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 Woman in the Fifth
    In spite of his considerable intelligence and cinematic gifts, Pawlikowski isn't Roman Polanski, so the delusions and psychosis of his put-upon lead character doesn't have the right intensity. Fifth feels like a literary bauble, chipped by imperfections.
  2. Jane by Charlotte
    Whether or not the film necessarily works as a narrative feature, Gainsbourg manages to peer inside her mother’s life and lifestyle with an honesty that should make audiences nervous and envious at the same time, seeking answers we may want from our parents but are afraid of enough to be reluctant to ask.
  3. The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them
    Without having seen the two-film version, it’s unclear whether the gender-segregated points of view would enhance that emotional intensity or create more redundancy in an already thin narrative. In this form, The Disappearance Of Eleanor Rigby tows the line between just enough and a bit too much.
  4. A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop
    Though it's a stylistic change from what Zhang's been up to lately, this isn't entirely new territory for him.
  5. The Hole
    Like earlier Dante classics The Gremlins and The Burbs, The Hole marries the fantastical, the horrific, and the mundane, but in this case, the fantastical isn’t that fantastic, the horrific isn’t scary, and the mundane is way too mundane. All the elements are here, they just don’t add up to a satisfying whole.
  6. Dicks: The Musical
    This is as broad as comedies get these days. But its shock-and-awe sensibility is somewhat exhausting.
  7. Flicka
    Give Flicka credit for one thing: It stays on message. Set against the gorgeous backdrop of a Wyoming mountain range--a view this time unobstructed by the gay cowboys who so alarm family audiences--the film offers up fantasy footage for every strong-willed girl who ever straddled a saddle, and little more.
  8. Vamps
    Heckerling also struggles woefully with special effects, but even then, she's capable of pulling off a beautiful sequence where Silverstone remembers a specific city block as it's evolved through the ages. Her shambling little comedy never finds a consistent groove, but it's eager to please, and has the ancient gags to do it.
  9. Master of the Flying Guillotine (re-release)
    Needs to be seen to be believed, and even then defies belief.
  10. Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over
    Filled with video-game in-jokes, Spy Kids 3 comes roaring to life in action scenes based on different gaming genres, each of which takes full advantage of the 3-D effects.
  11. The Intouchables
    Sy and Cluzet give their parts more conviction than they deserve, even when the former is forced to re-enact the falsetto-singing-in-the-bubblebath bit from Pretty Woman. But even their energy can't revive a corpse this dead.
  12. Life Partners
    If this all sounds more than a little familiar, it’s probably because similar material about young-ish women growing up and maybe apart has been staged recently and on a variety of scales, from the scrappy intimacy of "Frances Ha" to the broader comedy of "Bridesmaids." Life Partners isn’t as ebullient as the former or laugh-out-loud funny as the latter, but it maintains a sharp specificity about both of its lead characters’ lives.
  13. Thor
    It's a film with its own identity, the simple, thrilling story of a handsome god who falls to Earth and reminds everyone what heroes do.
  14. Permanent Midnight
    The framing device, which has Stiller recounting his tale to a fellow recovering addict (Maria Bello) over the course of a weekend sex session, stops Permanent Midnight dead in its tracks every time it pops up, but Stiller alone is almost enough reason to check out the film.
  15. Me and You
    The movie is an underwhelming coming-of-age fable that skirts around its own lurid undertones.
  16. Roommates
    The trouble is, Roommates‘ emotional realism is so compelling that by the time it decides to swing around to being a full-on black comedy, it’s hard not to feel disappointed by the ending. To be fair, that is the setup promised by the framing device, so the film doesn’t exactly pull a fast one, and the cast is equally committed to the more heightened comedy when it arrives.
  17. Body of Lies
    It's not like the screens are so flooded with decent movies that we couldn't use another, particularly a timely, clear-eyed thriller about the Middle East and the role of the U.S. therein.
  18. The Wedding Guest
    It plays like a compelling, genre-inflected advertisement for the Indian tourism board, even as Winterbottom toils in the country’s seedy underbelly.
  19. Towelhead
    From its title on down, Towelhead alarms and manipulates, and succeeds in goading the audience like a schoolyard bully, but apart from Bishil's harrowing attempts to find herself, the strings stay too visible.
  20. Antlers
    The film’s aspirations to prestige smother its immediacy, the thrills of the genre it’s supposedly occupying. Antlers fancies itself a message movie, but on that front it’s muddled at best.
  21. The Notebook
    Not a shred of human decency is on display in The Notebook, a handsomely made, hard-to-endure World War II parable set in an unnamed Hungarian backwater during the Nazi occupation of 1944.
  22. Teeth
    It's a brilliant concept for a horror movie, not least because the genre is usually so dedicated to male gratification, but the material requires a consistent tone, and first-time director Lichtenstein (son of pop artist Roy) can't quite get a handle on it.
  23. Road House
    It doesn’t have much entertainment value. A by-the-book actioner that’s sunk by indifferent performances, muddled storylines, and stilted dialogue.
  24. The Grand Seduction
    A confused, toothless comedy.
  25. Adult Beginners
    Adult Beginners, by contrast, is mostly just… nice. Neither dramatic enough to qualify as drama nor amusing enough to completely succeed as comedy, it’s the kind of movie that coasts on pleasantness, content to elicit a few smiles before disappearing from memory banks.
  26. Happy Endings
    There aren't a lot of laughs in Happy Endings, and those that sneak in are pretty wry. There's no comedic snap either, and while that seems not to be the point, humor might have helped with the film's often-sluggish pacing.
  27. The Missing Person
    Shannon’s performance takes The Missing Person as far as it goes, but when a real-world tragedy commandeers the story, Buschel’s thin pastiche falls to pieces.
  28. Break Point
    Does a pretty good job at keeping the jokes wry and low-key, with just a few detours into broader, Will Ferrell-ish territory.
  29. The Aviary
    Writer-directors Chris Cullari and Jennifer Raite give us two unreliable narrators to follow on a similar, intertwined path to personal, earth-shattering discovery in The Aviary—and the results make for a visually striking, sonically spooky, and deeply unnerving picture.
  30. 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.
  31. Heaven's Gate
    It's a film of rare beauty and scope, a feast for the eyes and a harrowing, unflinching meditation on the cruelty of capitalism. It rivals William Friedkin's Sorceror in its bone-deep cynicism and eviscerating take on the free market's coal-black heart of darkness.
  32. Encounter
    As the film reveals its intentions around Ahmed’s character, too many scenes rely on superficial dialogue and contrived situations to push the plot along.
  33. The Boys Are Back
    Not surprisingly, Boys works much better as an Owen vehicle than a movie--it’s a great, meaty part in a decidedly less-than-great film.
  34. The Red Violin
    As pleasant stimulation for the eye and ear, it's two hours of sumptuousness, but anyone looking for more won't find it here.
  35. Mr 3000
    Sputtering along on Mac's sleepy improvisations, Mr. 3000 volleys between the dumb, frat-house wackiness of "Major League" and the "Wonder Bat" schmaltz of "The Natural" and "Field Of Dreams," chasing the gags with a lame baseball-as-life message about playing for the right reasons.
  36. 13 Going on 30
    Cheers and many happy returns to Garner as she makes her first starring film role. She's the real deal. But jeers to every other aspect of 13 Going On 30.
  37. Sacrifice
    Chen can't seem to decide whether he's making a fable or something more down-to-earth, but Sacrifice works either way, if not both at once.
  38. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
    A movie like this doesn’t require 30 Rock’s joke density or silly streak, but it’s surprising that Fey and Carlock’s satirical eyes aren’t a little more alert.
  39. Fifty Dead Men Walking
    What makes Fifty Dead Men work is the story’s sheer moral complexity, which dares viewers to sympathize with anyone onscreen for more than a few minutes at a time.
  40. The Broken Hearts Gallery
    For a film about heartbreak, The Broken Hearts Gallery is a bit too glossy for its own good.
  41. Army of the Dead
    In a way, this B-movie on an A budget gets closer to the values of George Romero, the godfather of zombie cinema, than Snyder’s actual, hyper-adrenalized remake of Romero’s masterpiece.
  42. How I Live Now
    Ronan acquits herself nicely. Believable as both a smitten leading lady and a resourceful action heroine, she’s the ideal young-adult starlet — though after this and "The Host," maybe it’s time the actress lent her piercing baby blues to a plain old adult project again.
  43. Kinky Boots
    Kinky Boots doesn't seem to realize that its time came and went long, long ago.
  44. Sushi: The Global Catch
    The documentary Sushi: The Global Catch tries to be two things at once: an international survey of the way sushi is marketed, prepared, and consumed, and an argument for sustainability, particularly with regard to the bluefin tuna population. These threads are related, but one nonetheless takes away from the other.
  45. Our Kind of Traitor
    Director Susanna White, on only her second feature, jazzes up the proceedings to match the skill of actors like McGregor, Harris, and Skarsgård. Most notable is her smart use of cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle.
  46. 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.
  47. Just One of the Guys
    Entertainingly goofy.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Brainstorm
    As provocative as all this is, Trumbull keeps things grounded, interested to an almost baffling degree in the technical and logistical sides of this theoretical technology, as well as the emotional arcs of the humans creating it.
  49. Smart People
    Dennis Quaid could stand in for Jeff Daniels' similarly toxic snob in "The Squid And The Whale," if only he were a little smarter and a little better-dressed.
  50. Candy
    Though it's a well-worn story, Candy does touch on a universal anxiety. For two people basking in the heat of an all-consuming love, what happens when the power gets cut off?
  51. Bad Words
    Even when Bad Words is bad in the wrong way, it tends to be bad in the right way, too.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Natural Selection
    A generous, unguarded performance from Rachael Harris cuts through the cuteness of a quirky premise in Natural Selection.
  53. Uncle Drew
    Look, for a movie based on a soda campaign, Uncle Drew isn’t that bad. It’s got some solid comic alternates.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Katy Perry: Part of Me
    Part Of Me's hybrid format ultimately proves an uneasy marriage, and does a disservice to Perry as both a performer and a human being by never reconciling what happens in the space between those two lives.
  55. The Look of Love
    The movie is a character study in search of a character.
  56. The Newton Boys
    The Newton Boys is Linklater's most conventional film and, despite its numerous flaws, it's not bad.
  57. The Grand
    Typical of bad improv, the inmates take over the asylum, leaving a movie that's little more than a loose, wildly uneven assemblage of individual comedic shtick.
  58. The Forbidden Kingdom
    At best, The Forbidden Kingdom counts as an amiable time-waster for kids, but much more should be expected from the momentous union of two kung-fu titans.
  59. Albert Nobbs
    Say this for Albert Nobbs: It's not some run-of-the-mill "life lived in service" drama.
  60. The Human Stain
    Roth's novel was at heart a howl of rage against a corrupt, hypocritical, judgmental world, but Benton's austere adaptation--stunningly shot by the late Jean-Yves Escoffier--speaks largely in muted tones.
  61. Lights in the Dusk
    Without Kaurismäki to introduce these lonely, forgotten souls to audiences, who's going to be his friend?
  62. The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela
    Queen Raquela's plotty elements don't always work: The acting in the story-driving scenes sometimes comes off as amateurish, and the circumstances that send Rios halfway around the world seem contrived. But de Fleur gets an astonishingly good performance from Stefan C. Schaefer.
  63. Chimpanzee
    It isn't easy to insult the intelligence of preschoolers, but Chimpanzee's insistence on turning the two gangs into the Sharks and the Jets does the job long before Allen lapses into his Home Improvement grunting.
  64. Teen Spirit
    In a film seemingly aimed more at teens than adults, Minghella effectively updates that familiar star-is-born template for an arthouse-minded Instagram generation.
  65. Southpaw
    Physically speaking, the transformation is as impressive as the one Gyllenhaal underwent a year ago to embody the gaunt, wiry sociopath of "Nightcrawler." But was this character, a boxer battling the myriad conventions of his genre, really worth the training regimen that brought him to life?
  66. Instant Family
    Instant Family balances its sitcom tone with some real, unexpected heart.
  67. Extraction 2
    As in Extraction, the action sequences are the whole game here, and they do not disappoint.
  68. Land of Bad
    If you can get through a rough first act, you’ll see both absurd military superheroics and the greatest grocery run ever.
  69. Happy Death Day 2U
    The happy surprise of Happy Death Day 2U is that it does find ways to tweak the formula of its predecessor, to break the cycle of franchise redundancy.
  70. The Secret Life of Bees
    It's pleasant and often touching, and the well-chosen cast sells what little drama they get, but there's no depth and little affect, and every would-be conflict peters out noncommittally.
  71. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
    The problem is that everything fun and resonant about the movie (like a boy whose eye works as a movie projector, unspooling his dreams onto the wall) ends up feeling rather ornamental.
  72. Miss Potter
    "Potter" periodically brings Zellweger's charming drawings to life in elegantly animated sequences that are as delightful and lyrical as the rest of the film is stilted and clumsy.
  73. Easy Money: Hard to Kill
    True to its franchise roots, the film is atmospheric, well acted, and frustratingly intent on draining every last drop of pleasure from the genre-movie conventions it cannibalizes.
  74. Limelight
    As usual, Corben's style is caffeinated and a little rough around the edges, but he's a tenacious journalist, and his yen for sensationalism gives Limelight an irresistible tabloid pop.
  75. Run Ronnie Run
    With its obligatory plot points, character arcs, and forced resolution, the narrative's demands tax Cross and Odenkirk's sensibility by limiting their freedom of movement. Yet even in its current bastardized form, the film still flickers with moments of great inspiration and vitality, providing isolated hints at the groundbreaking comedy that might have been.
  76. Evil Dead
    While Raimi’s Stooges aesthetic — which was really more prominently displayed in the sequels than in 1981’s The Evil Dead — isn’t played up here, there’s enough outrageous unreality to make the brutality go down a little easier. It isn’t quite a cartoon, but it’s close enough.
  77. In the Name of My Daughter
    Like any good prosecutor, Téchiné gives us enough information to render a verdict without bullying us into agreement. His gift to his viewers is the space to think for ourselves.
  78. Thor: Love and Thunder
    Even with Ragnarok looming large in this film’s rearview mirror, Waititi’s work here marks an important and exciting untethering of MCU films from their obligations to a larger mythology—even if this one almost certainly carries much significance for the future.
  79. Madagascar
    The tenor can be shrill, but there's no time to get bored. And on top of that, most of the gags actually work.
  80. The Burnt Orange Heresy
    In short, this is fundamentally a movie of surface pleasures, placing gorgeous actors in an equally stunning location and letting them parry with sharp words and lithe, angular bodies.
  81. Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay
    The big payoff, of course, is Neil Patrick Harris reprising his role as "Neil Patrick Harris."
  82. City of Ghosts
    Has enough atmosphere for three films, enough colorful grotesques for several more, and not enough of a script for one.
  83. My Life Without Me
    Asks for sympathy for deplorable behavior.
  84. Saints and Sinners
    While Saints And Sinners will strike some as a refreshingly even-toned social study, it's also a documentary heavy on talking heads and low on real drama. It's beautifully shot and deeply felt, but, for the most part, hearing a description of the film is as good as watching it.
  85. Amen.
    Amen should be a powderkeg of a movie, yet the urgency and force that defined Costa-Gavras' earlier work has been drained away, along with his invigorating newsreel craft.
  86. Code 46
    Though Robbins acts a little stiff, Morton remains stunning throughout, playing a mixture of her wide-eyed, deeply sensitive characters from "Morvern Callar" and "Minority Report." She suggests worlds within worlds.
  87. Catching Out
    Catching Out could stand to be half an hour longer, which speaks to both its scruffy charm and its frustrating inability to dig beneath the surface.
  88. Red Betsy
    Though Burmester and Elliott make able sparring partners, Red Betsy literally succumbs to an on-the-nose staging of Charles Dickens' “A Christmas Carol,” with the old man cast as the model for Scrooge in a school play.
  89. Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land
    The main problem with The Promised Land is that Jhally and Ratzkoff are eager to foster dissent, but not to invite it into their own movie. Their talking heads sound rehearsed and repetitive, and the righteous anger dissipates without a contrary opinion to provide a ceiling.
  90. Yat luk che
    Fantasy sequences in which Yu and his friends are thrown into the world of a '70s kung-fu film or melodrama seem like a clever way to evoke the period and bring their story to another plane, but they just end up looking cheesy, spoiled by half-executed effects. "Goodbye, Dragon Inn" this ain't.
  91. Derailroaded
    Having a Rutgers psychology professor comment on Fischer's general symptoms is downright amateurish. In a documentary about a living subject, conclusions are better drawn through rigorous observation, not explained away in some tidy pop-psychological portraiture.
  92. Sixty Six
    The movie's climax is enough to provoke genuine tears, and not just from fans of the West Germany squad.
  93. Daydream Nation
    It's a film about teen angst that's too caught up in its characters' state of mind to see its way through to the other side.
  94. The Maze Runner
    If you’re going to treat your audience like a rat in a maze, it’s best to offer a tastier reward than the promise of more maze to come.
  95. Band of Robbers
    There’s an element of parlor trickery here that the movie’s never entirely able to overcome.
  96. Klown Forever
    On Curb, it’s Larry David’s neuroses that drive his frequent public humiliation. In Klown, the problem is more that Casper and Frank can’t keep it in their pants.
  97. Iron Man 2
    The primary challenge for all blockbuster franchises is to be big yet fleet. Iron Man is as good as model as any, thanks largely to Robert Downey Jr.’s flamboyantly narcissistic Tony Stark and filmmakers that valued pacing and character as much as superhero hardware.
  98. Our Friend
    It’s sweet and involving and occasionally even moving, but also, in its selective dramatization, a lot easier. Which is to say, it approaches the story itself rather euphemistically, handling the audience with kid gloves by eliding the most unpleasant truths of the family’s experience.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Baby Ruby
    Despite some unevenness, Baby Ruby is a fervently uncomfortable and aesthetically compelling depiction of new motherhood, an unsettling horror exploration buoyed by strange imagery and a no-holds-barred lead performance from Noémie Merlant.
  100. John Rabe
    In spite of a subtle performance by Ulrich Tukur in the eponymous role, Gallenberger’s film feels labored and emotionally disengaged, an autumn-hued history lesson that’s as studiously reserved as its steel-spined subject.
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