The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 10,411 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: 5,570 out of 10411
  2. Mixed: 3,735 out of 10411
  3. Negative: 1,106 out of 10411
10411 movie reviews
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  1. Nightbitch
    While Nightbitch certainly achieves relatability, it also presents a generic treatise on womanhood that reinforces more gendered conventions than it refutes.
  2. Caddo Lake
    Held and George’s film twists and turns, but charting their narrative swamp is a simple and unrewarding exercise.
  3. 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.
  4. The Platform 2
    Gaztelu-Urrutia’s expansion feels redundant and over-explained, but also sludgy and disjointed. It’s like being served a second dinner after you’re uncomfortably full; the flavors taste the same, but the experience is far less fulfilling.
  5. Joker: Folie à Deux
    It isn’t just Harley Quinn fans who will be annoyed and possibly insulted by the filmmaker’s sour whims. The degree to which Phillips undermines fan expectations would be admirable if Joker: Folie À Deux wasn’t also something of a slog—and if its every creative decision didn’t feel strangely affectionless.
  6. Hold Your Breath
    For all of the horror subgenres crammed into Hold Your Breath, it never conjures sufficient scares.
  7. A Real Pain
    There is no simple catharsis to reckoning the horrors of the past with the eases of the present day; all you can do is choose how to live with it, and Eisenberg’s refusal to wrap his film in a neat little bow elevates his sophomore film into something almost as difficult as its subject material.
  8. Heretic
    Divisiveness aside, and despite a few stumbles in pacing as it pivots from cool premise to interesting conclusion, Heretic is a wonderfully effective, chilling thriller from two of the best genre storytellers currently in the game.
  9. 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.
  10. It's What's Inside
    While the film’s social commentary isn’t radically incisive, it does manage to capture the nature of a true party game: excitement initially abounds, but you can’t play along forever.
  11. Maria
    The dueling personas of Jolie and Callas adds a dimension of time-spanning kinship to Maria that it might not have had if it had starred an actress with less publicized personal baggage. Saddled with the pasts of two world-renowned stars, Maria is more like an emblem of the burden of fame than a dissection of the humanity at its core.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Look Back
    All of this beautiful animation intrinsically drives at why people create in the first place, highlighting both the life-affirming and deeply messy realities of making manga.
  13. House of Spoils
    The result is too serious to ever go full B-movie bonkers and too silly to ever actually scare, let alone say something meaningful.
  14. Apartment 7A
    Musings on motherhood, performance, and power are never fully articulated, leaving a flurry of concepts up in the air without resolve.
  15. Salem's Lot
    Salem’s Lot isn’t a disaster (far worse horror films have made plenty of money at the box office), but a bloodless and frail version of the story drained of its vitality.
  16. Saturday Night
    It’s more akin to speed-reading from the SNL memoir library than experiencing the thrilling unevenness—the captivating try-whatever stupidity—of the actual live show. It’s inconsequential in all the wrong places.
  17. The Wild Robot
    With its unexpectedly moving sights, remarkable voice ensemble, and pure clarity of humanist vision, The Wild Robot emerges as a stunning achievement.
  18. V/H/S/Beyond
    While other V/H/S installments have sometimes been scattershot, united by format and time period more than anything else, V/H/S/Beyond holds together almost perfectly as a thematic exploration of the things lurking just beyond our understanding.
  19. Uglies
    All of Uglies feels like a rush job where its creators had the instruction manual but lost the proper parts.
  20. Hard Truths
    It’s a boldly uncompromising work that strips some of the more cheerful elements to the bone. Yet despite this, there’s still a sense of warmth, of optimism, of quiet humor that shows how this deft storyteller can still surprise and enthrall, incorporating another exceptional ensemble willing and able to do the work to bring his lines to life.
  21. Never Let Go
    As recent horror offerings disproportionately lean toward disappointing remakes and tepid commentary on our modern way of life, it’s refreshing to encounter genre fare that is equal parts original and entertaining.
  22. Omni Loop
    In fitful moments, Omni Loop touches upon this truth in beguiling fashion. Mainly, though, it is a softly mumbled affirmation of immutable truths: that not all mysteries can be solved, and not all problems fixed.
  23. 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.
  24. The 4:30 Movie
    The familiarity is, of course, the point: Anyone going to a new Kevin Smith movie in 2024 is either already well-versed in the comfort food of the View Askewniverse, or is being dragged on a date by someone who is. The result evokes a kind of bittersweet nostalgia—not for the much-mythologized pop-cultural ‘80s, but for a younger, fresher writer-director who was able to do a lot more with a lot less.
  25. The Room Next Door
    The Spanish maverick’s penchant for melodrama is somewhat off-kilter, but his exquisite eye for color and contrast is decidedly intact, with his lead actresses posing as perfect canvases.
  26. My Old Ass
    Though its bold genre gamble and strong lead turn from Maisy Stella keep My Old Ass from the YA slush pile, its feint towards being a more cerebral movie about hope and regret, two opposing forces separated only by time, infects the mediocrity of its more traditional story with disappointment.
  27. Babygirl
    Reijn has crafted a feature-length homage to the early rush of attraction–one that the director knows can strike unprovoked, regardless of relationship status. Within the film’s 114-minute runtime, that ephemeral spark between Romy and Samuel is bottled, smashed, and left seeping across the screen, leaving an intriguing pattern in its wake.
  28. Transformers One
    If anything, the rarity of a franchise film that seems principally concerned with appealing to a new generation is more in line with the legacy of the original series than any film that has come since.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 2
    Chapter 2 delivers the same type of creaky but not uncharming Western melodrama as the first installment, but talks and walks like a film that doesn’t understand what’s at stake.
  30. The Substance
    It’s animated by a white-hot rage that escalates throughout its epic 140-minute run time, building to a jaw-droppingly audacious climax that sprays a firehose of blood at the audience. It’s demented and absurd in the best way possible.
  31. Anora
    This heroic journey is Ani’s story through and through. It’s a brilliant role, written with such range that it takes Madison’s strong performance to bring her to life without succumbing to archness. She makes us believe every second.
  32. Look Into My Eyes
    All of the psychics are sensitive, artistic, outcasted people, who are more empathetic to the feelings of others than the average person might be. It makes their readings a space not just for potential supernatural experience, but one in which someone who is vulnerable and emotionally in need is being heard by someone who’s willing to receive them.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    The Front Room
    It simply isn’t very scary.
  34. His Three Daughters
    His Three Daughters is an extremely effective tear-jerker.
  35. Rebel Ridge
    Rebel Ridge isn’t a lecture on civil asset forfeiture; it’s as elementally satisfying as a great Western. That’s really the genre Saulnier lands on here, complete with a moral clarity about its violence.
  36. Conclave
    A gradually swelling, deeply intellectual, and unexpectedly fun political thriller, Berger’s twisty film takes the audience behind the notoriously secretive closed doors of the Catholic Church for one of its most private processes: the election of a new pontiff.
  37. Nickel Boys
    Ross’ formal dedication sometimes stands in the way of story and emotion, prioritizing visuals over earned moments of expressive, swelling feelings. And so this critic did wonder if Nickel Boys should have dialed up its narrative ambitions from time to time, stepping just a bit away from its creative non-fiction temperaments.
  38. Close Your Eyes
    Throughout its examination of memory, identity, passion, and, of course, the movies themselves, Close Your Eyes is senescent cinema, defined by its maker’s age and by its preoccupation with how your priorities ebb and flow as you grow old.
  39. The Deliverance
    The Deliverance is alternatingly dull and totally nuts. It is never scary, and only sometimes holds your attention.
    • 22 Metascore
    • 0 Critic Score
    Reagan
    For a movie about a man who puts himself at the center of a world apparently on the brink of annihilation, Reagan lacks any drama at all.
  41. AfrAId
    For all that its baffling narrative may be explained by deleted scenes, there is no excuse for how tediously non-threatening AfrAId is as a horror movie. Almost entirely bloodless and with half a handful of kills, there just isn’t enough visceral terror to make up for the disparate, thematically muddied nonsense that’s been cobbled together into the shape of a movie.
  42. 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.
  43. The Crow
    Rupert Sanders’ The Crow emerges from its 15-year development hell not as the version of this reboot that finally clicked, but as a film that seems to have once been nine films, all hastily cobbled into something resembling a story, all of its edges smoothed off until it’s flat, flimsy, and dull.
  44. The Killer
    The film can’t stop splitting the difference between dissonant remnants of Woo’s baroque sentimentality (Zee lighting a candle for each life she takes) and snarky Hollywood action idiocy.
  45. Between the Temples
    Underneath the prickly screwball banter, the jokes, the movie-isms, the occasional zaniness are probing questions about how we define ourselves and whether a community of faith can still represent something more important than gossip and an annual Holocaust remembrance bake sale.
  46. 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.
  47. 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.
  48. It Ends with Us
    There are worse and more mind-numbing portrayals of domestic abuse out there, but is it helpful to offer up a pipe dream, double-acting as a trauma fantasy for eager voyeurs?
  49. Alien: Romulus
    While incredible practical gore effects and stunning set pieces make Álvarez’s installment well worth watching, it’s as void of meaning as space itself. There are no answers, not even questions, merely what we manage to project onto vast emptiness.
  50. The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat
    As a dramatic interpretation of Moore’s characters and their hardships, it’s hard to think how a direct translation could much improve upon what Mabry and her cast have put on screen. But without that context, the cavalcade of pain is excessive, perhaps even bordering on farcical, without the breathing room that the novel’s prose provides.
  51. Daughters
    The film opens up an audience to deep reservoirs of feeling. The result is something both heartbreaking and beautiful, instructive and enlightening.
  52. Good One
    Good One is beautifully observed, making its point without being too obvious, and perfectly judged in that it doesn’t waste a single shot. The beats of the film are simple and straightforward, but if you hone in on the details, every second is full of information.
  53. Skincare
    It’s a film about the costs of selling your own superficiality to the world only ends up just as superficial.
  54. Borderlands
    ny movie with this Manic Pixie Ellen Ripley in it can’t be all bad, though Borderlands sure as shootin’ aims for it.
  55. Trap
    On one level, Shyamalan feels more comfortable than ever; Trap may cook more purely and entertainingly than anything in his last decade of self-styled pop hits. But it also suggests that there are discordant notes that he can’t, and probably shouldn’t, ever get out of his system.
  56. The Instigators
    Besides the cast, the best thing The Instigators has going for it is Liman’s pacing. Maybe in some earlier, irreversibly bygone era it would seem like less of a virtue, but there’s something to be said for a modern director who still has the skills necessary to move from one thing to another with a minimum of wasted time.
  57. Eno
    More than a biographical documentary, Eno emerges as a brilliant and endlessly inspiring creative manifesto.
  58. Chicken for Linda!
    Despite its straightforward goal, Chicken For Linda!‘ never quite settles into a consistent tone. That may sound like a complaint, but it isn’t. Not knowing where the story will go next keeps things interesting.
  59. Kneecap
    Writer/director Rich Peppiatt’s film has a harder time connecting its stylish music video silliness with drama that meanders and a political message that repeats like it’s stuck on a cheap turntable.
  60. Dìdi
    It’s not upsetting, nor is it overly invested in tricking tears out of us. It’s just so specifically observed that you’ll be hiding your head in your hands, ashamed that you were ever as foolish, cowardly, insolent, horny, and ridiculous as Chris (Izaac Wang) A.K.A. Wang Wang to his friends.
  61. Starve Acre
    Aiming for authenticity, Kokotajlo finds supernatural power and dramatic weight in the genre’s rustic simplicity.
  62. Shelby Oaks
    Unfortunately, even taking into consideration the fact that this is a first time filmmaker, the result is a mass of half-baked ideas and poorly executed tonal shifts, squandering the promise of its early premise and devolving into a middling mess.
  63. Bookworm
    If you go into Bookworm expecting more of the same chills and thrills from Timpson and his collaborators, you may be put off by this far more accessible tale. Yet, peering closer, you can see reflections of the same rich emotional and character beats that have always been lingering within the more sordid genre trappings of Timpson’s previous work.
  64. Deadpool & Wolverine
    The result is lingering and unsatisfying uncertainty over whether this is a standalone novelty, a multiversal course correction, or a genuine send-off. Even its satire feels micromanaged. Wade Wilson can still bounce back with ease, but even in its diminished state, superhero bullshit remains a formidable foe.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Crossing
    Perhaps a bit predictably, Crossing emphasizes the importance of forging new connections rather than holding onto relationships that may no longer serve us. However, its dramatic conclusion still manages to forgo cliched expectations and cater instead to the limitless possibilities that abound in an urban sprawl.
  66. Twisters
    The plug-and-play plot is predictable, but as in the original, Twisters is a functional thrill ride driven by charismatic, believable performances.
  67. Oddity
    It’s got great tension, great characters, and great jump scares, and it cements Mc Carthy’s place as a major new voice in horror.
  68. My Spy: The Eternal City
    My Spy The Eternal City is so unconcerned with its obligations as an action-comedy that it fails to either thrill or amuse, making it a chore to actively pay attention to.
  69. Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger
    It makes for an ironically modest, tasteful tribute to two filmmakers who, in their finest and most moving moments, were anything but restrained.
  70. Sorry/Not Sorry
    Sorry/Not Sorry functions more aptly as a recap of a situation most people who would seek out the doc already know about.
  71. Dandelion
    While Dandelion begins on a promising note and intermittently strikes the right chords, this cinematic symphony sours during its crescendo when it should be intensifying, bringing its stirring sentiments together in resounding harmony.
  72. Sing Sing
    The strength of the cast alone can’t elevate Sing Sing to the realm of truly socially conscious cinema.
  73. National Anthem
    Though lushly lensed by cinematographer Katelin Arizmendi (Monica, Swallow), there isn’t much under the quietly glam veneer of National Anthem. Had Gilford hewed closer to the everyday folks that find freedom in queer rodeos, a more varied tapestry of this slice of subversive Americana would have shone through.
  74. Fly Me to the Moon
    Unless you can put aside everything you know about the space program, government, advertising, and television broadcasting, you may spend a good deal of the film’s two-hour runtime frustrated by its plot holes and contrivances.
  75. Longlegs
    Everything about it, from the performances to the production design to the sickly quality of the light in scene after scene, is designed to make us not just question what we’re seeing, but stand at a remove from it, like we’ve just seen a wild animal behaving strangely. Like that wild animal might just lash out and bite us if we get too close.
  76. Kill
    There’s something here about men becoming monsters, righteous goals, and so on, but the symbolism is inchoate; the violence, however stylized, never represents anything more than itself.
  77. Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F
    What this film provides is easy charms; luckily, those come plenty.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1
    There is solid filmmaking to enjoy. It’s just hard to know what it’s all for.
  79. Despicable Me 4
    Good Enough is a few bland chuckles uttered in a vacuous 90 minutes you struggle to remember even as the credits start to roll. Good Enough is a black hole, of which Despicable Me 4 is the singularity.
  80. MaXXXine
    For all these films’ paeans to grime and sleaze, they’re controlled imitations rather than the uninhibited real thing.
  81. A Family Affair
    Directed by Richard LaGravenese, every moment in A Family Affair sits there as lifelessly as Gerard Butler’s character in LaGravenese’s most successful movie, P.S. I Love You. And that’s not just the fault of the expressionless romantic leads, regrettably cast opposite each other in a way that makes the whole film feel like Joey King’s vacation to the uncanny valley.
  82. 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.
  83. A Quiet Place: Day One
    Nyong’o, a prestige actress who moonlights as the world’s most expressive scream queen, does wonders with the nuances of Sam’s sorrow, the tug of war between acceptance and fighting for her life.
  84. Daddio
    There’s candor and insight here. But, much like Girlie and Clark, Daddio remains stuck despite the appearance of movement.
  85. Green Border
    What’s most marvelous about Green Border—aside from its resounding commitment to humanization, buttressed by a thrilling and harrowing narrative—is that it doesn’t let anyone off the hook.
  86. I Am: Celine Dion
    The documentary, taking its cue from Dion, is not merely looking backward; there’s a path ahead. What exactly that looks like is, as it turns out, being negotiated as the documentary unfolds.
  87. Trigger Warning
    The filmmakers frustratingly fail to dig into the familiar territory they’re traversing. What should serve as a warm welcome for Mouly Surya (helming her first English-language picture) and a kick-ass welcome back to lead roles for star Jessica Alba turns into a congealed mess of squandered potential.
  88. Firebrand
    The screenplay fails to bring any ingenuity in structure or dialogue, thus diminishing the power of Aïnouz’s characteristically operatic filmmaking.
  89. The Imaginary
    The Imaginary is an enchanting tale in which reality clashes with imagination in a battle to determine which is more powerful
  90. The Bikeriders
    It is too conventional to be an outlaw, but Nichols and the cast have a blast pretending.
  91. Thelma
    How often does a film come along that you can comfortably recommend to literally everyone in your life? Not often enough. For that reason alone, Thelma deserves to be celebrated.
  92. Janet Planet
    Few artists can so seamlessly transcend artistic labels, but Annie Baker has proven that she possesses the natural knack for quiet storytelling across mediums.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Fancy Dance
    While the grounded presentation is one of the movie’s greatest strengths, there are some chunks in the middle where things nod off.
  94. Chestnut
    Despite the actors’ best efforts, they can never quite overcome a script that simply doesn’t have anything new to add to the conversation.
  95. The Exorcism
    By the climax, The Exorcism is buried in plot points that obscure whatever the power of Christ is compelling us to do.
  96. Tiger Stripes
    Where it feels uninspired gore-wise, it similarly feels muddled in its message.
  97. Ghostlight
    While it connects as authentic and heartfelt, there’s also a sneaky profundity to match. Experiencing that in a theater alongside strangers is a very good thing.
  98. Inside Out 2
    You want to connect to these characters on a deeper level, but it never really lets you get fully invested in them.
  99. 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.
  100. Cora Bora
    On its own, Cora Bora doesn’t offer anything new. But as an audition tape for Stalter’s future, it’s one of the more exciting things to come out of the comedy world this year.
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