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. 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.
  2. Adrift
    Given the sweetly dull-witted relationship at its center, Adrift threatens to bog itself down with the endless intercutting back and forth in time. But the movie has a little more up its sleeves, narratively speaking, than first appears, and Kormákur converges the two timelines effectively.
  3. Fever Pitch
    Barrymore has rarely been so bright and effortlessly charming, but it's all lost on Fallon, who often resembles one of those unfortunate SNL guests who freeze up on live TV, completely out of their element. If Fallon wants a life after SNL, he might want to try another medium.
  4. In the Land of Blood and Honey
    It's a film of shuddering earnestness and fevered good intentions gone awry, a dreary slog of a message movie with little but noble if unfulfilled aspirations to commend it.
  5. Monster
    There’s plenty of complexity to be mined from a scenario in which perception carries more weight than the truth, but director Anthony Mandler, a music video and commercial veteran making his feature debut, takes a broad-strokes approach to Steve’s plight.
  6. Winter Passing
    Winter Passing is full of nice dramatic turns, including one from relative-unknown Amelia Warner as Harris' former student-turned-nanny (and possible lover). What Winter Passing lacks, however, is a reason to exist other than as a dramatic exercise.
  7. Tag
    There’s something mildly depressing about viewing petty gamesmanship as the engine that fuels and sustains male friendship. But funny is funny, and Tag gets by, appropriately enough, on the personalities of its stars.
  8. 13 Ghosts
    What Castle’s films lack in originality, they make up for in carnival energy and an eagerness to please.
  9. Across the Universe
    It's all very clever and thought-through, but all the allusions don't much bolster the bland central romance or the paper-thin treatment of '60s social issues.
  10. Harsh Times
    Ayer gets lost in a maze of ironies, and has to bulldoze his way to an exit. For a while, Harsh Times is thrillingly hard to predict. By the end, it becomes all too easy.
  11. Jackass 3-D
    It's easily the most painful comedy of the year; in the sadomasochistic world of Knoxville and friends, that isn't criticism so much as high praise.
  12. Human Nature
    Nature lacks a little of Malkovich's freshness, but that's just about all it lacks.
  13. How Stella Got Her Groove Back
    A glossy, attractive, ultimately empty soap opera that -- despite being based on a true story -- never seems remotely plausible.
  14. A Dirty Shame
    Embracing ugliness, lousy production values, and borderline hysteria as virtues, A Dirty Shame is one for the cultists, a proud retreat back into the sandbox of sexual juvenilia, a potty-mouthed manifesto from an elder statesman of shock.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Return to Paradise
    Although Vaughn and Heche do a decent job in standard roles, the movie bogs itself down with enough silly plot twists and subplots to effectively dilute the viewers' interest.
  16. Capital
    The imagery is cliché, and therefore ineffective; the characters don’t seem to operate in the world of finance, but in the world of financial thrillers.
  17. a-ha: the Movie
    It’s a compelling tale of three perfectionists who consider music to be their bond, but don’t work together very well unless they have to.
  18. Transporter 2
    Chucks the laws of logic and physics out the passenger's-side window, and it's all the better for it.
  19. Million Dollar Arm
    Million Dollar Arm is the kind of sports movie that crams everything subject-specific into quick-cut montages to make room for maudlin drama and fish-out-of-water comedy — a baseball flick where no one is actually shown playing baseball.
  20. Mimic
    The latter half, set in the less visited parts of New York's subway system, bogs down considerably, abandoning its hybrid approach and becoming content to simply clone Aliens.
  21. After Blue (Dirty Paradise)
    It’s a film that is functioning on a very specific artistic wavelength that requires one to buy into it completely in order to fully appreciate its delights. Whether that specific frequency is too obtuse for all but the most hardcore enthusiasts for ’70s sci-fi is up for debate, but the curious would best be served to experience this strange new world for themselves.
  22. American Violet
    It’s hard not to get swept up by the film's progressive zeal, but Disney doesn’t allow for much grey area.
  23. God Bless America
    The key point about God Bless America is that it's extreme but not exaggerated, a dark comedy that indulges - and questions - a violent, misanthropic fantasy about laying waste to the cultural landscape while staying grounded in a recognizable reality.
  24. Three Stars
    Three Stars works best as straight-up food-porn.
  25. L for Leisure
    At certain point, whether all of this is purposefully awkward becomes almost irrelevant: The non sequitur vignettes are often hilarious either way, and the film gains an oddly agreeable rhythm.
  26. Religulous
    Maher's too smart to make a movie this dumb.
  27. Jumping the Broom
    While Broom largely isn't a broad comedy, it still rarely goes for restraint in anything but tone.
  28. Ironweed
    Ironweed asks a lot with its 140-plus minutes of low-key suffering. It feels long, in part because not a lot happens from a plot perspective. Still, its strongest moments linger.
  29. The Family Stone
    Most of it falls on Bezucha, not just for devising these monstrously cruel characters, but for putting them in situations that are far too serious to be resolved by Christmas morning. When the melodrama gets too intense, the film collapses in slapstick.
  30. The Glass Castle
    While it’s understandable that Walls might not want to linger on the more grim aspects of her childhood, Cretton’s decision to pull punches on those exact moments takes what could be a powerful tale of resilience and forgiveness and spins it into just another piece of Hollywood feel-good fluff.
  31. Sonic the Hedgehog 3
    Sonic The Hedgehog 3 lets its animated heroes shine. There’s less “live” in this impressively blended live-action movie, which is not a detriment.
  32. Genius
    Genius may eventually be a little too comfortable with its own formula (unsurprising, considering its full-throated endorsement of Perkins’ traditionalist mien), but in its early going, it captures a little bit of the magic of artistic creation.
  33. The Crazies
    The crazies themselves could be a lot more terrifying. Without the rotting ickiness of proper zombies, they just seem like methed-out Iowans looking for a fix. That’s scary, but not scary enough.
  34. Adam
    Dancy’s character has difficulty processing information and dealing with emotion, but even he could probably see through this schmaltz.
  35. Eleven Minutes
    What's most striking about Eleven Minutes is the sheer amount of effort that goes into a show of that magnitude, quite apart from work involved in designing and executing a coherent, commercially viable line.
  36. Cabin Fever
    A refreshingly old-fashioned splatter movie.
  37. I'll Sleep When I'm Dead
    At times, this makes the film easier to appreciate than it is to watch: The story is perfectly clear, but the film's style takes its cues from the characters' oblique emotions in a way designed to freeze viewers out.
  38. The Cut
    The director’s assured tracking shots follow Nazaret through one bustling, disorienting locale after another as he searches for help, family, and relief from his hardship. Yet like the film, they’re ultimately superficial gestures that maintain a detached perspective on their subject, incapable of penetrating his traumatized mind and tormented heart.
  39. Radioactive
    The problem with films like Radioactive is that they neither fulfill the biography’s basic duty of elucidating the life and times of the subject nor offer a compelling artistic vision or drama as a substitute for the hard facts.
  40. Flesh+Blood
    Though Flesh + Blood tells a terrific story, written by Verhoeven with his longtime collaborator Gerard Soeteman, the presentation is rough, and not just because the film is packed with gore and rape. Verhoeven doesn't believe in tasteful framing that implies nudity; he prefers the bare-assed variety, the kind that makes the body's frailty plain.
  41. Race
    The rest of Race has other moments of engagement in a slickly produced and watchable package. But ultimately, it offers history told as a series of passing anecdotes.
  42. Our Time
    However truthful or invented Our Time may be, its dynamic is tiresomely petty and small, resisting Reygadas’ occasional efforts at expressionism. It plays like therapy.
  43. The End of Love
    Shot with tiny digital cameras to minimize the sense of intrusion, The End Of Love sometimes feels like a home movie, but that’s also the source of its strength.
  44. Old Man
    While still recommendable for Stephen Lang’s compelling eccentricities, Old Man bears that endorsement with a major caveat for surviving almost solely on that offbeat charisma.
  45. On the Road
    Since there's no plot, just a series of anecdotes, much of the meaning in the movie version of On The Road is meta-textual, relying on the viewers' knowledge of who Kerouac was, and how the novel's vision of America differed from how most of the rest of popular culture documented the '50s.
  46. You're Not You
    Here’s the frustrating thing about You’re Not You: Wolfe clearly knows what he’s doing and has the actors to pull it off, but he’s tasteful to a fault. Great melodramas achieve the sublime by risking ridicule, something which You’re Not You does only once.
  47. The Details
    The lone standout is Linney's performance as the deranged neighbor, whose erratic combination of sexual desperation and extreme vulnerability keeps the film on life support.
  48. Nightbitch
    While Nightbitch certainly achieves relatability, it also presents a generic treatise on womanhood that reinforces more gendered conventions than it refutes.
  49. Watchmen
    Snyder's Watchmen keeps moving so assuredly, it's nearly impossible not to get swept along.
  50. The Omega Man
    If nothing else, The Omega Man remains worth seeing for its remarkable shots of Heston wandering through an abandoned metropolis.
  51. Saints and Soldiers
    Too often, Saints And Soldiers confuses bravery for faith.
  52. The Chorus
    The Chorus plucks desperately at the heartstrings, but fails to breathe new life into a tired old tune.
  53. Deadpool & Wolverine
    The result is lingering and unsatisfying uncertainty over whether this is a standalone novelty, a multiversal course correction, or a genuine send-off. Even its satire feels micromanaged. Wade Wilson can still bounce back with ease, but even in its diminished state, superhero bullshit remains a formidable foe.
  54. Lords of Dogtown
    It's no surprise that when it ultimately tries to pluck at the heartstrings, it rings hollow. The film lives and dies by speed.
  55. Diary of a Wimpy Kid
    For all its ridiculousness, its enthusiastic comic excess, and its fart/booger/gross-out jokes, Diary Of A Wimpy Kid's heart is firmly in the right place.
  56. Focus
    On the most basic level, the con-artist romance Focus is a Cary Grant movie in the "North By Northwest" or "Charade" mold.
  57. Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky
    The movie's saving grace is its performances.
  58. How to Eat Fried Worms
    There's no great art to Fried Worms' simple, family-friendly style and obvious clichés, but there's a refreshing lack of x-treme attitude, slapstick violence, and all the other things that make most kids' movies feel like they were generated by a marketing committee.
  59. Miami Connection (1987)
    Hits the sweet spot between stunning ineptitude, hilariously dated period touchstones, and a touching naïveté that gives it an odd distinction. As with the other so-bad-it's-good sensations that have toured the midnight circuit over the last few years - "The Room," "Birdemic," "Troll 2" - its awkwardness comes partly from a foreign-born auteur making an American film, and the culture clash plays out for all to see.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The Wizard of the Kremlin
    It doesn’t make for a very serious look at decades of history, but The Wizard Of The Kremlin isn’t attempting to nail down a Russian reality any more than it is trying to directly tie its observations to modern America. It’s in its observation of hyperreality in action, its bleak look at constructed chaos, that the film inevitably feels close to home.
  61. Leatherheads
    Too much of Leatherheads feels like studied motions, and its charms never plaster over a story that takes forever to get going, and doesn't go too far once it does.
  62. Paper Towns
    While director Jake Shreier (Robot & Frank) doesn’t do a whole lot with the camera besides make sure that there are people in the frame, he does manage to provoke strong performances from Wolff—who looks kind of like a young Dustin Hoffman, but stretched out like a piece of taffy—and the young supporting cast.
  63. The Cherry Orchard
    Cacoyannis errs on the side of genteel respectability, sacrificing emotion and verve at the altar of good taste.
  64. Once Upon a Time in Mexico
    An overstuffed would-be epic.
  65. Antibirth
    Thankfully, what it does have is Natasha Lyonne, who almost singlehandedly keeps this misconceived endeavor afloat, or at least not actively unwatchable.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Hocus Pocus 2
    Hocus Pocus 2 (minus one shoulder shrug of a musical number) uses the franchise’s witchcraft and world-building to earnestly explore timely themes of identity and inclusivity, for a follow-up that fans may begrudgingly concede is better than the original.
  67. Hyena
    A few dreamy interludes aside, the film’s tone is cool, dispassionate, and matter-of-fact. All that’s missing is a reason to give a damn.
  68. Making Grace
    Undemanding, upscale, and agreeable enough in a low-key kind of way. It's a film of subtle, ingratiating charm rather than explosive revelations.
  69. The Fate of the Furious
    More so than in any of the other movies, Dom’s wrecking crew of car nuts comes across like survival-of-the-speediest tacho-fascists, high-fiving their way through a path of destruction and to a collateral death toll that one presumes now numbers in the hundreds.
  70. It's All Gone Pete Tong
    If only any of it were funny.
  71. Girls Just Want to Have Fun
    I discovered that not only is Girls Just Want To Have Fun a delightful party of a movie, it’s an absolutely bonkers party, like someone dosed the punch with ecstasy and mushrooms.
  72. Non-Stop
    Part locked-room mystery, part political allegory, Non-Stop is one of the most purely enjoyable entries in the ongoing cycle of Liam Neeson action-thrillers.
  73. Extreme Measures
    While Extreme Measures is competently directed by Michael Apted, and is never really boring, it's nothing we haven't seen before. And though it attempts to make an important point about the value of life, by the end viewers will only be reminded that they are two fruitless hours closer to the grave.
  74. Coastlines
    That love triangle is Coastlines' center. Trouble is, it plays more like canned heat than blazing inferno.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Little Accidents
    There’s nothing here that Green or his own cinematic forebear, Terrence Malick, haven’t done better elsewhere.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    DC League of Super-Pets
    Co-writing with John Whittington, director Jared Stern pulls off a near-impossible feat—creating a film that’s great for kids, entertaining for pretty much any adult taking kids to the theater, and close to perfect for those parents out there who also happen to be massive DC fans.
  77. Decoding Annie Parker
    As hackneyed as the movie’s portrayal of Parker’s life might be, it seems subtly shaded in comparison to the King narrative, which mostly consists of people in lab coats saying things aloud that they should already know, using easy-to-follow metaphors while pointing to a conveniently posted chart or diagram.
  78. Storks
    This is a lot of plot for a movie that endeavors primarily to entertain children, though the excess is more likely to give adults a headache.
  79. Valkyrie
    Bryan Singer’s solid direction and some flavorful supporting performances from the dependable likes of Bill Nighy, Eddie Izzard, and Tom Wilkinson keep Valkyrie within the realm of handsome mediocrity.
  80. Douchebag
    At 70 minutes, Douchebag feels both rushed and way too slack, but the bigger problem is that the kind of characters and humor this movie traffics in can be found in a more compact, amusing package on the average FX show.
  81. Don't Be Afraid of the Dark
    Absent any qualities beyond the surface, like the history and politics that trouble Del Toro's best films, Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark is little better than a half-decent scare machine.
  82. Drive-Away Dolls
    Cooke and Coen manage to make a movie whose only virtue is reminding people of other better films they liked decades ago. There is not enough substance nor laughs to make Drive-Away Dolls anything more than instantly forgotten.
  83. Date Night
    There’s something genuine and more than a little sad at the core of Levy’s poorly staged, modestly amusing comedy, but it isn’t the part that involves flash drives, blackmail, and glowering, gun-toting bad guys.
  84. The DUFF
    A better question to ask about this movie, however, is “What is up with the writers of teen movies and their obsession with name-checking apps, an approach that all but guarantees that the film will be dated by the time it hits Netflix?”
  85. Loro
    Servillo—who previously embodied another former Italian prime minister, Giulio Andreotti, in Sorrentino’s Il Divo—never fails to deliver a memorably offbeat take on an outsize figure. Loro loses a bit of momentum once Berlusconi finally becomes its central figure, but it also gains some much-needed complexity.
  86. French Exit
    The film’s artificial, stylized remove—what might be called his current style, a kind of half-ironic, half-romantic wooziness—seems an odd landing point for the scrappy DIY filmmaker behind Momma’s Man and the genuinely touching and hilarious Terri, which DeWitt also wrote and which was so human it hurt.
  87. Stupid Boy
    The real struggle here isn't so much Chatagny's slow emergence into maturity as Lionel Baier's directorial struggle to balance artful and erotic elements.
  88. Where's the Party Yaar?
    Though harmless and reasonably good-natured, Where's The Party Yaar? ("yaar" translates as "dude") doesn't add many novel touches to its predictable formula, except for a couple of limp nods to Bollywood song-and-dance numbers.
  89. Sylvia
    In spite of Frieda Hughes' objections, a few snippets of Plath's poetry slip into Sylvia, but they don't do the movie any favors--they just add more weight to a story that already buckles at the knees.
  90. Danny Deckchair
    Best known for "Notting Hill," Ifans remains a charming actor, but even his fine work can't get this lead zeppelin off the ground.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Wagner & Me
    Fry is Jewish, and his wrestling with what it means to venerate the music of someone who wrote of his revulsion for Jews adds a fascinating personal angle to this otherwise dry film.
  92. Hellraiser
    Pinhead barely appears in Hellraiser, a film that, with its intense and uncomfortable family drama, might have even worked without him. With him, however, it becomes one of the most innovative and memorable horror films of the '80s.
  93. Forbidden Fruits
    If you don’t worry about the story and just immerse yourself in the gags, Alloway’s film is a must-watch for the Venn diagram overlap between Shudder subscribers and the slumber party crowd.
  94. The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
    While The Man From U.N.C.L.E. probably isn’t any less of a caricature of its period than "Sherlock Holmes," it carries its fakeness with more snap in its step. The imaginary intrigue it generates is fleeting, but often beautiful.
  95. The Brave One
    The moody tone and carefully balanced drama turn a grubby premise into something unexpectedly elegant.
  96. Wolf Creek
    Wolf Creek is the kind of well-executed sleazefest that makes audiences feel not just creeped-out but downright dirty, as if it would take a three-hour-long shower just to wash all the grit and grease away.
  97. 39 Pounds of Love
    As documentary drama, 39 Pounds Of Love is as ungainly, blunt, and icky as its title.
  98. Minions
    Minions has idiosyncratic roots, but it’s a franchise play all the way. Finally, even 5-year-olds have their own movie that mechanically cashes in on something they loved when they were younger.
  99. Real Steel
    Real Steel falls somewhere near the intersection of elation and shame, essentially reworking the Sylvester Stallone arm-wrestling non-classic "Over The Top" for the equally ridiculous sport of android fisticuffs, and mostly getting away with it.
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