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. Role Models
    In its loose, ramshackle, gleefully profane first half, Role Models suggests "School Of Rock" with Tourette's, or the original "Bad News Bears" without the baseball.
  2. Sing Me the Songs That Say I Love You: A Concert for Kate McGarrigle
    Lian Lunson’s camera allows the music to take center stage via straightforward, graceful compositions—close-ups and medium shots dominate, and edits are kept to a relative minimum—that allow for long, unbroken views of the artists at forceful, mournful work.
  3. Hunter Hunter
    It’s a jarring journey, filled with twists that snap and sting like bear traps, and an endurance test, too, especially for the squeamish.
  4. The Kite Runner
    It's okay to be manipulated, so long as you don't feel the strings being pulled. Here the tug is constant, and constantly distracting.
  5. Criminal
    Without any glimmers of depth or subtext.
  6. Haute Cuisine
    Narrowness of focus keeps the movie from becoming bloated with self-importance, but it also leaves it feeling a little inconsequential.
  7. Red
    Red's dialogue is a bit blunt, its characters are too broadly outlined, and the situation verges on the ludicrous at times, especially in the way these dumb kids keep committing terrible crimes without leaving any evidence. But the movie isn't meant to be an exercise in realism.
  8. The Jane Austen Book Club
    There's no subtext to The Jane Austen Book Club, just a skim across the books' surface that winds up re-shelving a great author into the self-help section.
  9. 17 Girls
    The insights into girlhood in the opening are coming from the viewpoint of adults, while in a story this strange-but-true, it'd be more helpful to see these kids as they see themselves.
  10. 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.
  11. Caniba
    Certainly, viewers may feel a kind of seasickness, their stomachs doing somersaults during this supremely discomfiting movie.
  12. The Incredible Hulk
    The Hulk himself looks more steroidal than superheroic, as if the expressive beast from the first film had been replaced by a WWE star.
  13. The Front Runner
    It’s a feature-length whine of frustrated entitlement. A movie less suited to its cultural moment would be hard to imagine.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    For Ellen
    The kind of film that rises or falls on the strength of its lead performance, given that its protagonist is in every scene, often alone. It's built around a strong turn by Dano, but one that feels studied and sometimes at odds with the naturalism the film aims for with its grubby settings, loose camerawork, and tendency toward inquisitive close-ups.
  15. Nuremberg
    Vanderbilt’s film slowly, confidently morphs into something beyond a cautionary tale and more like a klaxon blaring through the cinema.
  16. Slice
    The acting is hammy, but intentionally so, as is the crude, greasepaint-and-baby powder makeup on the ghosts. Clearly, Vesely has pushed the stylization of the piece as far as it can go in order to compensate for Slice’s low budget.
  17. Fighting
    Fighting doesn’t break new ground so much as animate B-movie types, but New York movies this gritty and flavorful don't come along very often.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Blue Beetle
    It’s the cohesiveness among the cast members playing Jaime’s family that lends their performances both authenticity and relatability.
  19. Metallica: Through the Never
    This stereoscopic IMAX vanity project presents the titular rockers not as men, but as living legends, playing the hits at a gigantic venue, for thousands of bellowing diehard fans. In place of introspection, there is only lionizing spectacle; if Monster laid bare the wounded egos of metal’s biggest stars, Never simply re-inflates them.
  20. Enduring Love
    Enduring Love's plot inevitably drifts into “Fatal Attraction” territory, but its wholesale immersion in Craig's deteriorating condition render it a wrenching, uncompromising study of the human mind in freefall.
  21. King Kong
    I’m still deeply fond of De Laurentiis’ King Kong now, no doubt in part because we’ll never see its likes again. Whatever the failings of its ape effects, they have a tangible quality that even Jackson’s great CGI work couldn’t fake.
  22. Carnage
    By the time everyone in Carnage has revealed themselves, we're left not with flawed human beings, but with monsters of banality whose company represents a brutal form of punishment in itself.
  23. Trance
    Narratively, Trance is questionable, but Boyle and Hodges whisk past all the unlikely developments with enough verve and style to keep audiences from thinking too hard until after they’ve left the theater.
  24. These Final Hours
    Incoherent and pointless as it is, These Final Hours moves with commendable swiftness.
  25. Lust, Caution
    Conceptually, Lust, Caution has been thoroughly thought-through, down to every lipstick stain Wei leaves on her teacups.
  26. Transformers
    Turns the franchise into a terrible '80s comedy.
  27. Beyond the Sea
    The stories Pérez-Rey's subjects tell are shocking, even moving. But they're also narrow, limited, and staid, and so is the film that contains them.
  28. Lower City
    Whatever its pretensions of social relevance, Sérgio Machado's Lower City is essentially an exploitation movie, and not a half-bad one at that.
  29. Zeros and Ones
    What Zeros And Ones conveys, in its shoestring terms, is the actual mood of a world of uncertainties.
  30. Tetris
    There’s a great deal of fun to be had here, even if the story is never quite as addictive as the game that inspired it. Tetris doesn’t cast the same spell as its namesake, but it will at least make you look at those falling blocks in a new way.
  31. Rent-A-Pal
    Rent-A-Pal goes full-tilt mayhem in its final act, shattering its carefully calibrated dread in a race to make an already belabored point: that technological advancements are to be questioned, and there is no substitute for human connection.
  32. Velvet Buzzsaw
    If there’s undeniable difficulty in Velvet Buzzsaw’s genre alchemy—its attempt to mix a caustic, half-comic portrait of the gallery set with a supernatural Tales From The Crypt scenario—it’s all in service of a moldy screed about the commodification of art. Is there anything safer than telling people something they’ve heard a thousand times before?
  33. Dead Snow
    The concept doesn't go much further than the wardrobe department--that is, until a deliriously over-the-top climax finally rouses the film from its "Evil Dead"-mimicking stupor.
  34. Swiss Family Robinson
    Still appeals to the lingering adolescent taste for daydreams.
  35. When You Finish Saving the World
    Eisenberg’s main concern is the screenplay, yet the canvas it’s drawing upon is so small that it boxes its imagination. The conflicts it creates for Evelyn and Ziggy are so simple and easily resolved that the film becomes a throwaway that’s quickly forgotten despite some of the cast’s good work.
  36. Dogville
    The incendiary Dogville confirms the director's sadistic knack for locating his characters' (and his audience's) soft spots and prodding them for a singular emotional experience.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Scream VI
    Fueled by a seemingly endless appreciation for how enjoyable it can be to subvert horror conventions and audience expectations, Scream VI is one of the most fun (and funniest) modern horror experiences one can have at a movie theater.
  38. At Any Price
    This time out, Bahrani’s push to make a point wins out over the strong sense of character he’s cultivated in his earlier films.
  39. The War Within
    Sometimes too pat and sometimes ragged with omissions and confusions, but it's still a fascinating look outside of that familiar world and into a harsher one.
  40. The Bourne Legacy
    Gilroy does the unforgivable by turning out a lean thriller at a fatty 135 minutes, mainly by making the conspiracy plot far more complicated than it needs to be.
  41. Elysium
    With Elysium, the director proves that he still has one hand on the X-Box controller; maybe he should give the allegories a rest already and just get back in the game.
  42. Boynton Beach Club
    It's refreshing to see a film that so directly addresses the issues and concerns of a vast, overlooked demographic, but it'd be much more satisfying if Boynton did more than just affably skate along the surface.
  43. The Universe of Keith Haring
    Universe deals extensively with Haring's personal life--his open homosexuality, his regular visits with his family, etc.--but it doesn't penetrate too far below the surface.
  44. The Machinist
    Unrelentingly dreary, and seemingly destined to be remembered, if at all, as that movie Christian Bale lost a full third of his body weight for. It doesn't deserve any better.
  45. The Monster Squad
    Squad joins The Lost Boys, Fright Night, Gremlins, and Poltergeist in a winning '80s subgenre dedicated to ghoulies invading the suburbs.
  46. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
    As gross and spooky and, yes, occasionally frightening as these terror tactics get, they never quite cross over into the deep end of truly grownup horror. That’s intentional, and a key to the film’s fun: It gets away with everything it can on a PG-13 leash, smuggling some real scares to the under-18 crowd.
  47. The Wolverine
    Now here’s a comic-book movie. In a summer that’s delivered one overstuffed Phase Two sequel and a bloated reboot designed to establish a whole new universe of interconnected franchises, The Wolverine has a self-contained efficiency that’s hard to resist.
  48. Sicario: Day of the Soldado
    The occasionally hackneyed dialogue (one would hardly believe Sheridan also wrote the terrific Hell Or High Water) and anonymously copied direction comes across as a crude approximation of the original Sicario’s sinister narrative, with a similarly stripped-down mise-en-scène, but no sense of purpose.
  49. The Karate Kid
    That the film works as well as it does--as an attractive, rousing time-passer for children--speaks more to the endurance of a good formula than its revitalization.
  50. Saltburn
    The handful of explicit scenes feel like they’re included solely for shock value, coming across as schlocky and inert. That’s not to say the performances are at fault.
  51. An Amazing Couple
    It's rare for a comedy to be as fully worked-out and exquisitely timed as An Amazing Couple; just don't expect to warm to it.
  52. Cube
    For his first feature, Canadian director Vincenzo Natali has, like the setting of his film, created a complex piece of work around an essentially simple foundation.
  53. The Taking of Tiger Mountain
    Boasts a handful of colorful, gonzo set pieces of the kind that made Tsui’s reputation at home and abroad.
  54. Emmanuel's Gift
    The heroic struggle of its subject is clearly meant to inspire, but it also seems destined to shame weak-willed viewers who'd crumble under much less formidable obstacles.
  55. Bad Trip
    As if to counteract the bummer of watching a raucous comedy on Netflix rather than in a theatrical setting, Bad Trip comes equipped with its own crowd energy—a collective faith that there’s no idiotic stunt that can’t be pulled back from the brink of disaster.
  56. 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.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Butter on the Latch
    The different techniques Decker uses — the improvised dialogue that feels like listening to one side of a phone conversation, the woozy cinematography and sound design, the disorienting editing — create a sense of claustrophobia. The film’s world is beautiful and scary, but also as intimate as a childhood sleepover.
  58. Kingsman: The Secret Service
    A live-action Hammacher Schlemmer catalog of pseudo-retro novelties, spiced up with self-aware asides and over-the-top violence — slick entertainment, provided the viewer turns off whatever part of their brain is responsible for recognizing and parsing subtext.
  59. Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)
    On a moment-by-moment level, the action in Birds Of Prey is compelling, drawing more from the Hong Kong style of unbroken takes designed to show off the choreography than the chaotic quick cuts of most American blockbusters.
  60. Nightmare Cinema
    Now, Garris’ unflagging enthusiasm for uplifting his fellow creators has found a new manifestation: Nightmare Cinema, a sort of sideways revival of the Masters Of Horror franchise.
  61. Kevin Hart: What Now?
    This movie is not quite the comic event it relentlessly advertises in its opening and closing moments. But it is a reminder of the talent behind the hubris.
  62. Watermelon Man
    The pounding prelude to a cultural and cinematic revolution, Watermelon Man nearly bubbles over with the rage that exploded outright with Van Peebles' follow-up, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song.
  63. 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.
  64. 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.
  65. Funny People
    It's refreshingly unformulaic, but a rambling mess. It's also tremendously funny.
  66. Glastonbury
    The film is clearly an act of boosterism, and it makes a pretty good case for the Glastonbury cause.
  67. The Light Between Oceans
    If the drama is purely abstract, Vikander didn’t get the memo. Even as her storyline takes on the baggage of metaphor, she plays the emotions real and raw and close — her Isabel visibly brightening as she reads her first love letter from Tom or crumbling as a terrible loss dawns upon her. Nothing symbolic there.
  68. Videocracy
    If a team of clever screenwriters tried to script a cautionary tale about the politics of fame (and the fame of politics), they likely couldn’t come up with anything odder or more apt than Erik Gandini’s documentary Videocracy.
  69. Bad Hair
    While the comedy aspect of this Sundance standout works in parts, the horror of it all suffers from knotty reasoning and an unclear thesis.
  70. The Man Who Invented Christmas
    Christmas has some good points going for it (e.g., Plummer’s grumpy, rascally Scrooge, who’d be great in a straight adaptation), but its portrayal of Dickens’ biography and family life is resoundingly dull, apart from some tense notes in Pryce’s performance.
  71. Beyond the Valley of the Dolls
    Together, Ebert and Meyer produced an unhinged spoof of soapy melodramas and hippie iconography, so over-the-top in its violence and libertine sexuality that no one in 1970 quite knew what to make of it.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Good Neighbors
    That slow reveal is Good Neighbors' finest quality: It finds tension in stilted hallway interactions, unwanted dinner parties, and complaints about the wanderings of pets.
  73. The Emperor's New Clothes
    Holm carries Napoleon's regal bluster without edging into cartoonish folly, taking him seriously enough to make an absurd situation solemn, and keeping the film from winking too coyly at its audience.
  74. Katakuri-ke no kôfuku
    A joyously demented musical-comedy built on a macabre foundation, like "The Sound Of Music" with a kickline of corpses.
  75. Dragged Across Concrete
    This is an ugly, borderline vile piece of work. Thing is, it’s also been made with craft, wit, and a frankly exhilarating disregard for how films like this are supposed to operate, how they usually sound and move.
  76. Walking Tall
    On one hand, it's an ultraviolent revenge fantasy, and on the other hand, it's a masterpiece of over-the-top unintentional hilarity—with a clenched-toothed performance by Baker serving as its centerpiece. It's in the latter capacity that Walking Tall can be highly recommended as an unconscionably good time.
  77. Stay Hungry
    A smiley-face ending feels like a lazy copout, but the end credits, which put faces to all the names in the uniformly fine cast, underline this shaggy sleeper's greatest strength: creating a slew of characters worth getting to know.
  78. The Lost City
    The Lost City is a big studio release playing in theaters, and for any kind of “date night,” it is a solid base hit. But should you find yourself on an airplane a few months from now and this is a viewing option, that’s when it becomes a home run. It’s not a knock to admit we all desire comforting movies in uncomfortable situations.
  79. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
    It's rarely tedious, but it's also rarely insightful or propulsive, and since there's nothing new to discover about the characters or their world, much of the film feels like a protracted, contrived pause, as everyone waits for Rapace to finally get back into the game.
  80. The X Files
    It's a smart, exciting, involving film that's true to its source, which is all it really needs to be.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles
    It's a ride worth more for its journey than its destination. Resurrect Dead does offer a convincing but anticlimactic "solution" to the Toynbee tiles, but the elements along the way are what make it an engaging film.
  82. The Commune
    Rather than portray a turbulent group dynamic, the film focuses on the marital woes of one particular couple, squandering its novel milieu on a banal conflict that would play out similarly in just about any context.
  83. I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With
    Unassuming and sweet-natured, and Garlin earns a lot of goodwill with his off-the-cuff wisecracks.
  84. SPECTRE
    What Spectre lacks is the sinister magnetic pull of Skyfall, a Bond movie with real stakes and attitude and distinctive flavor, not to mention more mesmeric images than one can usually expect from this workmanlike blockbuster franchise.
  85. Femme Fatale
    Much like David Lynch's "Mulholland Drive," which it resembles in more ways than one, Femme Fatale makes a rich bouillabaisse out of De Palma's trademark themes and obsessions, stacking references to the heavens and operating with an internal logic that may take several viewings to fully unpack.
  86. Radiant City
    The faux-documentary aspect of Radiant City is a huge gamble that doesn't pay off. If anything, the movie's observations about the corrupting social influence of cluttered mall spaces get undercut by the fact that Burns and Brown feel the need to INVENT characters to prove their truth.
  87. Asphalt Zahov
    Though it's tempting to praise Verete for having the courage to show the worst of both worlds, only a propagandist could get away with being so reductive; an artist should be held to a higher standard.
  88. Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War
    Uncovered could easily come off as dull or strident, but the administration's arrogance and disregard for the safeguards and transparency necessary for democracy give the documentary an outraged charge that overshadows its staid execution.
  89. WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception
    This indignant attack on the way the Iraqi war was marketed and covered feels about as timely and relevant as yesterday's newspaper.
  90. Lustre
    Argo's job should only be a minor piece of this Gotham mosaic, but Jones makes the racketeering scenes so familiar that they grate against the rest of the movie.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Headshot
    Headshot is, unfortunately, far better with ideas than with narrative.
  92. That Christmas
    Schmaltz-heavy and wishlist-thin, That Christmas offers very little and doesn’t even have the self-awareness to include the receipt.
  93. Ghostbusters
    As enjoyable as this movie is, sometimes it feels like it’s holding back; no one’s id runs wild. But the limitations of Ghostbusters make Wiig, McCarthy, McKinnon, and Jones even more valuable. They make a big franchise-starter warmer and more endearing than it needs to be.
  94. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
    The film feels like a collection of ideas that never add up.
  95. Freakier Friday
    When this nearly two-hour movie enters its intentionally laughless final stretch, Freakier Friday feels more and more like the extended encore of a reunion concert—not least because that’s essentially where it takes place.
  96. Sheriff
    But without taking anything away from Frederick Wiseman, who remains a master, Sheriff is almost as good any documentary he's made.
  97. Quill: The Life of a Guide Dog
    The rigors of identifying and training companion dogs are fascinating, but they would fit more comfortably in a non-fiction format, where nobody has to play pretend. As it stands, the dog is the only creature who acts naturally.
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