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. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
    Even when caught in a rut, Anderson's obsessive vision still yields many exhilarating surprises.
  2. Hotel Rwanda
    The Rwandan genocide was one of the most shameful marks on Bill Clinton's presidency, but for all the film's powerful images, George stops short of the forceful political statement that Rusesabagina's story demands.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    When We Were Kings
    When We Were Kings is an energetic, passionate documentary of this event, and a revelation for people who only know Ali as an ex-champ with Parkinson's and Foreman as a Care Bear.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Devil's Own
    What makes it worth the price of admission is the energetic performance Ford pulls off in the cookie-cutter role of big-city cop.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Prefontaine
    But at best, the movie has an air of immediacy, freeing it from the ossified myth-making that plagues many true-life biopics.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Welcome to Sarajevo
    Perhaps the worst thing you can say about Welcome To Sarajevo is that it's not a great film, but it's very good, and it should be seen.
  7. Schizopolis
    Fast-paced and ambitious, it never bores, and Soderbergh proves himself interesting to watch in addition to being gifted behind the camera.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Monument Ave.
    Though too short to earn any real sympathy for the characters, and too slow to generate any excitement, Monument Ave. is moderately haunting and occasionally affecting.
  9. Freeway
    Freeway is full of nice touches—such as making the villain a psychologist— that play off the expectations of a familiar story. While also working as a conventional thriller, its many twists on the fairy tale make it work on an almost subliminal level.
  10. Domestic Violence
    A bit too long. Conceptually, it's sensible to keep the camera running while these women bare their souls, but in practical terms, the gist of some of their stories would have sufficed. Nevertheless, Wiseman has scored another considerable achievement in the documentary form.
  11. El bonaerense
    As a morality play, it's a one-sided contest, because the question of whether power corrupts is never a question at all. As a queasily thrilling tour of a dirty little corner of the world, however, Trapero's film offers a memorable ride.
  12. Collateral Damages
    Sauret's approach isn't the most artful, but it doesn't have to be. Hearing his subjects speak for themselves is good enough.
  13. Superstar in a Housedress
    Plays like a 90-minute wake, albeit a warm and humorous one.
  14. People Say I'm Crazy
    What's so remarkable about the movie is how matter-of-fact it is.
  15. Proteus
    Greyson does a terrifically empathetic job of putting viewers firmly in the moment, by making it irrelevant exactly when and where that moment takes place.
  16. Imelda
    For the fascinating character study Imelda, Ramona S. Diaz was given a month's access to the former first lady, who supplies so many bizarre equivocations that it's hard to tell whether her actions were malicious or merely delusional.
  17. Sky Blue
    Sky Blue is never subtle about its images of loneliness and isolation, or in fact about anything else. But as clichéd as its images are, they're still visually and tonally stunning.
  18. Daybreak
    It maintains a strong enough sense of squirmy humanity that its characters' epiphanies and emotional growth feel both hard-earned and richly deserved.
  19. Sunset Story
    Has its share of look-at-these-cute-old-commies laughs… But Gabbert mostly avoids making her subjects into hobbling punch lines, or even turning them into one-dimensional heroes.
  20. The Other Side of the Street
    Montenegro's performance is typically multifaceted, displaying keen wit and a thick streak of self-doubt.
  21. Crazy Legs Conti: Zen and the Art of Competitive Eating
    Within its limited scope, the film celebrates Conti's peculiar dreams and earnest intensity without dipping into condescension.
  22. Sheriff
    But without taking anything away from Frederick Wiseman, who remains a master, Sheriff is almost as good any documentary he's made.
  23. Another Road Home
    Unforgettably documents the kind of journey that leads not to easy answers, but rather to an even thornier knot of questions.
  24. Or
    For long stretches, Or is a dialogue-heavy kitchen-sink drama, but its naturalistic style and unselfconscious performances give it an intensity that only builds as it progresses.
  25. Doing Time, Doing Vipassana
    The film is as low-key and internal as the meditation it touts, and nearly as uplifting.
  26. I am Cuba, the Siberian Mammoth
    Though it doesn't rise above the cut-and-paste aesthetic of other making-of documentaries, The Siberian Mammoth assembles many members of the disparate Cuban cast and crew, and unearths some rare production photos and footage.
  27. Invisible
    Invisible is undeniably compelling, as Bojanov visits and revisits these people over a period of years.
  28. Big Trouble in Little China
    Big Trouble is plenty conscious of its silliness, which it embraces fully. It sets up its own parameters of ridiculousness and then runs with them, winking a little, but sticking to its story.
  29. Sorcerer
    Though there’s gunplay, and more than a few explosions, the focus of this grim jungle odyssey is on the prevention of carnage, the heart-in-throat attempts not to blow something up.
  30. The Fog
    Removed from its context as the highly anticipated follow-up to a horror classic, The Fog lingers as a crafty and loving assemblage of pulp gimmicks, played out in a location that rivals Hitchcock locales for pure eye-vacation appeal.
  31. Dark Star
    Dark Star has a stoner sardonicism: The movie feels like the product of long nights at the dorm passing around The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers comics and Arthur C. Clarke paperbacks.
  32. Bullitt
    Peter Yates-directed cop thriller that relies on McQueen's chiseled features to hold an audience's attention through what's essentially a 45-minute TV show stretched to two hours. Aside from the famous car chase through the streets of San Francisco, Bullitt is primarily watchable for McQueen's performance as a cop breaking the rules to break a case, as well as all the '68 cinema signifiers: lens flares, soft-focus foregrounds, a jazzy Lalo Schifrin score, and vivid location shooting.
  33. Twister
    In the wrong hands, or with a different cast, such quirky material could easily have devolved into a grotesque parade of cartoon freaks. But Almereyda finds exactly the right tone: a loopy, understated deadpan that invites empathy rather than ridicule. Twister has the outline of a broad comedy, but the inspired cast–particularly Amis–brings such conviction to its performances that the drama registers as strongly as the comedy.
  34. TRON
    Tron's thematic overtures have a certain silly charm, enhancing rather than detracting from its core virtues. What really makes Tron work is an astonishing sense of design.
  35. Carny
    Carny feels like a throwback to the ’70s. It’s an evocative character study with a firm grasp on its subject matter that may be traced back to Robertson, an ex-carny who also produced and co-wrote the story.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    My Fellow Americans
    The execution is decidedly wobbly, with too many telegraphed, poorly paced jokes, too much Grumpy Old Men-style insult humor, and too many schmaltzy scenes. But Garner and Jack Lemmon have enough charisma, and there are enough solid laughs, to mostly overcome My Fellow Americans' embarrassing moments and improbable ending.
  37. Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
    For a children's film, Willy Wonka is surprisingly malevolent, which is most of its fun. But the refreshing malice and twisted whimsy only kick into high gear after 45 minutes of plodding setup and film-padding songs.
  38. The Stepford Wives
    With its references to consciousness-raising groups and other archaic matters, it's very much of its time, but the film is effective for its vision of homogenized suburbia as a place in which housewifery has made women as interchangeable as the mass-produced products in their supermarket.
  39. Polyester
    Polyester splits the difference between Waters’ earlier cult movies and his later mainstream work. A melodrama that touches on everything from punk rock to abortion to pornography.
  40. Pennies from Heaven
    There's something disconcerting and strained about plastic smiles and speed-fueled peppiness of dancers in old musicals, a forced bonhomie that's borderline creepy. Pennies brilliantly exploits that blatantly artificial pep in queasy, disquieting ways.
  41. Obsession
    The heightened luridness of Obsession does succeed in making Vertigo’s twisty plot seem all the more inessential to that film’s power. What both movies do is cut a tale of murder and madness down to its essence, exploring characters who’ve been damaged by social expectations and their own desires.
  42. Big Trouble
    I went into Big Trouble with exceedingly low expectations and was pleasantly surprised...Much of what makes the film so unexpectedly endearing is that Falk's incorrigible drifter seems motivated less by greed than by a boyish spirit of adventure gone horribly awry.
  43. The Blob
    Whatever its flaws as a film, a none-too-scary monster chief among them, The Blob is a uniquely compelling monster movie.
  44. Man Bites Dog
    It’s a sick piece of work—I felt like a heel for watching it, yet I couldn’t look away, either.
  45. God Told Me To
    Ambitious in scale despite its modest budget, God Told Me To also established Cohen’s talent for getting a lot of bang for his limited buck. As a film about faith, it’s pure hooey, but it’s hooey with a provocative edge.
  46. Black Mama White Mama
    Black Mama, White Mama is a cheerfully sleazy romp made with the easily distractible drive-in audience in mind.
  47. Mortal Thoughts
    As a domestic melodrama, the film sometimes plays like The Honeymooners without the laughs, but the push and pull between the flashbacks and the interrogation scenes gain steadily in strength as the case gets harder to pin down. There’s more to these characters—and this movie—than initially meets the eye.
  48. Daylight
    The assembly line of adrenaline-pumping obstacles makes the two-hour runtime fly by, though director Rob Cohen (DragonHeart, The Fast And The Furious, xXx) still manages to highlight a handful of quieter moments.
  49. They Died with Their Boots On
    As history, it's mostly bunk. Flynn's Custer is a heroic, high-spirited, Indian-respecting dunderhead prone to plunging into battle without thought and winning the day in spite of overwhelming odds (until, of course, the odds catch up with him). Dramatically, however, it's much more interesting.
  50. Youth in Revolt
    Arteta’s well-intentioned film version feels simultaneously overstuffed and undercooked.
  51. Fish Tank
    In that way, Jarvis is a lot like Arnold: an artist who knows the steps, but doesn't yet have all the moves.
  52. The Road
    Aas grim as The Road gets, Hillcoat goes a little soft at the wrong time. Someone like Michael Haneke would have no trouble embracing this material’s uncompromising dreariness.
  53. It's Complicated
    It’s Complicated is the sort of “mature” character piece the French do regularly and better (and without the need for quotation marks around “mature”), but the cast at least helps relieve some of the tidiness that belies the title.
  54. Happy Tears
    Happy Tears is a complete mess of a movie, but Lichtenstein conjures some sweet moments and striking metaphors.
  55. The Last Station
    Little more than a gilded trifle, though it offers its share of light enjoyments.
  56. Inglourious Basterds
    its moments of greatness--and there are more than a couple--feel weirdly disconnected, stuck in a movie that doesn’t know how to put them together, or find a good way to move from one to the next.
  57. The Young Victoria
    The film lays on its politics-as-chess-game metaphor a little thick, however, and its refusal to leave the corridors of power to see the impact of its developments on the country at large makes it feel stuffy after a while.
  58. The Men Who Stare at Goats
    This is a movie about a “New Earth Army” full of misfit soldiers yearning for a chance to be non-conformists with a cause, which means it’s already two-thirds of the way to being awesome. Had Heslov eased back a bit, Goats might’ve made it the rest of the way.
  59. (500) Days of Summer
    It goes down smoothly, thanks in large part to Joseph Gordon-Levitt's grounded lead performance and Marc Webb's slick direction, but it seems like every other scene coughs up a dispiriting cliché.
  60. The Damned United
    Meaney’s Flintstone-ian brute makes a terrific foil to Sheen’s prissy arrogance, but the other supporting players don’t make much of an impression. Ditto for this slice of history itself, though mileage may vary for soccer fans.
  61. A Perfect Getaway
    Even if you know what’s coming, it’s a neat bit of meta-thriller filmmaking, as much about the mechanics of storytelling as a reasonably satisfying example of it.
  62. Séraphine
    Séraphine is far more powerful when it lingers on Louis at work.
  63. Cold Souls
    The premise seems profound, but the claustrophobically inert execution lacks reach or imagination.
  64. Terminator Salvation
    The way-too-familiar climax feels less like a comment on destiny than like watching a finely crafted but soulless product roll off an assembly line.
  65. The Cove
    The Cove's ultimate message gets muddled, especially since Psihoyos limits all counter-arguments to a few inarticulate or thuggish boobs.
  66. Man on Wire
    It's a story worth telling, yes--but after 90 minutes, it's hard not to wonder if the storyteller can talk about anything else.
  67. Red Cliff
    The film is both traditional and modern: austere in its engagement with history, and insistent in its showy action beats.
  68. The Brothers Bloom
    Johnson sets viewers up for greatness, but ultimately offers much milder pleasures. The film isn’t an outright con, but it’s easy to feel a little misled by the end.
  69. I Can Do Bad All by Myself
    With Bad, Perry is savvy enough to let riveting musical numbers by ringers like Gladys Knight and Mary J. Blige--along with Henson’s deeply empathetic performance--carry the film’s feverish emotions more than his characteristically ham-fisted screenplay.
  70. Whatever Works
    Though Clarkson acquits herself reasonably well in a terribly conceived role, her entrance interrupts David’s hilariously twisted mentorship of Wood and sends the movie careening in a far less promising direction.
  71. Sin Nombre
    Fukunaga paints better outside the lines, working with cinematographer Adriano Goldman to offer vivid shots of the poverty and despair cutting through Latin America, of gang rituals and territorial skirmishes, and of ordinary people taking dangerous routes to a better life that may be a mirage. Next time, a few rewrites please.
  72. Babel
    When the best part of the movie is when no one's talking and the anguish relents, it says something. It says that Iñárritu is a great director in need of a screenwriter who has more than one card to play.
  73. State of Play
    Though solidly plotted and executed all around, the film, too, feels like a quaint relic from another era, aping the form of journalistic thrillers like "All The President’s Men" while missing much of their urgency.
  74. Ballast
    Hammer has a nice eye, and his premise develops engagingly in the final half hour, as he raises provocative questions about whether one man can truly step in for another.
  75. I Love You, Man
    What saves I Love You, Man, at least partially, is the relaxed chemistry between Paul Rudd and Jason Segel, both very funny men who are genuine enough to push back against a premise that's often maddeningly artificial.
  76. Spider-Man 3
    So Spider-Man 3's action is superb and its theme fairly weighty. Then why does it feel a letdown from its predecessor? Nearly all the blame rests with director Sam Raimi, who's taken the success of some light slapstick moments in Spider-Man 2 as a cue to get even sillier.
  77. Café Lumière
    Concerns feelings that can't be expressed, relationships that can't flower, and connections that are impossible to bridge.
  78. Marebito (The Stranger from Afar)
    Unlike the elliptical, often explanation-free "The Grudge," Marebito is wordy to the extreme. Konaka's near-constant narration underlines every point the movie is trying to make, ruminating bluntly on the meaning of fear, and how we suck on media violence like, yep, vampires.
  79. Hoodwinked!
    There's no getting around the fact that it all looks like a cutscene from a kiddie video game. It's a great showreel. Now someone give these folks a real budget so they can make a movie that looks as good as it sounds.
  80. Kill the Poor
    Taylor makes the most of his tiny budget with creative editing and shooting, though his New York City is anemic, narrow, and underpopulated, and his constant repetition of the same damn 60 seconds of music becomes excruciating.
  81. How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (and Enjoy It)
    Angio captures the outlandish twists and turns of Van Peebles' life with humor, color, and a welcome lightness of touch.
  82. Bubble
    It's almost condescending, as though Soderbergh were challenging himself to make Middle America interesting. And yet the movie IS interesting, almost in spite of itself.
  83. Imagine Me & You
    The film nearly works in spite of its adherence to formula, thanks to clever one-liners and appealing, sharply drawn supporting performances.
  84. Manderlay
    It's an extremely cynical perspective, enforced by some disappointingly turgid melodrama, but keep in mind, this movie was made before an almost uniformly poor and black population was left to rot in New Orleans floodwaters. Even at his worst, von Trier can still strike a nerve.
  85. Curious George
    What makes Curious George such an enduring figure is that he embodies much of what's wonderful about childhood.
  86. Eight Below
    Longtime Steven Spielberg collaborator Frank Marshall is smart enough to know his core audience of kiddies came to see the dogs, who take center stage in many of the film's best sequences, especially a jolting leopard-seal attack that's as terrifying as anything in "Jurassic Park."
  87. Battle in Heaven
    Battle In Heaven is like a serious of artful photographs, except that Reygadas also moves the camera in astonishing and unusual ways, swooping around the conventional x- and y-axes while teasing the audience with what he's about to show. He's got an astonishing technique. Here's hoping that someday he'll use it to make a movie.
  88. Merry Christmas
    Though a painless time-passer, Joyeux Noël ultimately contributes little to the venerable anti-war genre beyond its curious message that to some degree, war is hell because it prevents soldiers from making really neat friends and pen-pals from different counties.
  89. The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things
    The Heart Is Deceitful has a daring that's hard to dismiss, even when it only amounts to Argento shamelessly getting off on human rot.
  90. Evil
    It's more about giving rich bullies the same comeuppance afforded to sneering wardens with bullwhips, and on those superficial grounds, it's reasonably gripping.
  91. Game 6
    Hoffman makes impressive use of his low budget, thanks to a talented cast, an atmospheric soundtrack by Yo La Tengo, and the general feeling of confidence that a veteran director can bring to a project. But too much of Game 6 is designed to seem deeper than it really is.
  92. Find Me Guilty
    A new courtroom comedy that finds Diesel chewing scenery in a role originally intended, and seemingly custom-made, for Joe Pesci.
  93. Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing & Charm School
    As absorbingly weird and dark and sad as the film becomes, it still labors against jumpy construction, an irritating variety of visual styles and film stocks, and a crowded story that no one gets much individual screen time, which means that redemption for everyone comes far too quickly and neatly.
  94. On a Clear Day
    Against all reason, this workingman's journey across the sea winds up seeming every bit as inspirational as the filmmakers intended, entirely because Mullan's grit validates every cornpone emotion. With a lesser actor, the movie would sink like a stone.
  95. American Dreamz
    Weitz has a winning way with a one-liner, and he's recruited a stellar cast that gets the most out of his material.
  96. Blackballed: The Bobby Dukes Story
    This is a movie about people trying to squeeze maximum recognition and pride out of the one thing they do reasonably well, and much of Blackballed's comedy comes from their attempts to maintain their dignity when they fail.
  97. Akeelah and the Bee
    As the conceptually similar documentary "Spellbound" proved, spelling bees are innately dramatic. But that doesn't keep Atchison from constantly pushing the film toward theatrical moments instead of letting the drama arise organically from the story.
  98. Art School Confidential
    Zwigoff has a rich comic gallery of pretentious boobs to lampoon. But his satirical target just seems too easy this time around: It's hard to spoof institutions that already veer so close to self-parody.
  99. Goal! The Dream Begins
    How much viewers care about what happens in Goal! is directly proportionate to how much they care about soccer, because decent execution aside, there's an underdog fantasy movie just like this one for every sport.
  100. Sketches of Frank Gehry
    Gehry is a fascinating subject, a strangely magnetic combination of rumpled, aw-shucks humility and Herculean ambition and hubris, but every time Pollack stumbles onto a fascinating topic like Gehry's battles with anti-Semitism, he pulls away instead of delving deeper.
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