The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 10,419 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 2.5 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: 5,574 out of 10419
  2. Mixed: 3,737 out of 10419
  3. Negative: 1,108 out of 10419
10419 movie reviews
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  1. Chevalier
    As a celebration of a musical genius, Chevalier is a wildly entertaining ride, a thrilling history lesson in the making that remains as timely as ever.
  2. The Last Voyage of the Demeter
    Despite this unevenness, there’s a lot to love in The Last Voyage Of The Demeter for horror fans and casual moviegoers alike.
  3. M3GAN
    Though the contortionist-level juxtaposition of an American Girl murderbot should probably be more viscerally satisfying, Cooper’s offbeat humor and Johnstone’s ability to build tension with her characters make for a potent combination.
  4. Hunt
    Lee stars in, directs, co-writes, and co-produces this taut, extravagant, and technically proficient effort, which comes off more as an auspicious filmmaking debut than a vanity project, one that stacks up favorably with most American spy thrillers.
  5. Beast
    For a singularly outlandish and specific premise, this is a film that lets its audience experience the horror right along with the characters on screen. This is cinema as spectacle distilled down to its rawest form, where basic storytelling leads directly to visceral and emotional catharsis.
  6. My Old School
    Cumming is magnificent in this role, mastering the exact rhythm of Brandon’s speech while also interpreting his emotions with a naturalism that blends seamlessly with testimonials from former students and instructors.
  7. Anything's Possible
    Anything’s Possible may be flawed for what it fails to fully develop around the edges of its story, but the central relationship that holds the film together is so compelling that the rest hardly matters.
  8. Next Exit
    In the end, one’s assessment and enjoyment of Next Exit rests less in its treatment of the more conjectural elements of its story, and more in its sensitive and sympathetic rendering of decidedly Earthbound, day-to-day messiness. Maybe the exit isn’t what we should be looking for, in other words.
  9. Alone Together
    While we may soon tire of movies using the pandemic as a narrative catalyst (if we haven’t already), Katie Holmes’ Alone Together feels vitally of-the-moment at a time when so many films are ignoring the poignancy of that moment altogether.
  10. Smile
    It’s obvious that Finn draws heavily from his own favorites, but Smile suggests that their skill and effectiveness have successfully been passed along to him.
  11. Battle Beyond the Stars
    Battle Beyond The Stars has a charm that belies its low budget and opportunistic origins.
  12. Stay on Board: The Leo Baker Story
    Despite briefly losing its balance, Stay On Board sticks the landing, crafting a story of self-love and determined self-actualization that many pre-transition queer folks will find aspirational.
  13. Thunderbolts*
    Thunderbolts* is the first Marvel movie in a couple of years to make a good-faith effort to live in its characters’ heads, rather than just their Wiki pages.
  14. The Blood of a Poet
    As a groundbreaking examination of the reality-bending potential of film, it's of a piece with Un Chien Andalou and L'Age D'Or.
  15. Testament of Orpheus
    A self-crafted elegy starring Cocteau as himself, an artist at the end of his life wandering through a symbolic landscape filled with his own creations (and guest stars Yul Brynner and Pablo Picasso). In the end, Cocteau takes comfort in the immortality of art, and therefore his own immortality, a sentiment that would seem far less moving and far more egotistical if it weren't true.
  16. Late August, Early September
    Late August, Early September is a resolutely minor work, a quiet departure from the brash showiness of Irma Vep, but it's crafted with the sure hand of a major director.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    End of the Road
    Director Millicent Shelton, a veteran of dozens of music videos and television shows (including two episodes of Latifah’s series Star), wisely builds tension while exploring their family dynamic, and then stomps on the gas to bring it all home.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Sidney
    In the end, Sidney is informative—it’s exciting to hear from him and from those who loved him, and from some of the people he influenced. But as evidenced by his two memoirs, This Life (1980) and Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography (2000), there’s much more in Poitier’s life and legacy that this documentary fails to explore.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    An Affair to Remember
    The principals are in such fine form, underplaying against their stagy backdrops, and the tragic turn of the plot is so gripping, that the movie succeeds in spite of its white-elephant pedigree.
  20. Lou
    In Janney’s capable hands, our heroine is fully fleshed out, yet lean with more gristle on the bone than meat. She delivers zingy one-liners as well as she does a knock-out punch. Her refreshing spin on this archetype, blending masculine bravado and bluster with feminine wit and wisdom, elevates the spartan material.
  21. A Christmas Story Christmas
    The result is something that, while never reaching the ineffable magic of Clark’s film, ends up in solidly entertaining, if slightly disjointed, holiday territory.
  22. Wendell & Wild
    Selick and Peele operate a bit at cross purposes in Wendell & Wild. The genius visualist wants to haunt our dreams. The socially engaged provocateur wants to haunt our troubled collective realities. Whatever doesn’t quite mesh in their collaboration is easier to forgive when feasting upon such extraordinary sights.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Enola Holmes 2
    The true joy of both Enola Holmes films is in the actors’ performances and the humanity they bring to the characters.
  24. How to Blow Up a Pipeline
    How To Blow Up A Pipeline plays like a taut thriller that tells an unusual story. Its strength lies in making a topical issue palatable and highly watchable.
  25. Women Talking
    Women Talking is about as direct as cinema gets in portraying the complexities and nuances of the feminist struggle, and it achieves much with characters who wouldn’t likely consider themselves feminist or revolutionary.
  26. Blank
    When the all-important moment of catharsis that every good scary movie requires comes around, it’s palpable. But writers, and other creative types, just might feel it a little bit extra.
  27. Emily
    Mackey’s Emily is a young woman who lives the life she writes about, daringly, perhaps knowing time is short.
  28. Missing
    Screenlife may never be one of the primary ways we tell cinematic stories, but Missing is a prime example of what the format is capable of, tapping into our increasingly digital humanity to excellent effect.
  29. Knock at the Cabin
    Knock At The Cabin is a harrowing and intense home invasion thriller that feels like a step in the right direction for Shyamalan.
  30. They Cloned Tyrone
    At first glance, They Cloned Tyrone is a silly satire of early ’70s blaxploitation flicks like Super Fly or Willie Dynamite that adds what writer-director Juel Taylor and writer Tony Rettenmaier call a “... dash of Scooby Doo.” Fortunately, the filmmakers here have something more in mind.
  31. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
    It’s too agreeable, too dutiful to building a new series, and too reluctant to disrupt this new status quo even as it detonates its many explosive setpieces.
  32. Duel
    A slim Richard Matheson story that Spielberg padded into a 90-minute feature by artfully assembling a string of insert shots.
  33. Challengers
    Challengers remains an entertaining movie thanks to its complicated characters who are played by actors on their way to becoming sparkling screen stars.
  34. Snoopy Come Home
    Rarely has a movie made for kids been so devastatingly honest about how relationships can sour over time.
  35. Madonna: Truth or Dare
    There’s a hagiographic aspect to Truth Or Dare that’s disquieting even now, especially given that an honest movie about this genuinely groundbreaking tour—which became the model for ambitious pop-star concerts—and the high-school-play-like camaraderie of its personnel would’ve had more lasting value.
  36. The Blackening
    The movie is highly entertaining, while being oddly validating and very funny. It cleverly weaves the horror tropes that it rebukes right into the narrative. And it’s done without slipping into parody like the Scary Movie series, where similar notions are skewered more broadly and, with The Blackening now on the table, way less successfully.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Baby Ruby
    Despite some unevenness, Baby Ruby is a fervently uncomfortable and aesthetically compelling depiction of new motherhood, an unsettling horror exploration buoyed by strange imagery and a no-holds-barred lead performance from Noémie Merlant.
  38. Somebody I Used to Know
    The film’s rom-com template feels more like a structure to play with, a solid foundation on which to question the very tenets of romance and comedy.
  39. Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie
    Still is a solid reminder of why Fox is a magnetic camera presence and why he continues to be beloved, both as an actor and an activist for Parkinson’s research. As rote as many celebrity navel-gazing documentaries have become, it’s refreshing to see a film that can still find the strengths of the format.
  40. Fair Play
    What Fair Play gets most right, though, is its headlong dive into the messy complications and charged ambiguity of navigating romance in a fast-changing world. The result is an enjoyably caustic, character-driven drama that connects on multiple levels.
  41. Theater Camp
    It’s constructed from the inside out, all of its characters and energy flowing from a genuine place.
  42. Rye Lane
    Rye Lane never tips over fully into cartoonish exaggeration, but the playful presentation of ids and egos through the dreamlike perspectives of its leads goes a long way toward making the film stand out as more than just a showcase for freewheeling chemistry.
  43. The Boogeyman
    These are jump scares done right, where the struggle to see what’s there is much more effective than any cheap lurch into frame.
  44. Tetris
    There’s a great deal of fun to be had here, even if the story is never quite as addictive as the game that inspired it. Tetris doesn’t cast the same spell as its namesake, but it will at least make you look at those falling blocks in a new way.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Paint
    While it’s possible to quibble about the weirdly sci-fi mix of period signifiers (white boy afros exist beside cellphones), and to look askance at Paint’s rather too blithe approach to sex-in-the-workplace power dynamics, few comedies in recent memory come by their laughs more honestly than Paint does because, like all the best comedies, the laughter is based on a genuine unease.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Air
    For a few scenes, Air feels like a gently satirical movie about corporate skullduggery. But it’s really a sports picture, where outcomes are determined by dedication, and a purity of purpose no one else can match. Damon’s Sonny is the scrappy and unlikely contender, whose love of the game gives him heart.
  47. BlackBerry
    It’s true that an operatic presentation of ruination or consequences wouldn’t fit BlackBerry. But it does feel like the movie misses the chance for some stick-the-landing moments related to the fates of its chief characters. That said, Johnson’s entertaining time capsule does still capture, in its unfussy way, one immutable truth: good times aren’t meant to last forever.
  48. Extraction 2
    As in Extraction, the action sequences are the whole game here, and they do not disappoint.
  49. Ballerina
    Yet none of this stuff, largely but not exclusively confined to a rote opening 30 minutes or so, works as well as the seemingly lower-stakes but far more evocatively handled saga of John Wick’s dog.
  50. Flamin' Hot
    Garcia delivers a standout turn as Richard. It helps that he’s not yet a household name, so he isn’t carrying the baggage of any external frames of reference. His earnest and engrossing performance absolutely carries Flamin’ Hot.
  51. Problemista
    There’s no doubt that should Torres continue, Problemista will eventually look like a scrappy first album filled with promising primordial quirks. The film’s issues do not impede it from being a fleet-footed comedy filled with laugh-out-loud jokes.
  52. Limelight
    In short, everything that sounds potentially magnificent about Limelight disappoints, while the aspect that sounds potentially dreary—Chaplin playing earnest life coach to a sickly ballerina—works like a charm. The man was full of surprises.
  53. Shooting Stars
    Some parts of LeBron’s professional career are told in truncated form with a few figures left out or combined for cinematic purposes, but that’s it. And the film is better for focusing on relationships rather than on the easy highs of watching fast breaks and slam dunks.
  54. The Edge
    Tamahori’s workmanlike production doesn’t match the elemental power of Mamet’s script, and it fails to evoke the harsh physical conditions that turn ordinary, civilized men into resourceful survivalists and predators.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Red White & Royal Blue
    Red, White & Royal Blue, ultimately, isn’t revolutionary. It’s more traditional than not—which means, thankfully, that it’s still a lot of fun.
  56. 20,000 Species of Bees
    Despite its limitations, 20,000 Species of Bees is crafted from a place of empathy so often lacking in conversations about trans childhood.
  57. The Old Oak
    The Old Oak is a reminder that empathy isn’t merely about having the ability to put oneself in someone else’s shoes and consider their perspective, it’s recognizing that one’s personal struggles extend beyond one’s own family and other people that look exactly like you.
  58. Dumb Money
    Smart, playful, and perhaps efficient to a fault (there’s only so many times a rap song can be used as a narrative stitch to take us from one character to another), Gillespie’s latest is an enraging David vs. Goliath, ripped-from-the-headlines tale that deserves to be seen to be believed.
  59. 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.
  60. Saw X
    Fans who tune in mainly for the insane timeline twists won’t get them, but otherwise, this is the most satisfying Saw installment since the first three. Also, be sure to stick around for a mid-credits scene.
  61. Spy Kids: Armageddon
    Throw in a few fun set pieces, some dynamic creature designs, and a breezy narrative that zips by before your eyes, and Spy Kids: Armageddon comes away as a film that mostly works.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    El Conde
    What saves El Conde is the specificity of its subject and the style of its auteur.
  63. Totally Killer
    Totally Killer is a film full of great talent, great moments, and an infectious sense of fun, which means that even when it doesn’t quite work, it’s an entertaining balance of slasher tropes and time travel adventure.
  64. Nyad
    If, at the end of the day, Nyad feels like a well-oiled crowd-pleasing sports drama with a heartwarming (if slightly insidious) message about never giving up, that doesn’t blunt its impact.
  65. Origin
    For those who choose to take this riveting journey of discovery, they’ll find this picture gets them to a place of inspiring enlightenment and keeps them in that mindset far beyond the end credits scroll.
  66. Hit Man
    While Hit Man satiates as a slick, sexy comedy-noir that will actually get at-home viewers to engage with media outside of the dreaded algorithm, it’s worth hoping that Linklater’s forthcoming big swings are met with similar zeal.
  67. Woman of the Hour
    This is a self-assured take on a story that stretches far, wide, and deep.
  68. His Three Daughters
    His Three Daughters is an extremely effective tear-jerker.
  69. The Toxic Avenger
    The Toxic Avenger is an imperfect but no less vital lifeblood transfusion for the cheapo horror-comedy: a cartoon-carnage splash-a-thon, and an eco-conscious call to clean out the profiteers poisoning us and our planet.
  70. 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.
  71. Ex-Husbands
    Is it “funny,” really? No. Is it searingly dramatic in a way that pulls at your heartstrings? No. And yet it possesses an undeniable authenticity, wrapping its arms around a truth most movies avoid: there’s no such thing as absolute certainty in life.
  72. Elio
    Fun as it is, Elio just goes for the montage, eager to speak a universal language.
  73. The Great Escaper
    A compelling piece of straightforward true-crime that makes the most of its throwback form.
  74. Nosferatu
    There are moments of genuine horror and genuine artfulness in Nosferatu, neither of which would have been possible if the writer-director had approached the project with tongue in cheek. But at two hours and 12 minutes, it’s a solemn death march towards an inevitable conclusion—which fits the theme, but strains the limits of audience engagement.
  75. Night Swim
    Despite some choppy waters in the back half, this is a fun, funny, often genuinely unnerving horror movie experience, one that might make you think twice about that first swim of the year when summer rolls around.
  76. Love Lies Bleeding
    Full of striking visuals from cinematographer Ben Fordesman, a healthy dash of horror and sci-fi in the script, and a monumental performance from O’Brian, Loves Lies Bleeding is another surrealist sapphic gem from Rose Glass.
  77. Mickey 17
    Messy as it is, the filmmaking so energetically delivers its acidic pessimism that it’s rarely unpleasant.
  78. Blitz
    Blitz often feels like a pitched battle between the conventions of big-canvas war recreation and McQueen’s attempt to evoke the stranger, less obviously narrative-driven chaos that happens when the battlefield descends on a major urban center from the sky.
  79. The Brutalist
    The Brutalist is operating in the shadow of a tradition of cinematic epics, there is an expected journey the film has the opportunity to stray from, and it doesn’t nearly enough.
  80. Blink Twice
    Blink Twice is undeniably palate-cleansing when compared with the surplus of sexless legacy sequels, romance novel adaptations, and dull–looking, repetitive franchise installments. Even if it’s simply drawing inspiration from superior films, Blink Twice uses these touchstones to create something appealing and original. At the very least, it marks an exciting first step for a director who’s got the skill to make something better.
  81. Sasquatch Sunset
    Everything works best when it’s coming through the performance, not the edit. Often, the directors’ touch isn’t light enough, and their forced attempts at humor upset the film’s natural balance.
  82. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
    Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is strangely paced and barely comprehensible, plot-wise, but it is aesthetically esoteric in a way that used to be synonymous with Tim Burton’s filmmaking, alive and real.
  83. Fitting In
    Though not without its rough edges, McGlynn’s film is emotionally raw and willing to engage with the complexities and nuances of her situation, providing a fascinating look at the intersectionality of burgeoning womanhood, intersex identity, and messy sexuality that doesn’t adhere to rigid or widely acknowledged labels.
  84. Founders Day
    If you’re not a slasher nerd, don’t worry, this entertaining, wicked little movie can still win you over, even if it might take you a little longer to find its particular groove.
  85. Freaky Tales
    That the movie is “only” a silly romp makes it all the more charming to watch Boden and Fleck find a less mechanical, less programmatic way to have fun.
  86. Devo
    The deceptively straightforward package actually benefits a band that enjoys coloring outside the lines. Devo allows Devo the space to be its idiosyncratic self, both in the present-day interviews and the wealth of archival footage. Devo’s reign may have been relatively short, but Smith gives the band the fond memorializing it deserves.
  87. Carry-On
    There’s never a true early-check-out moment of the sort that arrives with such numbing frequency in so many bigger-scale blockbusters; the movie locks in and moves.
  88. The Piano Lesson
    In The Piano Lesson, the ghosts are as tangible as they’ve ever been, and the film barely containing them is as weathered and tense as any family in need of a séance.
  89. Small Things Like These
    Small Things Like These instead functions as a parable about how minor acts of kindness can be the strongest defense against powerlessness in the face of corruption. It’s a moral poignant in its simplicity, if also a bit lacking in how utterly uncomplicated and even expected it is.
  90. Suspended Time
    Though Assayas is best known for his incisive cultural commentary, the subdued regimes and musings in Suspended Time are just as enthralling in their own quiet way.
  91. Solo
    Solo is most intriguing when its romantic rivalry takes center stage.
  92. Dahomey
    Assessing this move from the perspective of the pieces themselves—including an elaborate carved throne, a towering statue of King Ghézo, and metallic markers of death—as well as the recipients of these revenants, Diop takes a brisk yet thoughtful look at whether even antiquities can go home again.
  93. Dead Mail
    Although the film has a certain languidness—shaving the 100-minute runtime down would have amplified the tension—its commitment to dissecting the internal workings of analog keyboards and the USPS prove just as intriguing as the unstable killer who threatens professionals in both of these fields.
  94. Grand Theft Hamlet
    A making-of film fueled, like the Let’s Plays and livestreams it’s in conversation with, by the chaos of a plan gone wrong, Grand Theft Hamlet is equal parts charming and cheesy—both due to its experimental setting.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead
    Emmy-nominated screenplay writer Chuck Hayward (Dear White People, Ted Lesso) and director Wade Allain-Marcus (Grown-ish, Insecure) bring some impressive cultural and emotional nuances to the story.
  96. Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu
    When Favreau banishes traditional actors in order to send little puppet creatures scuttling through the verdant landscape, suddenly his human-light blockbuster looks, if not quite visionary, at least novel. It also looks much closer to handmade, and deeply charming.
  97. Run Ronnie Run
    With its obligatory plot points, character arcs, and forced resolution, the narrative's demands tax Cross and Odenkirk's sensibility by limiting their freedom of movement. Yet even in its current bastardized form, the film still flickers with moments of great inspiration and vitality, providing isolated hints at the groundbreaking comedy that might have been.
  98. All We Imagine as Light
    Kapadia’s skill lies in her ability to interweave moments of hope into the anxiety. Her leads offer tenderness and pull back into self-protectiveness in equal measure.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    The Surfer
    The Surfer slowly follows the threads of its hero’s unraveling neuroses, and Cage walks right up to the line of sanity as each strand comes undone. It is a marvelous pushback against expectations that he stays on the other side of that line.
  100. Black Phone 2
    A handsome follow-up that both seizes the predecessor’s sense of heartbreak (albeit at a lesser degree) and dials up its chills by transposing them onto an icy, blood-soaked youth camp in the Rocky Mountains.
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