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. Ronin
    Here's a strangely flawed and strangely satisfying movie.
  2. The Wrecking Crew
    The Wrecking Crew casts about between genres like driftwood caught by the tide; for two hours, the script cycles between family trauma drama, goofy Hawaiian noir, meathead romp, and wham-bang slugfest. The indecision at least showcases some consistency, though, in that each approach is equally dissatisfying.
  3. Barney's Version
    The film, lacking narration or much explanation of the character, is an outsider's version rather than his own. It's intriguing, but almost always frustrating.
  4. The Swenkas
    It all feels formal and unreal, the product of high ritual. But it also feels like one of the few rituals they're playing out entirely for themselves rather than for the sake of Rønde's neatly packaged modern fairy tale.
  5. Over the Hedge
    Over The Hedge stands out as genuinely witty and even a little barbed. Its chipper, sneering outsider's look at suburban sprawl and conformity isn't going to change the world, but it's still self-aware enough to be reasonably smart.
  6. The Prisoner or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair
    By recounting Abbas' ordeal as an endless inarticulate monologue, The Prisoner reduces it to a dull anecdote--timely and relevant, perhaps, but an anecdote all the same.
  7. Dolemite
    Dolemite's plot has something to do with Moore squaring off against crooked cops and a crooked politician, but as in all of his movies, the story is less important than the cheap entertainment.
  8. The Girl with All the Gifts
    Starts off strong but dilutes its impact with every consecutive reveal.
  9. Cinemania
    A voyeuristic look at voyeurs, Cinemania never seems sure whether it's a comedy or a tragedy. Instead, the film just seems intent on depicting its subjects as lovable kooks, a reductive portrayal that does little to acknowledge the desperation and loneliness that permeates every frame.
  10. Me Without You
    Aided by raw, committed performances from her two leads, Goldbacher makes them tough company for themselves and anyone else around them, on or off the screen.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Hipsters
    Light as a bubble, Hipsters suggests that age may catch up with everyone, but that there will always be people fighting against the current of conformity, even if they only express it via how they wear their hair.
  12. Solaris
    Though glazed in chilly surfaces -- the Kubrickian spaces, Cliff Martinez's gorgeous ambient score, the elliptical editing rhythms of Soderbergh's recent work, particularly "The Limey" -- the film contains a surprising depth of feeling within its egg-shaped head.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    As Good as It Gets
    It all adds up to a compelling, deftly executed film that thoughtfully examines the actions and motivations that draw people together, directing their uneasy relationships.
  14. The Goebbles Experiment
    Mostly though, The Goebbels Experiment proves that historical figures have the worst perspective on themselves.
  15. Run
    A psychological thriller with frustratingly little to say about the trenches of the human mind, Run nevertheless satisfies as a taut and titillating get-out movie that lands somewhere between HBO’s "Sharp Objects" and "Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?"
  16. No Man of God
    Sealey, whose formal touch often flirts with cliché (lots of circling around Hagmaier and Bundy, with one man’s face temporarily obscured by the back of the other’s head), pointedly reminds us of Bundy’s many victims, even though none of them are shown.
  17. Rudo y Cursi
    Carlos Cuaron's otherwise terrific new comedy Rudo Y Cursi barely survives its third-act "Goodfellas" descent into seedy coke-and-crime drama.
  18. Score: A Film Music Documentary
    Where Score proves its value to those fans is when it simply allows them to watch these composers at work.
  19. Deep Cover
    The central conceit quickly feels like window dressing for a film that wants to be in a particular genre but hasn’t put in any real effort to fit there.
  20. Nancy
    In the end, Nancy is a bit too dogmatic in its refusal to provide easy answers, its emotional impact dissipating like dust in a sunbeam with every understated non-revelation.
  21. Outrage
    Outrage is compelling to watch until it becomes exhausting.
  22. Kawasaki's Rose
    The problem with Kawasaki's Rose is that the theme is far more compelling than the movie.
  23. The Final Year
    The documentary follows — and frequently lionizes — three Obama officials throughout 2016, and frequently feels like it was intended as a well-deserved victory lap.
  24. 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.
  25. Wild Canaries
    At its core, Wild Canaries is a reminder that relationships require a sense of adventure, and maybe a little mystery, to keep the magic alive. Indie comedies, as the film proves, benefit from the same.
  26. This Is It
    At best, it angrily demands to be rechristened This Is It! Too often, however, an incredulous This Is It? seems more apt.
  27. When Evening Falls on Bucharest or Metabolism
    At times, Porumboiu’s mix of repetition and resignation recalls Samuel Beckett, and if the overall result is more of a clever exercise than a proper movie, it’ll still have some dryly amusing appeal for those who appreciate intellectual absurdism.
  28. The Way We Get By
    Neither pro- nor anti-war; it’s a somber study of perpetually unsettled lives.
  29. Somewhere
    It's all so uneasily compelling and quietly moving, it might be too much to ask her to sustain it through the conclusion.
  30. Smile 2
    Yes, the varying quality of performances from the supporting cast and the film’s slightly bloated 127-minute runtime might leave cheeks straining. But the film finds dark humor in taking these desperate feelings of unease and feeding them to a kaleidoscopic creature of pain and viscera.
  31. Home Movie
    Smith delights in these offbeat personalities and their jerry-rigged accoutrements, but the real joy in the film comes from the happy interaction between the subjects and their creations.
  32. Karmen Gei
    The film offers plenty of powerful impressionism to make up for its lack of a coherent statement.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    In Heaven Underground: The Weissensee Jewish Cemetery
    Most people wouldn't expect a film that's inherently about death (and, to a lesser extent, the Holocaust) to be uplifting, but the gentle, tender documentary In Heaven, Underground ultimately achieves it.
  34. Lost Girls
    What’s both intriguing and frustrating about the screen version, however, is the way that it flirts with a much thornier and potentially richer possibility, only to ultimately back away from that idea in favor of a straightforward plea for justice.
  35. The Wind and the Lion
    The Wind And The Lion—which was a hit, but not on the order of Milius’ later Conan The Barbarian or Red Dawn—never feels like the product of post-Vietnam America; it just comes from Milius’ imagination, where history and fantasy meet each other halfway.
  36. Oxygen
    As one might expect, much of the responsibility for keeping Oxygen compelling rests on Laurent, who runs through all the stages of grief, from denial to acceptance, as she thrashes against her high-tech prison. She’s supported by ingenious filmmaking.
  37. The Alpinist
    This is a movie, not a book or feature article. And having a subject who largely refuses to cooperate, thereby forcing the filmmakers to sit around at home and relate much of what happens indirectly, doesn’t exactly make for a classic.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    ChaO
    A talented animation team does its best to bail water from this sinking ship, but an overreliance on contrivances and slapstick leaves too many holes to plug.
  39. Barbershop: The Next Cut
    Though this series is built on comic looseness, it’s that sincerity that carries through its minor comedic missteps, like underusing Hall and leaning too heavily on Cedric’s wacky-old-man shtick.
  40. The Book of Life
    The characters move around in a thoroughly realized universe full of imaginative and beautifully rendered detail. Too bad the rest of it isn’t more interesting.
  41. Save Yourselves!
    Save Yourselves! didn’t have the budget to pull off its ambitiously bizarre and essentially unresolved ending (which might not have been satisfying even had it been fully realized—it’s really way out there, quite literally), but it gets the small things just right, and that’s far more important.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    The Wrecking Crew
    As a love letter to the director’s late father, The Wrecking Crew sparkles. As a potentially comprehensive, context-rich chronicle of one of pop music’s most inspired engines of rhythm and melody, it mostly sticks to one note.
  43. The Contestant
    Titley doesn’t mine for anything other than what’s already been explored elsewhere.
  44. The Page Turner
    A little too neat, and self-consciously vague at the end. But it's fascinating to observe and try to interpret François' mysterious smile as she eyes her boss.
  45. Flanders
    Once again, Dumont cycles through the pet themes of films like "L'Humanité" and "Twentynine Palms," but their repetition is beginning to seem like shtick.
  46. White Elephant
    It’s hard to imagine a more potent symbol of good intentions gone to seed than the decrepit Buenos Aires building that gives White Elephant its title.
  47. The Final Member
    The Final Member boasts a stranger-than-fiction subject so odd and funny it almost couldn’t miss. But Bekhor and Math make the film much more than a limp gag.
  48. The Future
    The Future's main characters are, undeniably, dopes. But July and Linklater turn their ineptitude into a funny running joke, which becomes surprisingly affecting in the second half.
  49. North Face
    The historical backdrop is fascinating and an important part of this story, but there’s a pervasive sense that director Philipp Stölzl and his screenwriters soft-pedal it as much as possible in order to exalt their heroes.
  50. Workingman's Death
    Workingman's Death's primary pleasures are aesthetic. Glawogger is an extraordinarily elegant filmmaker with a photographer's eye for striking compositions.
  51. Ray Donovan: The Movie
    This is perfunctory storytelling, a rather artless and dull 100 minutes that does nothing but check off a few predictable narrative boxes.
  52. Salvatore: Shoemaker of Dreams
    Guadagnino’s documentary is very much like walking through an immersive and interactive museum designed to make one feel nostalgic for a bygone era of art and craft. It’s magical stuff.
  53. Cinderella
    Clothed in a colorful mishmash of historical fashions and scored to sweeping strings, the movie is like an antique cut-crystal vase: gorgeous, fragile, empty.
  54. Once in a Lifetime: The Extraordinary Story of the New York Cosmos
    Once In A Lifetime is less a proper documentary than an extended VH1 Behind The Music episode, but there's only a little bit wrong with that.
  55. Mr. Holmes
    Mr. Holmes has moments of palpable regret and loss, but visually speaking, it looks like a blandly touching movie about a lonely old man who befriends a scrappy kid and learns about the magic of storytelling. Eventually, that’s the unexciting destiny it fulfills.
  56. Worth
    The film, however, struggles to make a point under Colangelo’s stolid direction, losing itself in thinly drawn subplots while trying to give an unconvincing feel-good redemption arc to Feinberg, a character who is neither very interesting nor very sympathetic. The result feels, perversely, unearned and a little cheap.
  57. A Whisper to a Roar
    The film makes a convincing argument that, in spite of some recent setbacks, movements for democratic change are alive and well, but it glosses over the problems that arise once the people have to implement the power they've seized.
  58. Web Junkie
    It’s clear that these kids have a genuine problem, and a more probing film might have questioned the cultural factors that contribute to it, as well as the efficacy of more or less kidnapping errant youths and trying to coerce them back into productivity. Web Junkie doesn’t do much probing, however.
  59. They Will Have to Kill Us First
    Early in First, Khaira compares music to oxygen. The film might’ve felt a little more enlightening if all the songs had room to breathe in turn.
  60. Ruby Sparks
    The setup is rote, almost insulting, but it's smarter than it looks: Once the pieces are in place, Kazan's script reveals a deeper game.
  61. Rock School
    The kids are great, but when they graduate from Rock School, will the valedictorian be the next Jimmy Page, or the technically proficient lead guitarist of a Led Zeppelin cover band?
  62. You Will Be My Son
    With this basic conflict established early on, You Will Be My Son endlessly spins its wheels, offering up scene after scene of Deutsch screwing up, or just plain existing, and Arestrup tossing deeply disgusted glances in his direction.
  63. Demonlover
    May be Assayas' airiest work to date, an intriguing trifle that leaves its considerable pleasures to lounge around on the surface.
  64. A Simple Favor
    If your tastes in crime fiction lean more toward whiskey-soaked detectives, A Simple Favor might be bubbly enough to give you a headache despite the darkness of its themes. But that’s okay. More prosecco for the rest of us.
  65. Fiddler on the Roof
    By preserving the exoticism and making sure the audience left the theater humming, Jewison made a grubby, European-flavored movie that Yanks could embrace.
  66. Time to Leave
    Ozon's disappointing new film Time To Leave is his "The Flower Of My Secret," a Douglas Sirk-inspired weepie about a terminal cancer victim making amends, but it's a little too sentimental and square even by his recent standards.
  67. Gabriel
    Gabriel, the first feature written and directed by Lou Howe, gives Culkin an opportunity to demonstrate serious range, and he takes full advantage; if this film doesn’t ignite his career, it’ll only be because too few people see it.
  68. I Saw the Devil
    A mesmerizing study of the nature of evil itself.
  69. The Eclipse
    Though The Eclipse travels a sleepy route to a shrug of anticlimax, it’s refreshing to see a film acknowledge that life and love don’t end at 50, even in the outsized shadow of a soulmate’s death.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Kill List
    While the sum of Kill List comes across as less than its parts, it offers some strikingly nightmarish imagery and a feel that's reminiscent of an earlier, grittier era, yet at times sharply contemporary.
  71. 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.
  72. Whisky
    Mordantly funny deadpan comedy.
  73. We Jam Econo: The Story of the Minutemen
    For people who are Minutemen fans and movie buffs, We Jam Econo is kind of a mixed blessing. Watt and Hurley tell the Minutemen story well, but Irwin relies too much on corroborating interviews from punk vets like Flea and Ian MacKaye, who talk about how great the band was without offering much fresh insight.
  74. Tupac: Resurrection
    Doesn't pretend to be objective, and the film derives much of its power from the way it invites audiences to look at the rapper's life and times through his own soulful, animated eyes. It doesn't always succeed, and there are times when it feels terribly strained.
  75. Two Girls and a Guy
    Some of the points seem too easy, some of the revelations practically announce themselves in advance, and there's never any sense of excitement or suspense as to where the whole thing is heading. But it still works, most of the time.
  76. Looking for Eric
    Loach becomes his own pale imitator with Looking For Eric, a wispy little comedy that uses fantasy to gloss over even the darkest and most intractable problems.
  77. Kung Fu Panda 3
    Kung Fu Panda 3 is Kung Fu Panda minus a dramatic arc, but with way more pandas.
  78. Bones Brigade: An Autobiography
    Bones Brigade is surprisingly emotional and inspirational too, as these now-grown men look back on the days when they were competitive, easily bruised kids, drawn to Peralta's calming, avuncular presence.
  79. Speak No Evil
    If this Speak No Evil remake possesses any merit whatsoever, it is entirely owed to the thespian talent involved. McAvoy is perfectly cast, his uneasy grin akin to a mangy dog baring its teeth to signify its alpha status.
  80. World Trade Center
    The politics of Stone's 9/11 movie lean right, if they lean any way at all. Mostly, the film sits up straight and just wants to be loved by all. There are more controversial Hallmark cards.
  81. Wonder
    The film features some of the most clichéd aphorisms about kindness and inner beauty this side of an inspirational wall hanging. But honestly? It could have been a lot worse.
  82. Jimi: All Is by My Side
    It’s hard to hear what All Is By My Side is saying about anything, given how many scenes feature vaguely druggy overlapping dialogue, part of a fussy sound design that’s paired with intentionally choppy editing.
  83. To Be Takei
    The technical, workmanlike production is made more irritating than necessary by Michael Hearst’s score, whose grating circus-comes-to-town sprightliness is routinely slathered over mundane footage.
  84. The Take
    The Take tells a compelling story of courageous, industrious people, but it begs for a second act.
  85. The Girl Who Played with Fire
    More disappointingly, the entire cast seems less committed than they were the first time out.
  86. Darfur Now
    It's a heartbreaking tale, a sliver of a tragic history still unfolding, but one that Braun largely leaves others to document.
  87. The Trip to Spain
    Thing is, this third movie plays less like some bookend chapter of a complete saga than a floundering middle season of a television show that’s settled into a formulaic groove—which makes sense, given that each Trip is actually a condensed version of an episodic miniseries that aired on British television first.
  88. Borgman
    Van Warmerdam keeps things engrossingly ominous throughout, and Bijvoet has a lot of fun with his passive-aggressive creepazoid, but Borgman is both too self-consciously odd and too bluntly punitive to draw real blood.
  89. Son of Rambow
    The shooting of the movie-within-a-movie offers the brightest moments in Son Of Rambow, a testament to the innocence of the boys' creative impulse and the sheer unlikely pleasure of their friendship.
  90. In Good Company
    Only when it wraps up all its loose ends with a feel-good sitcom conclusion does it finally reveal itself: It's an interesting failure rendered all the more disappointing for veering so close to success.
  91. The Phenom
    The Phenom is merely well-acted and well-made, rather than heart-stopping. There are worse fates for a sports movie, to be sure.
  92. Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine
    In spite of clunky effects and often extraordinarily ugly video footage, Game Over works very well just as a sports doc.
  93. Unmistaken Child
    Baratz’s apparent willingness to accept everything at face value papers over some of the more troubling aspects of Tenzin’s mission, but Unmistaken Child allows the mysteries of the process to be preserved without judgment.
  94. Cop Car
    A surprisingly nasty piece of work, more reminiscent of old John Dahl thrillers from the ’90s (Red Rock West, The Last Seduction) than of "Let’s Be Cops."
  95. Werewolves Within
    At least Ruben maintains his comic instincts and crack timing throughout. The film possesses a strong touch of Edgar Wright in how it manages both the humor and horror of its conceit.
  96. On the Outs
    It's all too easy to dismiss the characters' troubles as entirely of their own making. But the cast's fearless, evocative performances help a great deal.
  97. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
    T3, while far from a classic, is an overachieving, mercenary sequel that's short on thrills, but surprisingly long on laughs and surprises.
  98. Seaside
    The writer-director's overthinking on the matter is part of what's wrong with her debut film, which is sensitively shot, deeply felt, and dry as dirt.
  99. Last Dance
    Displays, in all its discomfort and occasional fruitfulness, the trouble inherent in aesthetics by committee.
  100. The Lost Arcade
    At bottom, this is the story of freaks and geeks everywhere: a quest for the like-minded, rooted in obsessive engagement with a tiny sliver of pop culture.
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