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. Misericordia
    While it lacks the surrealistic and fairy-tale elements that distinguish many of Guiraudie’s films (among them Sunshine For The Poor, Time Has Come, and Staying Vertical), Misericordia is nonetheless pervaded by a casual dreaminess and a disregard for the strictures of realism that leads in some (intentionally) silly directions.
  2. Rumours
    Even in these early scenes, a strangeness pervades the film: ironic, sometimes stagey or soapy, occasionally punctuated by over-the-top musical cues.
  3. How to Rob a Bank
    Where visuals of certain events are unavailable, like Scurlock writing in his journal at night, fully colored and animated storyboards fill in the gaps. It’s an odd semi-glorification, even as How To Rob A Bank throws in a few token mentions of robbery survivors with PTSD at the end, and offers a sense that Scurlock fell into the Butch Cassidy trap of being so hooked on robberies he never knew when to quit.
  4. The Sheep Detectives
    Jokes may fall flat, and the movie might get a bit treacly, but The Sheep Detectives‘ big heart is never in question.
  5. The Monkey
    The Monkey is at its weakest when it tries too hard to explain what’s happening, either on a plot or on a thematic level. (The narration can be especially detrimental in this way.) And it’s strongest when it abandons its search for meaning and does a silly dance in the face of Death itself. A dry, mocking one though it might be, The Monkey is ultimately just a laugh.
  6. A Canterbury Tale
    A Canterbury Tale is a strange little movie, overlong and even shrill at times, but with a point to make that belies its slightness.
  7. Hell Hole
    When the guts and goop start flying, however, there’s no denying that the Adams Family have cooked up another bloody good time, even if the overarching mood doesn’t feel as consciously constructed.
  8. Eden
    Eden winds up yoking Howard’s more domesticated movies with his thwarted-adventure narratives. The suspense lies in whether certain characters will figure out whether they’re on a bold, one-off exploration or the cusp of a sustainable new life—and whether humanity on the whole is any good at telling them apart.
  9. Black Bag
    For better or worse, the director tucks Black Bag away so cleanly that it’s easy to forget what a good time it is.
  10. The Dead Thing
    A well-crafted, slow-burn art-horror offering that falls somewhere between doomed character study and moody ghost story, the movie exudes an unerring confidence in its own skin. It’s not an eager group of individual showcases or a proof-of-concept for another project, but a creatively executed rumination on universally relevant themes.
  11. Pavements
    It all threatens to resemble a hat on a hat, possibly worn by a snake eating its own tail. Yet Perry isn’t really going for a trippy hall-of-mirrors approach, even when he cuts together multiple performances of songs so that Pavements past, present, and fake-ass trade verses on their catalog of ’90s non-hits.
  12. Familiar Touch
    As Chalfant preens, jokes, and carries on throughout her character’s evolving mental landscape, she threads recognition and persistence into a performance defined by confusion. This approach contributes to the idea that our lives are not a single fading picture, but formed from a long series of imperfect snapshots—like how single frames, quickly played in succession, form the illusory whole of a film.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Dog Man
    Dog Man is a sugar rush.
  14. Song Sung Blue
    Like a Diamond song, Song Sung Blue is a little corny and a touch overly familiar. But when it finds its wavelength, the good times never seemed so good.
  15. The Colors Within
    Low on incident but high on emotion, The Colors Within poignantly draws a line from our most private selves to the art we create as an expression of who we really are inside.
  16. The Bad Guys 2
    What The Bad Guys 2 has to say about turning over a new leaf isn’t profound, but it’s effective nonetheless, especially when accentuated by so many goofy laughs and sticky-fingered thrills.
  17. 28 Years Later
    A blistering adventure filled with dread and wonder, there’s a macabre classicism to the film—a sense that, even if life as we know it falls apart, some essential elements persevere.
  18. Lurker
    Of course things get out of control—it’s not like the dark underbellies of music-world organizations haven’t always exceeded our worst expectations. The strength of Lurker, though, is when it’s operating as a slick, slimy social-engineering thriller that anyone could relate to.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    The Wedding Banquet
    The Wedding Banquet may not take its modern queer skepticism as far as its characters could naturally go, and its green card plot device may feel particularly tenuous in light of the alarmingly pressing fascism of border control, but it is an enjoyable, worthwhile 100 minutes spent laughing, groaning, and hoping.
  20. By Design
    It’s a pointedly strange experience, sometimes annoyingly so and sometimes unexpectedly crushing, but all enjoyably kooky depending on your tolerance for this kind of thing.
  21. The Ugly Stepsister
    Blichfeldt’s film offers a R-rated counterpoint better than most “faithful” fairy tale adaptations.
  22. The Perfect Neighbor
    The documentary’s damning look at stand-your-ground laws and the ineffectiveness of police even when they’re doing everything “right” (because the body-cam footage that makes up this film wouldn’t exist if they thought they were doing something “wrong”) is awful and thorough, avoiding cliché through a devotion to fisheye footage. Its upsetting, explicit-bordering-on-exploitative access drives its points into the pit of your stomach.
  23. Together
    The profound depth of feeling generated by Brie and Franco in the midst of this genre film, one perhaps unattainable if they weren’t also married in real life, gives Together a real shot as the greatest romance of the year.
  24. OBEX
    This blend of genres, aesthetics, realities, and virtual realities doesn’t all add up—or adds up a bit too neatly, as the script makes Conor’s hazy backstory unmistakably clear—but OBEX is still endearingly contained, passionately executed, and impressively unique.
  25. Caught Stealing
    It’s remarkable, then, how well Caught Stealing holds together as entertainment; as much as Aronofsky seems incapable of the modulation needed to make a crime caper, he’s also a big part of why this particular variation works anyway.
  26. After the Hunt
    After The Hunt does eventually add up to something greater than its flood of but-what-about details.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Blue Moon
    Though this can seem like a quibble, the cheated blocking Linklater uses to make Hawke look comically shorter than Scott distracts from some truly great writing.
  28. Bring Her Back
    Like a punk band turning four chords into pure angst, Bring Her Back turns familiar trauma-based horror into a traumatic experience. To sit through Bring Her Back is to endure it.
  29. Ne Zha 2
    It’s not hard to understand why global audiences turned out in droves to see Ne Zha 2. Its boundlessly creative visuals, rich character design, all-enveloping sound, and imaginative scenarios are truly original. But that sensory onslaught—those endless fights with their own progressive stakes—comes at the expense of focus, character, and story.
  30. Cheech and Chong's Last Movie
    The tension between Cheech & Chong is a tale as old as time. But their overwhelming respect and love for each other make Last Movie an amiable tour through an unlikely and historic career, arriving at an even more unlikely send-off.
  31. Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie
    Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie is so affable, so good-natured, so modest—just so gosh-darned charming—that it’s difficult not to crack at least a little bit of a smile while watching it.
  32. Hallow Road
    Hallow Road really thrives when at its most simple. Sticking with Pike and Rhys in a simple windshield shot, cutting only to other tight, static angles from inside the car, allows the pair to carry the film.
  33. Project Hail Mary
    Over two-and-a-half hours, the duo’s film gazes in wonder at alien engineering, opens its heart to human vulnerability through karaoke, and makes the case that inspiring the next generation (or at least perpetuating its existence) is alluring enough to shake the smarmiest manchildren from their self-imposed exile. Most effectively, though, Project Hail Mary sees a personal sense of humor shine through the bludgeoning grandeur of a AAA sci-fi.
  34. Tornado
    It’s more that the specific combination of jidaigeki period piece, highland character study, and frontier justice that’s new, making Tornado a harrowing, blustery, violent amalgamation of an idiosyncratic spirit.
  35. Roofman
    It’s a star vehicle for Tatum and Dunst that can’t put all of its faith in the healing power of charisma and chemistry.
  36. Bono: Stories of Surrender
    While chiefly serving as an engaging conversation piece for those already familiar with the man and his band, director Andrew Dominik’s film is also an artistic, effectively streamlined celebration of reflection.
  37. Now You See Me: Now You Don't
    As with the previous films, there are as many ludicrous plot holes as there are genuinely surprising twists, and little of what happens in the story would hold up to any kind of scrutiny. (Why are these stage magicians so well-trained in hand-to-hand combat?) But that’s part of the fun too.
  38. Young Mothers
    Even in the more shallow form of Young Mothers, the Dardennes’ work emphasizes that there is little that’s more cinematic than complicated people surviving difficult circumstances.
  39. The Long Walk
    Despite the stamping of hundreds of feet, The Long Walk smolders with the blunt power of a burned flag.
  40. Anemone
    While it wades in its mysteries and mythologies a bit too long, Anemone ends up being a poignant, promising project about the stains of war on the soul—in this case, the Irish Civil War—and the tendency for one to self-destruct in the aftermath of ruthless service, regardless of where one’s sense of duty or regret lies.
  41. Splitsville
    The film climaxes with several spinning plates that crash in a delightful crescendo
  42. Sentimental Value
    Sentimental Value successfully synthesizes metaphor and nuanced character drama to convey the way suffering ripples outward—even if it’s hard to shake the feeling that, like its protagonist, it should let us in a little deeper.
  43. Yes
    Lapid’s garish maximalism will surely isolate some filmgoers, but the satire of Yes! works best when it’s fearless—unbothered by the genocidal regime it captures.
  44. The Thursday Murder Club
    If The Thursday Murder Club has a central flaw, it’s that it’s more affable than laugh-out-loud funny or especially clever. In that way, it winds up feeling more like an appetizer than a full meal. In fact, with such an appealing heroine and such an engaging yet underexplored world, you could easily imagine The Thursday Murder Club as a supersized pilot to an ongoing series where the gang solve a new crime each week.
  45. Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
    More quaintly focused than the exuberant previous film, though with no shortage of eccentric characters or longwinded side stories, Wake Up Dead Man agreeably seeks answers both existential and earthly.
  46. Frankenstein
    Del Toro’s love for the grotesque and the abject is sincere and passionate, and there are scenes in Frankenstein that play like thesis statements for the director’s entire career.
  47. La Grazia
    La Grazia salutes simple, humble decency, and writer-director Paolo Sorrentino follows the example of his protagonist, largely avoiding the usual array of visual flourishes that have marked his previous collaborations with Servillo. The result is a decidedly reflective film that’s among the director’s most affecting.
  48. Heightened Scrutiny
    With plenty of moving testimonials and charming talking heads, Heightened Scrutiny draws damning lines between the “just asking questions” opinion pieces published in respected mainstream media publications like The Atlantic and the New York Times and the legal arguments made in our judicial system.
  49. The Scout
    The Scout is as pretty-gloomy as an off day in New York, as winning as a good work anecdote, as defeating as another day on the job, and as listless as a generation starting to feel the shadow of their looming midlife crisis.
  50. 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.
  51. No Other Choice
    No Other Choice ends up a laudable mixed bag, a lot of morbid fun with committed performances and beautiful composition that meanders long enough that its rage peters out.
  52. Mother of Flies
    The result is occult horror as potent as the snake venom in one of Selveig’s dreadful “cures.”
  53. Cold Storage
    That Cold Storage hews closer to comedy doesn’t lessen the unnerving sensation of watching its horror unfold. Funny as the film is, the speed with which a biological agent can spread—when the powers that be find the very notion laughable—still makes one squirm in their seat.
  54. Deathstalker
    With Deathstalker, Kostanski attempts to bring his loose, gleeful style to the sword and sorcery genre, and mostly succeeds, giving us another midnight movie essential.
  55. Is God Is
    Young and Johnson drive home Harris’ emotional story with a potent chemistry both tender and volatile. They’re brilliantly paired as twins who are so closely connected that they know when the other is in trouble, but are so unique in personality that they are their own separate entities.
  56. V/H/S/Halloween
    It’s the playful entries in V/H/S/Halloween that hit like a sugar rush. This edition is hardly nightmare-inducing, but it’s still as broadly enjoyable as a crisp October night.
  57. Sisu: Road to Revenge
    There are moments when the sequel nearly overdoes it, when Helander’s thirst for blood threatens to overpower the film. Yet, in its simplicity, it finds a steady rhythm that quickens gradually, peaks, and resets. It isn’t profound or enlightening, but for 89 minutes, it rides the fury road confidently, flipping tanks and unleashing hell along the way.
  58. Nuremberg
    Vanderbilt’s film slowly, confidently morphs into something beyond a cautionary tale and more like a klaxon blaring through the cinema.
  59. The Stranger
    Ozon’s The Stranger keeps the spirit of its source material alive as a timeless warning in a modern world of stark polarization, ongoing colonialism, and plenty of Meursaults ignoring the suffering of others.
  60. Dust Bunny
    Toning down the blood-drenched viscera of Hannibal while channeling the morbid yet whimsical stylings of Pushing Daisies, Fuller’s inaugural film effort is completely in tune with his previous narrative interests, though this time filtered through the gaze of a precocious child.
  61. Swiped
    James is a compelling leading presence for the saga, capturing both Whitney’s youthful effervescence and the gripping fear that begins to take over her life. That the film can depict the emotional abuse Whitney experiences while still keeping an eye on the misogyny she herself perpetuates is an impressive tightrope. And James’ charisma helps carry the story through its occasional script stumble or on-the-nose moment.
  62. The Rip
    Despite the story bloat, Carnahan spins a tight web for the first two-thirds of his movie.
  63. Primate
    Primate makes a characteristically concise case for Roberts as a genre stylist to keep watching.
  64. The Hand That Rocks the Cradle
    The remake features riveting tension, assured performances, and hallmarks of an exciting new director’s narrative fascinations, all while the politics of its central dynamic continue to cry out for examination.
  65. Send Help
    As much as some of the imagery feels like Raimi playing the hits, Send Help also suggests a later-career shift for the filmmaker, one where his comic-book throwbacks run into (or over?) contemporary obstacles without losing their go-for-broke loopiness. It can get messy. Good for him.
  66. The Drama
    The resulting film is nonetheless a wonderfully thorny exploration of primordial desires for connection, destruction, and stability. Don’t expect any genuine relationship advice, but also be warned that this is not a glib exercise in aimless edginess.
  67. I Love Boosters
    I Love Boosters paints another winning amusement park ride in the bright colors of its filmmaker’s politics.
  68. Midwinter Break
    Midwinter Break is most interested in the realities of long-term relationships—with unfaced trauma and graceful forgiveness alike—more than concrete absolutes, which is what makes it a valuable meditation on the imperfection of marriage.
  69. Iron Lung
    As a performer, Fischbach’s frantic performance can sometimes be distractingly monotonous, but as a filmmaker, he has an impressive eye not only for compositional details, but also for how his images cut and flow together.
  70. undertone
    As a theatrical experience, it’s lots of fun, making clever use of proven techniques that build tension before releasing it with exploding light bulbs and ghostly figures appearing in the corner of the frame.
  71. Shuffle
    It’s 81 damning minutes of tight filmmaking, great storytelling, and riveting investigation.
  72. Marty, Life Is Short
    Marty: Life Is Short is an overdue appreciation of a performer who’s underestimated as a clown only because he makes being funny look so easy.
  73. House of Flying Daggers
    Choreographed to the last beat, the action scenes have a depth that the film's thinly sketched characters never quite develop.
  74. Mindhunters
    Trashy and indefensible in most respects, Mindhunters may be a good-bad movie, but entertainment is entertainment, however it comes.
  75. Ong Bak
    Makes up in action what it lacks in storytelling finesse.
  76. Machuca
    Though Machuca ultimately doesn't shy away from taking sides, it wisely keeps the focus on the human element. The politics take place in the background until they demand the foreground.
  77. Beautiful Boxer
    Uekrongtham films the saga in gorgeous style.
  78. Monsieur N.
    De Caunes and screenwriter René Manzor do well when they dwell on history from a mundane human perspective, but Monsieur N. is too dry and too unsurprising for its two-hour running time.
  79. Lost Embrace
    At its best, Lost Embrace conveys, with real warmth, the hopelessly intertwined pasts and shared futures of a community of outsiders and immigrants. At worst, it's a sitcom without a laugh track.
  80. The Nomi Song
    Without coming out and saying it, The Nomi Song creates the sense that its subject might simply have been a few hundred years ahead of his time.
  81. Hitch
    A slick new meta-romantic comedy selling a transparent yet strangely irresistible fantasy of upscale romance among the beautiful but guarded.
  82. Inside Deep Throat
    Inside Deep Throat starts small and keeps expanding outward until there's seemingly no facet of American life the phenomenon hasn't touched.
  83. 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.
  84. Nabbeun namja
    The film works best as a passionate tale of obsessive love, with two people brought together under harrowing circumstances.
  85. Schultze Gets the Blues
    With dialogue as spare as its harsh landscapes, the film is so tonally dry that it makes Aki Kaurismäki look like the Farrelly brothers--it begins at a snail's pace before speeding up to a turtle's drowsy crawl.
  86. Dear Frankie
    On its own terms, Dear Frankie works much better than it really has any right to. Auerbach tells a small, contrived story, but gives it the weight of life.
  87. Gunner Palace
    For the soldiers, it's about living to see the next day and living with the things they see, and Gunner Palace honors their perspective like no other Iraq documentary has to date.
  88. Whisky
    Mordantly funny deadpan comedy.
  89. Robots
    The amiable but thin comedy Robots does have a little more going on, but not quite enough to make a difference, although it looks good enough to distract viewers from that fact for a while.
  90. 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.
  91. The Boys & Girl from County Clare
    The film's modest charms are ingratiating and sweet, thanks to Colm Meaney's hilariously salty lead performance and a soundtrack that channels the warm spirit of traditional Ceili music.
  92. Off the Map
    Off The Map feels peculiar and remote, strangled by an air of arty disengagement. The most vivid characters are the earth and the sky, and they both give stellar performances.
  93. Mondovino
    For all its pervasive irritations and lack of discipline, succeeds in using below-the-belt tactics to get its message across, especially for those unschooled in the rarified world of oenophilia.
  94. Lipstick & Dynamite, Piss & Vinegar: The First Ladies of Wrestling
    Leitman gets some wonderful tall tales from her subjects, who open up like they've been waiting for years for someone to come along and ask, and she complements it with punishing footage of their exploits.
  95. Nina's Tragedies
    It's not often that good movies have a hole in the center, but Nina's Tragedies labors admirably to develop the strong feelings of longing and heartbreak that unite its damaged souls, however briefly.
  96. Look at Me
    The film satisfies in much the same way Allen's movie-a-year comedies used to satisfy.
  97. The Interpreter
    Made with an intelligence and craft that's increasingly rare in Hollywood thrillers.
  98. Palindromes
    Palindromes becomes a strangely compelling fractured fable, a grim cinematic fairy tale heightened by Nathan Larson's delicate, bittersweet score.
  99. Torremolinos 73
    Though never unpleasant, thanks largely to Cámara and Peña's warmly convincing performances, Torremolinos 73 only really takes off when it deals with the filmmaking process.
  100. A Lot Like Love
    Kutcher and Peet are a low-wattage pair, with little of the verbal riffing that counts as seduction in most romantic comedies, but they have real chemistry together, and A Lot Like Love happily indulges their silly, juvenile one-upmanship.
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