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. Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain
    In terms of celebrating his life by letting us soak in his impassioned, inspiring presence one more time, the film is successful. But viewers should take one more note from the man himself and not fall for easy scapegoats and trite narratives, whether they concern countries or a person who devoted his life to exploring them.
  2. Don't Breathe 2
    The increasingly ornate violence (much of it taking place in a newer if no less creaky location) fuels an effective thrill machine, and if that machine can’t match the unexpected sweetness of the T-800’s relationship with John Connor, well, maybe that’s for the best.
  3. Sabaya
    As a journalistic depiction of the rescue operations as they happen, Sabaya brims with heart-pounding tension and immediacy. But given the access obtained and Hirori’s connection to the people and the land where this grim chapter in modern history is unfolding, the superficial handling of pivotal aspects of the story is disappointing.
  4. The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf
    It’s fun to see this world, with all of its inhuman monsters and monstrous humans, from a different point of view, even if it isn’t quite as refreshing or engaging as Geralt’s.
  5. A Chiara
    Though the path to its conclusions is at times more plodding than meditative, the finale is a subtle, emotional twist of the knife that makes the journey worth taking.
  6. The Hand of God
    It has as many superfluous sequences as great ones, with moments that serve no grander purpose than landing a single joke.
  7. The Electrical Life of Louis Wain
    The more Electrical Life conforms to what one would expect of a Louis Wain biography, the less idiosyncratically compelling it becomes. An entirely fictional story loosely inspired by the man and his wife, but beholden to nothing, might have been genuinely electrifying.
  8. The Mad Women's Ball
    This is a work of feminist melodrama, one that uses real events as a backdrop for a romantic, woman-centric tale of rebellious spirits and dreams deferred. As such, it might not be the most nuanced portrayal of this particular chapter in history. But it is passionate, fathers and doctors be damned.
  9. Fauna
    Fauna has some smart things to say about how the drug trade and its attendant stereotypes have changed the Mexican popular imagination. You just have to pay attention to follow the film’s many idiosyncratic twists and turns.
  10. Zeros and Ones
    What Zeros And Ones conveys, in its shoestring terms, is the actual mood of a world of uncertainties.
  11. The Transformers: The Movie
    As an '80s curio and perhaps the only film to feature the voices of both Welles and That Guy From The Micro Machines Ad Who Talks Real Fast, it possesses a kitschy, low-budget charm.
  12. The Guilty
    For most of its brisk 90 minutes, The Guilty is just Gyllenhaal, in tight close-up, constructing a movie out of sweat and tears alone: a glorified radio play of a thriller whose thrills are generated almost entirely through his reactions.
  13. Clean
    This movie loves big, operatic gestures. At least visually, it lands them all.
  14. Futura
    Self-reflexiveness is no guarantee of value in a documentary, and Futura works perfectly well as cinematic reportage. Still, the film does at times feel slack and arbitrary—a bit like a census that no one could argue is unimportant but which nonetheless has the feel of a box-ticking exercise.
  15. Bingo Hell
    A sometimes clunky but always bold blend of social satire and delirious style.
  16. V/H/S/94
    File 94 somewhere between the inspired, crowd-pleasing bloodshed of the second film and the series-low ineptitude of the third, V/H/S Viral.
  17. Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre
    For the most part, Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre is a fun time at the movies. There’s laughter, action, and movie stars playing to their strengths. It’s exactly what audiences expect to see from Ritchie and that’s its main selling point. If only the second hour was tighter, maintaining the film’s fast rhythm.
  18. The Phantom of the Open
    Directed by Craig Roberts, this achingly British offering (its opening lines involve the request for a cup of tea—no milk, six sugars) is a pleasant movie of smaller stakes that, for better or worse, sidesteps inspiration in favor of more laidback reflection.
  19. Dirty Work
    If a great movie is one with two great scenes and no bad ones, then Dirty Work is half a great movie. It contains more than its share of bad scenes, but it does have two brilliant ones.
  20. The Bad Guys
    Like the Despicable Me series, The Bad Guys may find ever-diminishing returns once the villain protagonists no longer qualify as despicable or bad. For now, at least, that mixed morality is not just part of the fun, but the primary selling point.
    • 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.
  22. Fresh
    Despite its bolder choices, however, Fresh doesn’t push the body horror as far as it could, and works better as an empowerment fable than as an actual thriller.
  23. Watcher
    Without spoiling, this is one movie where it’d be extremely interesting to know what happens five minutes after the final scene. But while the subsequent events may be up for vigorous debate, the film’s message is crystal clear: Screw you if you ever doubted a woman afraid for her safety.
  24. Vengeance
    Among some of the movie’s heady notions the movie attempts to assay are the idea and consequences of people living in their own highly individualized spaces; the question of whether any truth can be embedded in pure intuition; and the empty distractions of collapsing civilization, in which culture is relegated to increasingly meaningless fragmentary morsels.
  25. All the Old Knives
    All The Old Knives is compelling moment by moment, but afterward viewers may have some lingering questions about what characters hoped to accomplish, or why they were involved at all.
  26. Renfield
    Though Nicholas Hoult is charming as he struggles to find inner strength, Renfield lives or dies by Nic Cage camping it up. And he delivers.
  27. Anaïs in Love
    While this is hardly Exhibit A in any catalogue of feminist films, it is very much told through the young woman exploring romantic possibility, rather than spotlighting her.
  28. Gold
    Tension does build and there is a satisfying conclusion, but there is a significant stretch where, undeniably, a sizable amount of air comes out of the balloon.
  29. Amsterdam
    Amsterdam is not a great movie by any shakes, although it looks terrific and all of the performances . . . are energetic, entertaining, and enjoyable.
  30. Father Stu
    Distilled, it is a fairly well-sketched portrait of self-care — spiritual, yes, but also psychological and physical — and the outwardly rippling effects of healing that can flow from that single choice.
  31. Broker
    Though Kore-eda began his career as a documentarian, his positions on social issues are far from neutral. He reveres the resilience of those who have been dealt a bad hand in life, a sentiment that certainly shines through in Broker.
  32. Crimes of the Future
    Nothing about it makes a lick of sense, but there’s a surreal flow to it all that, in the moment, carries you from scene to scene.
  33. The Equalizer 3
    There is nothing new here narratively, save the setting (shot with picturesque beauty by Oscar-winning cinematographer Robert Richardson), the names of the characters, and the details of the offense for which the evil doers will have to pay.
  34. Brian and Charles
    Frequently hilarious and never lacking in heart, there’s plenty to love about this story of an offbeat, cabbage-loving weirdo and his three-meter-tall mechanical son. Even if it’s a bit thematically slight and doesn’t quite stick the landing in congealing what themes it does have into a cohesive whole, sometimes all that’s necessary is an offbeat sense of humor and a weird enough premise to make a lasting impression.
  35. Jerry and Marge Go Large
    These veteran performers make these two characters likable and, more importantly, fully knowable, and through them Jerry & Marge Go Large fully breathes.
  36. Spiderhead
    With nimble performances, slick polish, dark-pitched wit, razor sharp sentiments, and a Yacht Rock-infused soundtrack, the film proves a seductive high.
  37. Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths
    Dense and laborious, Bardo sometimes feels like an endurance test. Its moments of visual brilliance carry it far. Just not far enough to become essential viewing
  38. The Righteous
    It’s steeped in a grave sense of portentousness that burrows under your skin. The issue is the weighty script, bleak and heavy with apocalyptic consequence, which contains undeniably intriguing notions that are often not satisfactorily explored or don’t quite cohere.
  39. Press Play
    Press Play is a smart melding of high-concept and relatable romance—not the least of which is because this type of young love has a high replay value, just like the music we often associate with and attach to these formative years.
  40. The Invitation
    Emmanuel makes for an empathetic audience stand-in and charming heroine; it’s easy to see how she’s pivoted from thankless Game Of Thrones and Fast And Furious roles to leading lady status. If The Invitation proves nothing else, it’s that she belongs at the top of the call sheet.
  41. Mr. Malcolm's List
    It’s a pleasant enough diversion, that will likely be best remembered for colorblind casting done right.
  42. The Silent Twins
    In The Silent Twins, the Gibbons sisters are let down by a script that undercuts the unique circumstances of their lives with familiar and ultimately less compelling storytelling tropes.
  43. Weird: The Al Yankovic Story
    Boasts a high enough hit-to-miss ratio in its gags to succeed as a comic biopic but can’t help milking the gags that hit until their freshness evaporates.
  44. The Munsters
    As a love letter to the sitcom that so inspired Zombie as a child, The Munsters might be the most authentic-feeling television revival ever put on film, warts and all.
  45. Spoiler Alert
    When the film lets its guard down—namely, whenever Aldridge gets to deploy his charm as Kit or manages to let Field echo a weathered kind of Steel Magnolias screen presence—the film sings. Yet its attempts to distance itself from the very genre of a film it so clearly is (there wasn’t a dry eye in the house by the time I left my screening) end up shortchanging its impact.
  46. This Is GWAR
    For all the documentary reveals about the band, it leaves you asking further questions, and wanting much more—an apt metaphor for a band that created an impressive legacy, and yet whose members rarely came to a consensus.
  47. See How They Run
    Ultimately, See How They Run is too reverent to its forebears and too toothless in its satire to elevate beyond an overly self-aware genre exercise—competent enough, but all too eager to shoot any attempted subtlety dead where it stands.
  48. Les Misérables
    August's Les Misérables is the sort of film for which such faint-praise terms as "handsome" and "not bad" were invented. It's all of the above, and at times a bit better, but ultimately an experience akin to flipping through Cliffs Notes and a book of French paintings at the same time.
  49. On the Come Up
    A committed group of dazzling actors keeps viewers consistently engaged until On The Come Up arrives at its predictable life lessons.
  50. Asteroid City
    Because of the structure of the film—the story within the story—none of them feel urgent or especially resonant. There are moments of brilliance both from the performers and from the writing. But they never cohere together into a complete story.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
    Quantumania’s tone is sure to be polarizing, but if you can surrender yourself to its bonkers A Bug’s Life-meets-Return of the Jedi antics, the two hours (already short for a Marvel film) will fly by.
  52. The Fantastic Four: First Steps
    For a lot of Marvel fans, it will be more than enough. For the more superhero skeptical, it offers a helpful example of how simply skipping the origin stuff on the fourth try doesn’t automatically confer a sense of dramatic urgency or comic-book wonder.
  53. My Best Friend's Exorcism
    Although the film makes some notable insights about the teenage psyche, there isn’t quite enough ‘there’ there to elevate the film above the ranks of average horror programming.
  54. Kirikou and the Wild Beasts
    Ocelot's 2005 semi-sequel, Kirikou And The Wild Beast, retains the gorgeously detailed visuals and that hilarious tonal bluntness, but loses much of the compelling mystery, and the urgency of life-and-death situations.
  55. Do Revenge
    While there are major missteps, overall its bright, spirited attitude and attractive, propulsive gusto power a delightfully wicked journey.
  56. About Fate
    Despite the off-putting blandness of its poster, soundtrack, and setup, About Fate proves surprisingly charming. Old pros (especially for their relatively young ages) Mann and Roberts manage to sell some significant character flaws.
  57. The Rugrats Movie
    Rugrats: The Movie gets off to a good start, with some amusing, albeit tame, satire revolving around the status-conscious, materialistic lives of the toddlers' parents. But after the Rugrats get lost, the filmmakers focus almost exclusively on the irritating little brats, and the film devolves into an interminable episode of the show, albeit one in which things periodically slow down for forgettable songs.
  58. Empire of Light
    Mendes the first-time solo writer juggles too many disparate story elements, and the nagging sense they should cohere makes it all the more perplexing that they don’t.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Confess, Fletch
    As a return of a big-screen favorite, it’s perhaps a bit too slipshod for its own good, lacking the fun chase scenes and romantic interludes that helped make the first film such a beloved favorite.
  60. Another Thin Man
    For the first time, the formula feels strained, due to excessive baby/dog humor and not enough Powell/Loy interaction.
  61. The Good Nurse
    Feeling like a well-balanced cross between an investigative procedural like Spotlight and ’90s-era chillers like The Hand That Rocks The Cradle where a seemingly harmless helper disguises their sinister self, the filmmakers have created a strong throwback thriller.
  62. Raymond & Ray
    While Raymond And Ray registers nicely as a relaxed, compassionate character study, there’s no denying that one of the two central characters being studied hugely outshines the other.
  63. Lady Chatterley's Lover
    While witnessing the physical act of love on screen can sometimes transcend into something with great depth, this is, sorry to say, not one of those cases. It’s just a lot of huffing and puffing.
  64. Master Gardener
    While it doesn’t fare well in comparison, Master Gardener still has enough unique characteristics and performances to stand out as a fine film. It’s just the least successful in this particular trilogy.
  65. Alice, Darling
    Nighy feels like she’s finding her way in a new format. She’s got the hard part down, pulling off effective emotional beats even when the story seems to be operating on screenwriting 101 paradigms. All that remains is to find a script that’s up to the rest of it.
  66. Kraven the Hunter
    Kraven The Hunter gets closer than any of its predecessors to understanding the silly, entertaining freedom of shedding continuity. Then again, maybe it’s best that this misbegotten series quits while it’s just-barely ahead.
  67. Pretty Problems
    The humor in Pretty Problems isn’t often laugh-out-loud funny, but the observational satire is astute: it highlights how charity may be a performative act for donors, but that makes the need no less urgent for recipients, while acknowledging how far wealth distances some people from reality.
  68. Spirited
    While not without some issues, the movie lands as a modern-day fable whose colorfully packaged and exuberantly pitched life lessons carry an undeniable timeliness.
  69. Your Place or Mine
    Your Place Or Mine isn’t that invested in crafting a world that looks anything like ours; it’s arguably more interested in giving its supporting cast’s ace one-liners (which, I’ll admit, is where the film sporadically got me chuckling).
  70. My Father's Dragon
    The core of the film is in Tremblay’s and Matarazzo’s portrayal of a budding friendship, and the resulting adventures that Elmer and Boris have are certain to entertain plenty of families looking for a comfortable evening on Netflix. It will just be difficult for fans of Cartoon Saloon’s previous films not to notice that My Father’s Dragon has more modest goals than its forebears.
  71. Blood Relatives
    Like the cobbled-together parts of an aging engine, or the seemingly incompatible members of a chosen family, Blood Relatives holds together with just enough passion and love that its sturdy engine takes audiences for an enjoyable if not always memorable ride.
  72. They All Laughed
    For all its delightful performances, savvy location shooting, and breezy charm, They All Laughed is ultimately something of a tantalizing tease, all flirtation and no consummation.
  73. Plane
    If you buy a ticket for this one, just know there’s no First Class option. But with moderate expectations, you’ll still get to your destination.
  74. Luther: The Fallen Sun
    The film’s effectiveness hinges on transferring the hallmarks of the series to the big screen, and to that end, Cross and Payne succeed.
  75. Kim's Video
    A nonfiction work of swirling whimsy and rabbit-hole intrigue that eschews mere nostalgic appreciation in favor of a cockeyed hybrid approach that amuses and bemuses in equal measure.
    • 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.
  77. Cocaine Bear
    And while it is enjoyable and has many great moments, it doesn’t quite come together with polish.
  78. Judy Blume Forever
    This is a reaffirmation of the author’s impact and importance to an audience that already agrees with that assessment, leaving the film as unchallenging as it is pleasant.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3
    Leaning into her experience as a screenwriter, Vardalos balances comedy and emotion, and her familiarity with the cultural setting, as well as her affinity for the sprawling cast, reap dividends onscreen. The result is a level of authenticity and depth that wasn’t as evident in the first two outings.
  80. No Hard Feelings
    Jennifer Lawrence proves, once again, that she can carry a film by the sheer force of her on-screen magnetism and performance agility.
  81. Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares: The Robert Englund Story
    It certainly captures a side of the man, and maybe that’s all anyone would ask of it. But it’s hard to shake the feeling there’s an even better movie waiting to be made from all this material.
  82. I Used to Be Funny
    While the writing is mostly good, none of these highs would have been nearly as high without Sennott, who makes a real bid for future dramatic roles here.
  83. Retribution
    Unlike Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates, what you’re going to get from this box of travel sweets is usually something you can expect. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be effectively tasty in the moment.
  84. American Fiction
    American Fiction is an intriguing conundrum. It starts as a sizzling, hilarious satire that manages to sling pointed arrows at most of its targets. However, by trying to become too many things, it ends up sanding the edges off its sharpness. Still, the journey to its denouement remains mostly entertaining.
  85. The Iron Claw
    The chemistry between the brothers is palpable, creating emotional heft behind each victory and defeat.
  86. Rustin
    Bayard Rustin deserves to be remembered for the entirety of his being, both as an activist and as an openly gay Black man in a time when it was criminal. As much as Rustin attempts to balance both, it carries the former better than the latter.
  87. Dicks: The Musical
    This is as broad as comedies get these days. But its shock-and-awe sensibility is somewhat exhausting.
  88. Rebel Moon Part 2: The Scargiver
    Through this ambitious two-part series (which reportedly has three or possibly six more installments in the offing), Snyder has labored over his influences to the degree that watching it will be a riot for the devoted and feel like work for everyone else. Either way, Snyder’s passion remains his strength.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Next Goal Wins
    Next Goal Wins may not seem like the most original film, but the fact that it’s based on actual, if somewhat improbable, events means that it ultimately earns its uplifting perspective, owing largely to Waititi’s heartfelt commitment to the story.
  90. Ezra
    While all of the grown-ups turn in admirable performances, the heart of the movie lies in a staggering debut from newcomer William A. Fitzgerald, a preteen diagnosed with autism and ADHD himself.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Anyone But You
    The film is made as fun escapism, and it succeeds at that.
    • 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.
  93. Powaqqatsi
    The second film seems less purposeful: The shots of squalor and industrialization-run-amok have an almost random feel. At times, however, it's still incredibly powerful.
  94. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
    Overall, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire makes for a serviceable entry in this now four-decade-running franchise. No matter that, in tone and in structure, it all but replicates what’s worked in the past.
  95. 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.
  96. Love Me
    While the movie’s breadth-over-depth approach might have been more powerful as a short film, Love Me still delivers a unique blend of charm and existentialism across its 92-minute runtime.
  97. The Actor
    Instead of unraveling into intelligent abstraction, Johnson’s film unfortunately leans into tidy conventionality. As a result, it might fail to make a lasting impression on the annals of cinematic memory.
  98. Megalopolis
    Megalopolis is a magical, meandering, maddening construction, one that demonstrates that the process of experimentation is in and of itself both deeply entwined with, as well as above, dualistic notions like success and failure.
  99. The Fire Inside
    In an era where the mid-budget movie has mostly disappeared, The Fire Inside’s modest, thoughtful reworking of the sports drama formula can feel refreshing.
  100. Havoc
    Can 20 minutes or so of brutally inventive action really prop up a whole movie? In this case, yes. Havoc doesn’t reach the mayhem-as-characterization heights of John Wick or the Asian films that clearly inspire Evans, but it does turn its gnarly spectacle into a kind of absurd redemption for the flatness of its characters.
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