The A.V. Club's Scores

Select another publication »
For 10,413 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: 5,571 out of 10413
  2. Mixed: 3,735 out of 10413
  3. Negative: 1,107 out of 10413
10413 movie reviews
view
per page
  1. The Interrupters
    Witnessing outreach workers intervening in these situations is inspiring enough, but their subtlety and nuance in neutralizing people of different backgrounds and temperaments is especially impressive.
  2. The Devil's Double
    Dominic Cooper is electrifying yet stiff in The Devil's Double; he's simultaneously the film's biggest asset and its greatest flaw.
  3. The Guard
    Focusing the film on Gleeson was certainly the right choice. His performance is equal parts funny and unnerving, and he keeps viewers guessing about what drives the man and what he'll do next.
  4. Attack the Block
    Attack The Block turns its modest budget into a virtue by focusing on character, especially the surprisingly charged, complicated dynamic between enemies-turned-allies Whittaker and Boyega.
  5. The Future
    The Future's main characters are, undeniably, dopes. But July and Linklater turn their ineptitude into a funny running joke, which becomes surprisingly affecting in the second half.
  6. The Smurfs
    Actual kids may find this fun, but for adults, watching The Smurfs may feel a little too much like trying to wrangle an overcrowded kiddie birthday party.
  7. Crazy, Stupid, Love
    Gosling and Stone, too, have wonderful chemistry; their all-night "seduction" sequence is the film's highlight, witty and effortlessly sexy.
    • The A.V. Club
      • Posted Jul 28, 2011
  8. Cowboys & Aliens
    You want cowboys and aliens in the same movie? This one's for you. If you want anything beyond what the title promises, look elsewhere. And that means even anything resembling a clever mash-up of established genres.
    • The A.V. Club
      • Posted Jul 28, 2011
  9. Captain America: The First Avenger
    For the most part, it manages to balance laughs, genuinely rousing moments, and a fully packed agenda into something fleet enough to keep running under the weight of its rich ambitions.
  10. The Woman with the 5 Elephants
    The Woman With The 5 Elephants isn't flawless; as articulate and fascinating as Geier could be, she was also dry at times. But Jendreyko cleverly parcels out her personal history, and he isn't afraid to break up the talkiness with long silences and luminous images.
  11. A Little Help
    It's difficult to figure out exactly where the film might be heading at any given point, since it follows the loping, meandering rhythms and casualness of a character study rather than conforming to the conventions of any particular genre.
  12. The Myth of the American Sleepover
    It's a film where the feelings and experiences of young people are highly specific in detail, yet fundamentally universal and timeless.
  13. Sarah's Key
    Veers in and out of conventionality, and ultimately sinks into it at the end. But first, it deals with old types in new ways, raising issues as it raises hackles.
  14. Another Earth
    It's an ambitious premise and a risky approach, but Cahill and his cast execute it beautifully.
  15. Friends with Benefits
    Romantic comedies - and this is one, in spite of its phony irreverence - turn largely on star power, and theirs is transcendent, whether they're casually trading one-liners on the streets or doing running commentary on their sexual escapades. They'd have been better off staying in bed.
  16. Salvation Boulevard
    Salvation Boulevard doesn't seem to have any higher aspiration than illustrating how religious people can be hypocrites. (Gosh, who knew?)
    • 32 Metascore
    • 16 Critic Score
    The Undefeated
    Viewers are left to wonder if it's all actually some sort of vehicle for subliminal messaging.
  18. The Tree
    Yes, the idea that the tree/father is literally tearing this family apart is way too blunt, but Gainsbourg and Davies sell it by playing the scenes naturally, with minimal histrionics.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Life, Above All
    The ending, which offers a hint of relief, is unfiltered, frankly unbelievable melodrama, but something grimmer and more measured would be intolerable after everything that comes before.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
    This latest film aims for "The Joy Luck Club's" crossover appeal but ends up stilted and emotionally remote.
  21. Winnie the Pooh
    Winnie The Pooh is a storybook brought to life with intelligence, wit, and palpable affection; where so many kids' films try desperately to come off as hip and timely that they often feel tacky and instantly dated, Winnie The Pooh is bravely quiet, old-fashioned, and wry.
  22. Tabloid
    McKinney may well be a madwoman, but Morris connects so deeply to her obsessions that the film's tone never seems exploitative or mocking.
  23. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
    This is the most epic of the Harry Potter movies, the one that finally dispenses with side-quests and open-ended plotlines and offers up all the final payoffs.
    • The A.V. Club
      • Posted Jul 14, 2011
  24. Beats Rhymes & Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest
    Poignant and powerful, complex and melancholy, the film ends with rehearsals for yet another money-grubbing comeback tour.
  25. The Ledge
    The Ledge is a sometimes-fascinating, often-aggravating chamber thriller that works best when it's doubling as an inquiry into faith.
  26. Ironclad
    The movie's gathering of third-rank action heroes provides sufficient brawn but precious little onscreen charisma, although Brian Cox's reliable bluster lights up his handful of scenes as a bellicose baron.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Septien
    The setup and storyline are absurd, but the angst underneath is as earnest as a campfire confession.
  28. Rapt
    While the back-and-forth between various parties grows tiresome through repetition, Rapt rallies with a lengthy epilogue in which the aftermath of Attal's ordeal proves more draining than the physical privation that preceded it.
  29. The Sleeping Beauty
    It's clear what Breillat is trying to do here in the abstract - and The Sleeping Beauty is never less than gorgeous to look at - but the movie doesn't hang together as a story, and "stories" are what these fairy tales are meant to deliver.
  30. The Ward
    Nothing about The Ward's script or direction has much snap. The dialogue is never witty, the characters are indistinct, the story is set in 1966 for no relevant reason, and the scares are strictly of the "thing jumps loudly out of the shadows" variety.
  31. Project Nim
    To an equal extent, Project Nim shows the human capacity for cruelty and narcissism as well as compassion and selflessness.
  32. Horrible Bosses
    In the film's funniest scene, a coked-up Day rocks out to The Ting Tings' "That's Not My Name" in a car in a state of ecstatic frenzy.
  33. Zookeeper
    As a study in insanity, Zookeeper is mildly interesting. But as a kiddie comedy, it's something to watch only once the little ones have worn out their "Dr. Doolittle" DVD.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Love Etc.
    It's too bad the wanness of the majority of those storylines makes it seem more like a fling than a relationship with any chance of going the distance.
  35. Crime After Crime
    Through the ceaseless efforts of two dedicated pro bono lawyers-both with personal reasons to keep up the fight for five or six grueling years-director Yoav Potash follows every revelation and setback with an urgency most fiction films can't muster.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Small Town Murder Songs
    The film is as much music-video collection as crime drama: The interludes in which the songs swell into voluptuous prominence balance out a tale of crime and redemption so spare, it's almost abstract.
  37. Terri
    deWitt's script is much better than anything Jacobs has worked on before, with a story that gets richer as it goes.
  38. The Perfect Host
    It's best enjoyed as a crackling performance piece.
  39. Larry Crowne
    The story feels half-considered, the relationships thin, and the direction visually indifferent.
  40. Monte Carlo
    Monte Carlo finally resolves itself in a farcical climax that at least shows a little energy, but it isn't enough to overcome the discomfiting tensions and indifferent formula filmmaking that plagues nearly every scene.
  41. Aurora
    Over a difficult three-hour sprawl, Cristi Puiu's Aurora fully explores the time before and after a killer strikes, and it has the cumulative effect of making what passes for a "motive" seem absurdly simplistic.
  42. Transformers: Dark of the Moon
    Solidly mindless, breathless summer fun.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    General Orders No. 9
    General Orders No. 9 is bound to test the patience, but there are rewards to be found in its deliberate rhythms - foremost amongst them, the glorious, haunting visuals.
  44. The Best and the Brightest
    The farce withers away when it should be expanding.
    • 22 Metascore
    • 33 Critic Score
    A Love Affair of Sorts
    Infuriatingly navel-gazing and insubstantial.
  46. The Names of Love
    The American romantic comedy has grown distressingly moribund lately, but anyone looking to freshen up the genre a bit need look no further than Michel Leclerc's The Names Of Love.
  47. Leap Year
    Never to be confused for the rom-com starring Amy Adams - though that would be the mother of all video-store mix-ups - Leap Year lets actions speak louder than words, and the actions here are shockingly explicit.
  48. A Better Life
    A Better Life leans too heavily on sad music, broad symbols, and weighty speeches to tell its story; it's more effective when it lets images speak in place of words.
  49. Passione
    As an actor, Turturro brings wit and a healthy sense of absurdity to many of his roles, but his directorial efforts are notably lacking in self-awareness or restraint.
  50. Conan O'Brien Can't Stop
    The overall mood of Conan O'Brien Can't Stop is curdled and sour. It leaves the feeling that the next chapter can't come soon enough.
  51. Bad Teacher
    Teacher underutilizes a smartly cast-against-type Timberlake and the perpetually winning Segel, but Diaz ultimately earns a rooting interest in the unlikely redemption of her scheming opportunist.
  52. Cars 2
    Cars 2 looks fantastic, but the studio has never given audiences - especially audiences over the age of 10 - less reason to be emotionally invested in the beautiful shiny things flying across the screen.
  53. Kidnapped
    What's missing from Kidnapped is a grander context - or richer subtext - to all the terror.
  54. Buck
    Perhaps Brannaman's art is too subtle and instinctive to be captured on camera, but it's a shame Meehl doesn't do a better job of capturing exactly what makes him, by all accounts, a miraculously successful trainer.
  55. Battle for Brooklyn
    Most viewers should find the documentary Battle For Brooklyn gripping and provocative, no matter their opinions about eminent domain, historic preservation, or public dollars going to support private development.
  56. The Art of Getting By
    By the end, the most charming thing about The Art Of Getting By is that while its adults cut Highmore far too much slack, they aren't Hughes-movie oblivious idiots, and they eventually draw a few firm lines. Unfortunately, the movie isn't daring enough to follow suit.
  57. Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times
    Rossi never gets around to exploring his opening question: What would the world be without The New York Times? Perhaps, as with a lot of his subjects here, the answer is just too painful to consider, no matter the economic realities.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 33 Critic Score
    Mr. Popper's Penguins
    Mr. Popper's Penguins reins in its rubber-faced star, leaving most of the rote physical comedy (and overabundance of fart jokes) to his nonhuman counterparts, comprised of a combination of CGI and real penguins.
  59. Green Lantern
    A film so utterly lacking in conviction, it needs a 25-year-old Tom Cruise vehicle just to keep its spine straight.
  60. Trollhunter
    The trolls are the best part of Troll Hunter; they're funny and creepy.
  61. Queen of the Sun: What Are the Bees Telling Us?
    A fine enough piece of work, but it's a shame Werner Herzog didn't get to Gunther Hauk first.
  62. Bride Flight
    The subtitles and period setting conjure a smattering of respectability, but in essence, this is arthouse pap, particularly for older audiences, turning the past into a concatenation of worn-out tropes that comforts as it distorts. Think of it as instant mashed potatoes for the soul.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    One Lucky Elephant
    One Lucky Elephant would make an affecting pairing with James Marsh's upcoming "Project Nim," another film about an animal treated like a human until its essential wildness made that impossible.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Viva Riva!
    Frenetic, sleazy, and entertaining as all hell, Viva Riva! is a stylish and (save for the NC-17 it'd certainly earn) multiplex-worthy crime drama from, of all unexpected places, the Democratic Republic Of The Congo.
  65. Just Like Us
    The key mistake was Ahmed's choice to direct it himself; it's promotional when it might be revealing of impasses (and commonalities) between cultures and the complex tactics comedians use to address it.
  66. Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer
    Not that anything in Judy Moody is meant to be taken seriously - or could be, even if it was meant to - but even for sugary neon fluff, it's awfully lightweight.
  67. The Trip
    Make no mistake: The Trip is a fine, funny movie. But there's no reason why it couldn't have been even finer and funnier.
  68. Road to Nowhere
    The tone and subject at times recall David Lynch's "Lost Highway" and "Mulholland Dr.," but the approach is Hellman's own.
  69. Super 8
    Its pleasures are borrowed, but durable.
  70. Rejoice and Shout
    The smartest move that McGlynn makes in Rejoice And Shout is to let those old performances run on at length.
  71. Mr. Nice
    The result is a film that's long and choppy, with little narrative momentum. And yet at times, Mr. Nice is frustratingly close to brilliant.
    • 13 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    Love, Wedding, Marriage
    The "romantic" half of Love, Wedding, Marriage's romantic comedy doesn't work, but that isn't nearly as problematic as the film's profound unfunniness.
  73. The Last Mountain
    There's something grating about the way The Last Mountain keeps returning to picket-line confrontations between environmental activists.
  74. Submarine
    Submarine is the film "Youth In Revolt" should have been, an achingly sad yet ribald account of a hyper-verbal oddball's ascent/descent into manhood.
  75. Beautiful Boy
    Like its fellow crowd-depressor "Blue Valentine," Beautiful Boy offers the antithesis of escapism: a claustrophobic, punishingly intense, beautifully measured exploration of the depths of human despair.
  76. Beginners
    Doing some of his best work in years, Ewan McGregor plays Mills' alter ego as a prickly, not altogether noble loner in his late 30s who initially doesn't take the news of his father's coming-out well.
  77. 13 Assassins
    The great Kôji Yakusho stars as a revered samurai who decides that enough is enough, and sets about assembling the assassins of the title like a men-on-a-mission movie.
  78. X-Men: First Class
    Another crowd-pleasing comic-book film designed to bring in new fans while gratifying the old ones.
  79. Tuesday, After Christmas
    More about well-observed moments of everyday life than it is about heightened melodrama.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Puzzle
    Though the film reaches a seemingly artificial either/or scenario with regard to the competitive puzzling, its conclusion is pleasing and not at all pat, a portrait of a woman who's learned she deserves to keep some things for herself.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Hello Lonesome
    Though it can occasionally seem like an indie-dramedy answer to "The Grudge," structured to pack in the maximum moments of whimsical connection instead of supernatural kills, the film does find something deeper in its treatment of Smith and Lloyd.
  82. The Tree of Life
    In terms of scale, The Tree Of Life recalls the mammoth ambition of Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey," but it's also more intimate and personal than Malick's previous films, rooted in vivid memories of growing up in '50s Texas.
  83. The Hangover Part II
    Never as edgy as it imagines itself to be. Bangkok may swallow innocents whole, but director Todd Phillips has a lucrative franchise to protect, so the film's flirtation with the comic abyss gets compromised into something that looks more like a rock-solid mainstream comedy with a prominent dark side.
  84. Kung Fu Panda 2
    The sequel remains visually beautiful and strikingly designed, but otherwise, it's a surprise in all the wrong ways.
  85. Cost of a Soul
    It's a lousy movie, but it has spunk.
  86. Louder Than a Bomb
    Louder Than A Bomb is a different kind of high-school movie, brimming with life and hope instead of social-climbing, bullying, and furtive first kisses.
  87. The Big Uneasy
    So sleepy and understated that when John Goodman shows up to yell his way through an angrily sarcastic segment called "Ask A New Orleanian," it's incredibly jarring.
  88. Midnight in Paris
    An unassuming wisp of a movie, Midnight In Paris finds Woody Allen penning a love letter to the City Of Lights, albeit one whose sentiments could easily fit on a postcard.
  89. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
    Apart from Cruz, who throws herself lustily into her tough-seductress role, the actors give negligible performances, with McShane, Rush, and Keith Richards in a repeat cameo all playing nigh-identical smug glowerers.
  90. Priest
    Bettany's performance consists entirely of a purposeful frown paired with a menacing glare: He goes about his godly business with solemn, no-frills intensity. The film follows suit.
  91. L'amour fou
    Like a well-crafted garment, it's seamless. There's plenty of amour, but not enough fou.
  92. How to Live Forever
    Wexler breaks the cardinal rule of first-person documentaries: Don't make yourself the subject unless you're worth paying attention to.
  93. Hey, Boo: Harper Lee and 'To Kill a Mockingbird'
    The filmmaking is prosaic, the pacing sleepy. It's a solid but unremarkable experience, perfect for insomniacs watching the History Channel late at night, but not nearly as satisfying as simply re-reading Lee's book.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Skateland
    If he were even a fraction as appealing to the audience as he so mysteriously is to everyone in the film, Skateland would be much more engaging.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    The First Grader
    The First Grader offers a tumultuous but uplifting journey.
  96. Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff
    Director Craig McCall approaches Cardiff with something approaching awe, though his subject views his accomplishments with the good-natured humility befitting a proper English gentleman.
  97. Hesher
    It's all quirk, posturing, attitude, and needless exertion signifying nothing beyond its own sad need to impress.
  98. City of Life and Death
    The film never feels entirely staid: Lu wriggles out of convention where he can, especially in the first half, and engages with history as an artist, not a hagiographer.
  99. Everything Must Go
    Writer-director Dan Rush could've approached this material in dozens of ways, but the way he chooses-turning it into an occasionally wry, ever-earnest dramedy-is precisely the wrong one.
  100. Bridesmaids
    It's no surprise that Bridemaids sputters, coughs, and lurches, but it's a winning shambles, buoyed by a sharp, balanced comedic ensemble and some truthful observations about how close friends adapt when their lives fall out of step.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »