodification of sex and its hurtful consequences, but Hou leaves the perversion and beatings off-screen. What remains is a succession of tableaux so vividly realized in purely cinematic terms that the emotions seem to waft from the screen like smoke.
  8. Me and Orson Welles
    Efron has yet to learn that smiling pretty is merely a component of acting, not its entirety. He makes for a supremely passive lead whose chemistry with Danes is nonexistent.
  9. For the Bible Tells Me So
    Bible doesn't take itself too seriously, and boasts a disarming undercurrent of gleeful prankishness.
  10. Rocket Science
    Rocket Science doesn't go too far into Todd Solondz-style mockery, either; though painful to witness at times, Thompson's determination to face his fears--not just of speaking, but of girls, too--is heartbreakingly noble and courageous.
  11. American Sniper
    American Sniper is imperfect and at times a little corny, but also ambivalent and complicated in ways that are uniquely Eastwoodian.
  12. The Pirates! Band of Misfits
    Pirates! comes with all the usual Aardman strengths intact, particularly the sense that its characters and creators alike are too good-hearted and sweet to nitpick.
  13. Family Portrait in Black and White
    There's no organizing principle in Ivanova's documentary, which unfolds in a ragged, seat-of-the-pants style that mirrors its subject's day-to-day life all too closely. Nenya's flock proves too big for the film to wrangle.
  14. Sheep Without a Shepherd
    When Sheep Without A Shepherd goes big, it goes really big, both in terms of melodrama and directorial flair. Chen is delightfully wicked as the morally compromised chief of a corrupt and abusive police department, however, and the plot is engrossing enough to forgive the movie’s excesses.
  15. The Forgiveness of Blood
    Just as Marston's scrupulous attention to local custom and devotion to social realism recall the work of John Sayles (Lone Star), his occasionally enervating style also recalls Sayles at his worst.
  16. Funny Pages
    The first feature from Owen Kline, Funny Pages is not a dramatic masterpiece, but its setting, tone, look, feel, and casting would send real comic book geeks off doing cartwheels—if only we possessed the coordination. Instead, it will have to suffice to sit there, mouths open with the typical drool, thinking “I feel seen.”
  17. Obscene
    Yhough Obscene tells the story without fully exploring its nuances, that story is both fascinating and more than a little inspiring.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Declaration of War
    Sprinting through hospital rooms, parties, sterile corridors, and grayish courtyards, Declaration Of War salutes its characters' capacity to step up and meet life's harshest unexpected demands.
  19. Anaïs in Love
    While this is hardly Exhibit A in any catalogue of feminist films, it is very much told through the young woman exploring romantic possibility, rather than spotlighting her.
  20. All Things Must Pass
    If the homilies eventually feel a bit repetitive, the warmth and goodwill generated by the landmark company are conveyed by this earnest and affectionate documentary.
  21. The Clan
    Trapero...often demonstrates his technical mastery here. But as a storyteller, he’s unfortunately less successful.
  22. The Corporation
    Without a unifying authorial voice to tie it together, the film often feels shapeless and rambling, brought together by little more than free-ranging contempt for capitalism's excesses.
  23. Kill Zone 2
    Cheang builds flourish upon flourish with a ballsiness that recalls Brian De Palma in his prime.
  24. Spider-Man: Homecoming
    Much of the film’s infectiously youthful spirit comes courtesy of its star. At 21, Tom Holland is only a hair younger than Toby Maguire was when he first donned the tights.
  25. Prince Avalanche
    By going back to nature — and to his indie roots — the director of "George Washington" has reconnected with his poetic side. The Malick comparisons seem appropriate again.
  26. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
    Puss In Boots: The Last Wish is one of cinema’s biggest surprises of the year.
  27. The Grandmaster
    At the end of the day, the pesky imperative to convey information is still a driving force; more than anything Wong has ever made, the movie chokes on exposition, its more poetic concerns stifled by its surfeit of plot.
  28. The Scandal
    Sumptuously photographed in bright primary colors, with equally immaculate period clothing and design, Untold Scandal lacks some of the emotional and thematic depth of previous adaptations, but it has the refreshing candor and explicitness that marks the current wave of Korean cinema.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    40 Years a Prisoner
    Director Tommy Oliver’s gritty documentary 40 Years A Prisoner not only recounts the violent events that led up to the raid, mixing eyewitness testimony with gripping news footage, but in heartwarming fashion, also presents the tireless pursuit by a son to free his parents.
  30. Gran Torino
    Eastwood directs with his usual relaxed pace and bursts of intensity, a style that's pleasing to watch--and which, also as usual, never fully compensates for any shortcomings of the script handed to him.
  31. Honey Boy
    This is actually a fairly conventional indie drama.
  32. The Killer
    As The Killer moves through its nearly two-hour runtime, the vapor-high of a tightly choreographed opening sequence and the undeniable pleasure of being comfortably cradled in the hands of a master craftsman give way to a wandering mind.
  33. Audrie & Daisy
    Audrie & Daisy could’ve done more to connect up the way the internet looms over both cases.... What the documentary does well, though, is critique a culture that allows young men to disregard other people’s humanity.
  34. The Ivory Game
    Unlike a lot of other advocacy docs—films that seek to raise awareness regarding some serious issue, often concluding with a call to action—Netflix’s The Ivory Game offers something spectacularly visual: elephants.
  35. Splitsville
    The film climaxes with several spinning plates that crash in a delightful crescendo
  36. Folktales
    Though it aspires to be a thought-provoking take on the coming-of-age story, Grady and Ewing’s doc never overcomes its uninspiring filmmaking to meet the profundity of the experience it represents.
  37. Results
    Smulders, Pearce, and Corrigan are loose and eminently likable, and the direction is so in tune with the actors that one is almost inclined to think of Results as a movie carried entirely by performance, overlooking how much its shape depends on style.
  38. Cars
    Cars is a fine example of the formula, with pleasant chemistry, the patented Pixar cleverness, and the usual sweetly melancholy nostalgia courtesy of songwriter Randy Newman.
  39. Appropriate Behavior
    Ultimately, Appropriate Behavior works almost in spite of itself; so efficiently does the film explain why Shirin and Maxine split up that eventually it lags behind its own premise.
  40. Slay the Dragon
    Slaying The Dragon is meant as an urgent call to action ahead of this year’s elections, and it is here that it really falters.
  41. Witching and Bitching
    Plenty of movies sympathize with outcasts, but only De La Iglesia’s sympathize with their ugliest feelings: envy, resentment, and self-loathing.
  42. Zombieland
    The four protagonists aren’t about to let something as minor as the complete breakdown of society get in the way of having a good time, and their fun proves infectious.
  43. Alias Betty
    A lot goes on, and it doesn't always make sense. But the cast embodies Rendell's ability to incorporate shrewd observations on human behavior into the framework of a crime story, and Miller has a great eye for the places on the Paris outskirts where the lives of haves and have-nots intersect.
  44. Julieta
    Almodóvar has directed what’s basically a melodrama as if it were a thriller—a fascinating experiment that doesn’t always work as intended, but creates a useful dissonance en route to a powerfully open-ended conclusion.
  45. Ferrari
    The movie is often darkly funny as the characters lob barbs at each other. Nevertheless, the story feels a tad truncated in spots. An elongated run time would service the action and narrative a bit better—and, as Mann fans know, he does love releasing a good director’s cut.
  46. Antz
    The story is well-told, but so familiar that it renders the surrounding film a bright, shiny, dispensible bauble, an amusing diversion but not much more.
  47. The Lookout
    The Lookout's thriller elements could stand to be more surprising, but they're ultimately in service of a better understanding of the characters. Usually, it's the other way around.
  48. News of the World
    It’s a true star vehicle, practically a tribute to his enduring appeal. Yet for as comforting as Hanks is in the role, and for as much as he sells the poignancy of the film’s bittersweet final stretch, the film feels almost too built around his signature nobility to ever gain much in the way of actual drama.
  49. Whores' Glory
    Glawogger studiously avoids explicitness until he gets to Mexico, where he finally goes past the bartering stage and behind closed doors as business is conducted. Pleasure isn't part of the transaction.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Planet of Snail
    With little story to speak of, Planet Of Snail is more of an experiential piece, closing in on the pleasure and wonder with which Young-chan takes in details like rain falling outside the window and the bark of a tree.
  51. The Hangover
    It's an agreeably unambitious comedy that might be called a romp, if that word didn't imply a little too much energy.
  52. The Square
    This is a movie with a lot on its mind, from art to altruism to the so-called bystander effect, and it could function as a Rorschach test for its audience, reflecting viewers’ anxieties and insecurities right back at them. It’s also just really, really funny, at least for those who can find humor in humiliation.
  53. The Club
    This is no sympathetic drama of absolution, no portrait of forgiveness sought by sinners. Larraín is after something trickier and harder to pin down; he asks us to share real estate with these men, while offering few windows into their heads or hearts, or even a clarification of their crimes.
  54. The Girl Cut in Two
    Chabrol develops the inevitable confrontation between the two men like a car wreck in slow motion, and getting there takes a little more work than it should; the film takes the form of a thriller, but it doesn't have the pace of one.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Slam
    The powerful, natural acting is right out of a documentary, and the open-ended conclusion is an equally challenging statement about the sad futility of sending young people to jail.
  56. Journey's End
    Is there any artistically compelling reason for the existence of the latest adaptation, which is clearly meant to take advantage of the centennial? Not really, but it’s a good play, once again providing juicy roles to fresh and established talent. That’ll suffice.
  57. Both Sides of the Blade
    This movie is not particularly good. One seizes upon highlights from the sideline when what’s happening front and center is just so dull.
  58. Richard Linklater: Dream Is Destiny
    Although it’s casual to a fault, Dream Is Destiny is generally engaging and liberally sprinkled with real insights into what makes this filmmaker special.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God
    Mea Maxima Culpa is not gentle about placing blame on a structure that elevates priests above the rest of mankind and prioritizes maintaining an appearance of pious perfection over addressing some grievous wrongs committed.
  60. Battle of the Sexes
    Though told in broad strokes, its version of the story deserves credit for never buying into the hype and surreal pageantry of the Astrodome showdown. But its lack of interest in tennis as a sport leaves the narrative—plastered with hot-button issues and character crises—with an empty center.
  61. River's Edge
    It’s sloppily written, heavy-handed, and tonally inconsistent—but it remains striking for its bleakness and a smattering of bizarre, unhinged performances from Crispin Glover, Daniel Roebuck, and Dennis Hopper.
  62. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
    As Cruise clings to the side of the building using malfunctioning equipment, and a sandstorm looms in the distance, the question shifts from whether Bird can direct an action film to whether there's anyone out there who can top him.
  63. Hive
    This is an immersive portrait, buoyed by a central performance that’s hypnotizing in its sparse naturalism. What Basholli has made is a thoughtful, humanistic exploration of the fortitude needed to summon hope in a time and place resigned to hopelessness.
  64. Cold in July
    As entertaining as it is to watch Cold In July drift, the film has to eventually pick a lane — and that’s where this otherwise accomplished suspense picture runs into the ditch.
  65. Layer Cake
    The always-dependable and chameleon-like Craig has the chops and substance for that kind of film, but Vaughn prefers to keep matters brisk and superficial.
  66. The Company
    It should be a personal triumph or a personal tragedy, but it's neither: just another moment between curtain-rise and curtain-fall in the glorious business of creating beauty.
  67. Ray
    As Ray nears its abrupt ending, it veers into camp silliness, complete with a psychedelic freak-out withdrawal sequence straight out of a Roger Corman LSD epic.
  68. Suburbia
    Compassion and sociological acuity can only take a film so far, however, and clunky dialogue, comically broad supporting characters, and often-amateurish acting sabotage much of Suburbia's plot-and-dialogue-heavy second half. But it still shows enormous empathy and sensitivity in capturing the angst and alienation of American youth, making it seem both rooted in a specific time and place and strangely timeless.
  69. Dead Pigs
    Although the film still sparkles, a trimmed-down version focused solely on the Wangs might have had the explosive power of a hand grenade. But the story isn’t the main attraction here. The real star of the movie is Yan, whose carnivalesque sensibilities emerge fully formed in this, her first feature.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Inspection
    The Inspection isn’t a perfect movie, but there are times when it feels like it’s tantalizingly close.
  71. Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
    It's more Thompson-for-beginners than an exhaustive inquiry, but as introductions go, it's thorough and thoughtful.
  72. The Devil's Bath
    Mileage will vary, dictated by your appreciation for methodical avalanches of sorrow driven by puritanical pressures. Everything is minimalistic, punctuated by the devastating context found in the research that helped shape Franz and Fiala’s screenplay. Some viewers will recognize dedication, others will have their patience tested.
  73. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
    Black's sadistic streak remains as uncomfortable as it ever was, and his direction is very much in the house style of producer Joel Silver. But both elements perfectly suit the material, which sneaks in a lot of sly stuff beneath the slick surface.
  74. What's Up, Doc?
    The hyperactive humor grates at times, but is rarely as labored as many '60s comedies, thanks mainly to Bogdanovich's indulgence of the spontaneously absurd, and his inventive way of letting gags work their way across long, wide sets.
  75. Zootopia 2
    Rather than push animation forward, Zootopia 2 is content to be just another colorful kids’ movie about cute, funny animals in a big, frenetic world.
  76. The New World
    However complicated the historical issues at play, the poetic introspection that consumes The New World's characters could only take place in a Terrence Malick movie. But, here at least, history and lyrical drift go together surprisingly well.
  77. The Camden 28
    Though the filmmaking is pedestrian, The Camden 28's timeless truths come through with resounding power.
  78. Fire Will Come
    Quiet, slow-moving, ambiguous character studies might be a dime a dozen on the festival circuit, but there are few that remind us that there are things out there that still feel as big as myth.
  79. The 40 Year Old Virgin
    Funny and realistically romantic, but almost never at the same time.
  80. A Royal Affair
    Newcomer Følsgaard is the wild card, but he manages to make the king both villain and victim, sometimes a vindictive schemer, at others far-eyed and helpless, a puppet for the forces behind him.
  81. Trilogy: The Weeping Meadow
    The imagery eventually becomes the only reason to keep watching. This is the first of an announced trilogy, but it already feels as long as the 20th century itself.
  82. Dark Waters
    Dark Waters would likely have been a forgettable mediocrity in anybody’s hands, given its fact-based, muckraking limitations. Coming from the visionary who gave us Safe, Far From Heaven, I’m Not There, and Carol, it’s a crushing disappointment.
  83. Attenberg
    Stripped of all its random weirdness, Attenberg has the premise of a classic Yasujiro Ozu drama like "Late Spring," with its relationship between a widower approaching death and a devoted daughter who needs to leave the nest before it's too late.
  84. The Original Kings of Comedy
    As a testament to the vitality of—and sense of community engendered by—black comedy, The Original Kings Of Comedy is a success. As a comedy, however, it's sluggishly paced and not nearly funny enough to justify its two-hour running time.
  85. Shattered Glass
    Shattered Glass simply sinks its teeth into a juicy story, never better than when Sarsgaard methodically paints the sniveling Christensen into a corner.
  86. Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles
    Zhang Yimou is a master of intimate character pieces.
  87. War of the Worlds
    In an unfortunate case of star casting, Cruise strains credibility as a hard-edged Jersey dockworker.
  88. ShowBusiness: The Road to Broadway
    ShowBusiness is a smart, highly entertaining piece of cinema-reportage, but it never quite rises to the level of penetrating insight or emotional catharsis.
  89. Knuckleball!
    Some of Knuckleball!'s best scenes show Dickey and Wakefield hanging out with Hough and Phil Niekro (the latter the rare knuckleballer who threw the pitch his whole career rather than turning to it out of desperation), talking about the mechanics and the mojo of the knuckler.
  90. I Believe in Unicorns
    It’s a testament to Meyerhoff’s talent as a director that she manages to give the standard coming-of-age material emotional resonance, especially amid classic teen-girl journal imagery like balloons, sparklers, homemade wings, and, of course, unicorns.
  91. Sky Ladder: The Art of Cai Guo-Qiang
    Given that gasp-inducing fireworks and light shows are the main reason why this film got made in the first place—and why people will want to watch it—it’s hard to fault Macdonald too much for opting more for uplift than provocation. After all, many artists begin with grand intentions, then settle for razzle-dazzle.
  92. Thirst
    Thirst never picks up the momentum of Park’s best-known work. But its turgid pace creates a queasy fascination all its own, drawing viewers into an ever-darkening locus of sin and obsession where even the wish for redemption comes at a terrible cost.
  93. The Dig
    For all the film’s sweeping, romantic ideas, the actual experience of watching The Dig is a lot like sitting at a bus stop.
  94. Good Manners
    There’s nothing especially wrong with the arty horror movie that Good Manners becomes, mind you, and the metamorphosis (unexpected, for those who haven’t read a review or seen the poster image, anyway) offers pleasures of its own.
    • The A.V. Club
      • Posted Jul 24, 2018
  95. The Fall of Fujimori
    If the end justifies the means, it would be hard to deny that the legacy of Alberto Fujimori, the disgraced former President of Peru, is largely triumphant.
  96. The Shadow Strays
    The carnage, it should be re-stated, does not disappoint.
  97. The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975
    Illustrates how the rhetoric of civil rights changed after the breakthroughs of Martin Luther King. With the world's media finally paying attention, critical thinkers like Carmichael, Davis, and Malcolm X were able to push back against the fretful questions about violence, and redefine the story of blacks in America over the centuries as one defined by violence.
  98. Amreeka
    Amreeka lacks the sense of humor that set "Aliens In America" apart--and frankly, it’s rarely as insightful about the biases and strengths either of Arab émigrés or of sheltered Midwesterners.
  99. CODA
    The climactic emotional beats are telegraphed almost from the beginning, but they still hit hard, effectively leaving viewers who can suspend their disbelief feeling uplifted and dewy-eyed.
  100. Polyester
    Polyester splits the difference between Waters’ earlier cult movies and his later mainstream work. A melodrama that touches on everything from punk rock to abortion to pornography.
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