The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 10,411 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: 5,570 out of 10411
  2. Mixed: 3,735 out of 10411
  3. Negative: 1,106 out of 10411
10411 movie reviews
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    • 42 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    The People We Hate at the Wedding
    This slog of a film will have you checking your watch, wishing for an open bar, and begging for the sparkler sendoff.
  2. Poker Face
    When the entire theme is about misdirection, then yes, assessing how enjoyable the swerves and bluffs are, both narratively and conceptually, feels entirely appropriate. And they all too often feel like letdowns.
  3. 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
  4. A Christmas Story Christmas
    The result is something that, while never reaching the ineffable magic of Clark’s film, ends up in solidly entertaining, if slightly disjointed, holiday territory.
  5. Slumberland
    Playing like an amalgam of Monsters, Inc. and Inception, this family-friendly fantasy thankfully doesn’t put audiences to sleep, but neither does it draw us into its dreamy sensation.
  6. Falling for Christmas
    It’s silly, sitcom-y, and impossible to call “good,” but Falling For Christmas is the kind of bad that feels almost appealing.
  7. The Fabelmans
    The Fabelmans is a measured and incredibly intimate look at Spielberg’s upbringing as he developed his aptitude for storytelling through a medium that mesmerized him since the night he went to see The Greatest Show On Earth as a child. It also spotlights cinema as an extraordinary device that not only unveils powerful truths, but often shapes them as well.
  8. 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.
  9. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
    Is this massively ambitious, unfairly burdened sequel as good as Black Panther? Definitely not—and it probably could never have been. But in a mythology where death is more often used as a narrative device than a true measure of loss, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever magnifies the truth that the title character’s world will endure, even if he doesn’t—and there are at least as many lessons to extract from his absence.
  10. 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.
  11. The Estate
    The execution is where it’s lacking: the wit, the timing, the headlong comic drive, and the ability to make us laugh at actions and dialogue that, in any other context, would be rude or distasteful.
  12. Next Exit
    In the end, one’s assessment and enjoyment of Next Exit rests less in its treatment of the more conjectural elements of its story, and more in its sensitive and sympathetic rendering of decidedly Earthbound, day-to-day messiness. Maybe the exit isn’t what we should be looking for, in other words.
  13. 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.
  14. Salvatore: Shoemaker of Dreams
    Guadagnino’s documentary is very much like walking through an immersive and interactive museum designed to make one feel nostalgic for a bygone era of art and craft. It’s magical stuff.
  15. The Wonder
    Thanks to a typically mesmerizing leading turn from Florence Pugh, it’s a film that can hold up a mirror to believers and nonbelievers alike as the best stories of faith do.
  16. I'm Totally Fine
    It’s a movie that purports to root itself in grief, but instead wraps itself in such a cloak of wispy, noncommittal vagueness that virtually everything about it dissipates on contact.
  17. Causeway
    Other than the pair of outstanding lead performances, there really isn’t much cause to watch it.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Enola Holmes 2
    The true joy of both Enola Holmes films is in the actors’ performances and the humanity they bring to the characters.
  19. Nocebo
    The “mystery” elements simply aren’t mysterious. Yet without them, the sparse moments of gore and icky bugs aren’t quite enough to pad things out.
  20. Prey for the Devil
    The most frustrating thing about Prey For The Devil is that there seems to be a good movie somewhere in this patchwork of themes and pastiches.
  21. Run Sweetheart Run
    Keeping audiences at a distance—watching and empathizing with Cherie, but never building suspense regarding her survival—Run Sweetheart Run loses its breath long before Cherie’s story arrives at its ludicrous conclusion.
  22. Armageddon Time
    It asks more questions than it answers, and doesn’t let anybody off the hook. It’s also a great movie for anyone who grew up in New York City area in 1980, with the right needle drops and art direction. This is James Gray’s eighth feature and, in the end, his simplest. It may also be his best.
  23. Call Jane
    Call Jane is a feminist work told with straight-arrow purpose. It assumes that the slightest melodrama would devalue the sacrifices these women made and the community they created. If that’s a miscalculation, the movie is still effective and enlightening—and a worthy companion to 2022’s The Janes, an excellent nonfiction documentary on this remarkable cooperative.
  24. All Quiet on the Western Front
    This is a film about the boys who don’t come home, and its story proves both deeply affecting—and surprisingly timeless.
  25. Wendell & Wild
    Selick and Peele operate a bit at cross purposes in Wendell & Wild. The genius visualist wants to haunt our dreams. The socially engaged provocateur wants to haunt our troubled collective realities. Whatever doesn’t quite mesh in their collaboration is easier to forgive when feasting upon such extraordinary sights.
  26. The Banshees of Inisherin
    Writer-director Martin McDonagh’s soulful masterpiece offers a a windswept elegy on a camaraderie that has reached its inexplicable expiration, as well as melancholic rumination on mortality.
  27. Ticket to Paradise
    It’s as if everyone made this movie about the joy of being on vacation—while also taking one.
  28. My Policeman
    Instead of a classic tragic romance, it ends up being a turgid, airless concoction. Styles’ fans might find something to admire since they’ll get to gaze at their idol. But the rest of us should avoid looking.
  29. 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.
  30. The School for Good and Evil
    Fans of Chainani’s books may relish seeing his inventiveness and heartfelt storytelling on a (green) screen. If only Feig had the latitude to prioritize his actors, rather than his VFX team, as those storytellers.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Black Adam
    There’s a good movie, at times, a really good movie, hiding out in all the soulless clutter of Black Adam’s plot. Unfortunately, all the considerable talents here struggle to deliver it.
  32. 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.
  33. Aftersun
    Despite Wells’ confidence as a filmmaker, Aftersun still succumbs to the predictable traps of films about childhood memories. Every small incident is presented as a big momentous event. That may be true from a child’s perspective, yet it still makes this narrative feel more formulaic than organic. Consequently, few of these beats feel revelatory to the audience, even when they are affecting.
  34. Stars at Noon
    An occasionally seductive but muddled examination of a complex physical and emotional relationship.
  35. The Curse of Bridge Hollow
    Watching it feels like attending a Halloween party and never striking up a conversation with anyone; you can only look at the decorations for so long before getting bored.
  36. Halloween Ends
    Halloween Ends is almost passable as a nondescript sequel—a little blood pumped into the carcass of an indefatigable slab of intellectual property. But for somebody who has fought and lost and survived for so many years, it’s less vital a finale than Laurie Strode deserves.
  37. Rosaline
    Dever is as excellent as ever as the acerbic, quick-witted, jilted ex. She coaxes the hilariousness and heartbreak out of each scene with ease and authenticity.
  38. Till
    Wherever Chukwu places her camera, Deadwyler’s face makes us understand not just what Mamie is going through but rather the reality of what this country does to its Black citizens. It’s a performance of quiet strength and loud emotion, though Deadwyler is never loud or histrionic. She just simmers with profound pain.
  39. Decision to Leave
    The South Korean director, working at the top of his game, drops tantalizing clues that are best analyzed in multiple viewings which, it can be reported from first-hand experience, will be very helpful.
  40. Spirit Halloween: The Movie
    It’s just so embarrassingly thin. The few chuckles are all the more depressing when you realize that this could have been a winner with a clever screenwriter and a competent director.
  41. Piggy
    As much as Piggy certainly has points to make about passive-aggressive status quo maintenance versus open violence, it unabashedly delivers enough terror, tension, and gore before it’s done.
  42. 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.
  43. Triangle of Sadness
    It’s a stellar film that hits a rare sweet spot as both mainstream, accessible entertainment, and also an undeniably incisive piece of cultural commentary. And best of all, it will keep you on your toes until the sensational final moment of its breezy drift.
  44. Luckiest Girl Alive
    The unquestionably well-intentioned and obviously deeply personal Luckiest Girl Alive would benefit from more mature guidance.
  45. Significant Other
    At the halfway mark, a little spice gets shaken into the otherwise thin soup. It’s still far from a must-see, but there are rewards for those who stick to the end.
  46. TÁR
    After an exhilarating 157 minutes, its grip feels less like a quagmire than a beautifully unanswered question—a symphony we’ve been equipped to understand, but which refuses to supply a definitive interpretation.
  47. Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile
    The result is a movie likely to appeal as much to anyone who enjoys pop-scored animal hijinks on TikTok as to anyone who actually remembers the books.
  48. Hellraiser
    Bruckner, Collins, and Piotrowski plant their vision in fields that are no less rich, terrifying, or gorily violent than the hellbound story that started it all.
  49. Mr. Harrigan's Phone
    Though its narrative contains some subtleties, and Hancock’s aesthetic polish gives it a nice gloss, the picture’s pacing and character-driven momentum frequently sputters, ultimately leading to diminished results.
  50. God's Creatures
    Two powerful moments punctuate this film’s conclusion: one abrupt and unambiguous, one mournful and contemplative. Crowley’s story ultimately shifts to a perspective Hollywood stories don’t often empathize with, hinting at a breaking of cycles, a kind of triumph in the face of both man and nature’s adversity.
  51. Dead for A Dollar
    Ultimately, Hill performs his duties like a man for hire in Dead For A Dollar, much like Max Borland is a man for hire down in Mexico.
  52. 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.
  53. Amsterdam
    Amsterdam is not a great movie by any shakes, although it looks terrific and all of the performances . . . are energetic, entertaining, and enjoyable.
  54. 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.
  55. The Good House
    Weaver is so forceful and present she can plow through the movie’s flaws until we fail to notice them. For a film about denial, that sounds about right.
    • 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.
  57. Smile
    It’s obvious that Finn draws heavily from his own favorites, but Smile suggests that their skill and effectiveness have successfully been passed along to him.
  58. The Greatest Beer Run Ever
    The arguments presented by the characters on each side are broad and reductive. There’s no nuance and no original thoughts. The information is obvious and presented at its least confrontational. It’s a scene meant to depict the moral dilemma at the center of its story, and it ends up being ridiculous.
  59. Bros
    Bros is an excellent comedy, both as an expression of classical romance on screen, and one of a queerer, more diverse variety.
  60. 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.
  61. Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon
    It’s less a story of the supernatural than one about a party on the wrong side of town, with hints of danger, interesting strangers to meet, and an overall cool vibe that even lingers the morning after.
  62. 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.
  63. Lou
    In Janney’s capable hands, our heroine is fully fleshed out, yet lean with more gristle on the bone than meat. She delivers zingy one-liners as well as she does a knock-out punch. Her refreshing spin on this archetype, blending masculine bravado and bluster with feminine wit and wisdom, elevates the spartan material.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The Infernal Machine
    Hunt and his very game cast work together to settle on something more watchable, but ultimately not memorable or necessary.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Sidney
    In the end, Sidney is informative—it’s exciting to hear from him and from those who loved him, and from some of the people he influenced. But as evidenced by his two memoirs, This Life (1980) and Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography (2000), there’s much more in Poitier’s life and legacy that this documentary fails to explore.
  66. Meet Cute
    There aren’t any clever moments, just a parade of clichés you’ve seen in many other indie romances.
  67. Catherine Called Birdy
    Dunham has taken her oft-articulated concerns about women’s empowerment and self-determination and transported them to 13th-century England in Catherine Called Birdy, a charming, clever, and altogether delicious comeback film that redefines Dunham in a way that just recently seemed unlikely.
  68. Jane
    Jaglom doesn’t ratchet up enough tension for Jane to work as a nail-biter and once the catfight in the pool begins, the film forfeits all claims of being any sort of exploration of trauma. So we’re left with a slow burn thriller where complicated YA issues and vengeful social media posts make for a less than potent mix.
  69. Goodnight Mommy
    The original Austrian film had shock value and genuine, gruesome horror. This new Americanized version sands the edges off of the narrative every chance it gets.
  70. Blank
    When the all-important moment of catharsis that every good scary movie requires comes around, it’s palpable. But writers, and other creative types, just might feel it a little bit extra.
  71. Blonde
    What Ana de Armas does in Blonde is nothing short of transformative, but unfortunately, the film will likely do little to change the way people see Marilyn Monroe—once again, a victim of people doing what they think is best for her, perhaps with consent but certainly not enough consideration.
  72. Dig
    The goal of a movie like Dig ought to be simple: keep ratcheting up the tension to the point that when our main character(s) finally turn the tables, it’s hugely cathartic. Unfortunately, the “ratcheting” part is where Dig fails to hit paydirt.
  73. Do Revenge
    While there are major missteps, overall its bright, spirited attitude and attractive, propulsive gusto power a delightfully wicked journey.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Pearl
    Unlike X’s dusty fun, a melancholy atmosphere looms over the carnage, all underscored by West’s fascination with the tragic ends that come from building future hopes upon the shakiest present realities. If only more horror movies dared to dream as big with such emotionally charged results.
    • 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.
  76. 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.
  77. The Woman King
    Prince-Bythewood, whose Beyond The Lights is one of the most overlooked movies of the last decade, has created a vision of historical Africa that has truly never been seen in a mainstream American movie. For that alone, she deserves a crown.
  78. God's Country
    A lyrical character study inside a quasi-Western thriller, God’s Country features a never-better Thandiwe Newton embodying that ethical struggle to haunting, unsettling effect.
  79. 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.
  80. The Retaliators
    The film teases us with hat-tips and in-jokes and then pushes them aside to become an ungainly horror mashup that works in pieces, most notably during its climatic free-for-all, but not as a whole. In The Retaliators, the storylines fly in as many directions as the blood.
  81. Clerks III
    Ultimately, the absence of any meaningful sentiment about grief or personal growth (or anything else) makes the story’s maddening, rote familiarity feel especially lazy—which is why Clerks III lives up to the legacy of its uninspired characters in all of the wrong ways.
  82. Moonage Daydream
    If there’s a message at all in Moonage Daydream, it is secondary to the experiential nature of the movie. That’s hardly a knock. One goes to a concert to be thrilled, not necessarily to gather life lessons. Leave that sort of thing for the other, lesser documentaries.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    End of the Road
    Director Millicent Shelton, a veteran of dozens of music videos and television shows (including two episodes of Latifah’s series Star), wisely builds tension while exploring their family dynamic, and then stomps on the gas to bring it all home.
  84. 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.
  85. Pinocchio
    Far be it from us to actively reveal what scuttles Zemeckis’ film, but let’s just say that it seems like the people who made its biggest creative choices have more wood for brains than the character they brought to life.
  86. Barbarian
    Cregger delivers an absolutely stunning addition to the horror canon. Barbarian is a twisted little film, a descent into a hell that is so achingly human that it loops back around as a funhouse reflection.
  87. House of Darkness
    Ultimately, House Of Darkness exists in a strange and equally fatal no man’s land of being simultaneously under- and overwritten. As a feature film, it’s entirely insubstantial, with a premise better served in short form as part of an anthology.
  88. Don't Worry Darling
    Perhaps the chief deficit of Don’t Worry Darling isn’t even predictability, but a discernible lack of new ideas of its own.
  89. Medieval
    Jákl’s film is precisely as generic as its title would suggest, and what little there is to recommend is buried under a mountain of tedium
    • 50 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Love in the Villa
    Admittedly, this film is to romantic comedies what Olive Garden is to Italian cuisine. But like a bowl of pasta the size of your head and unlimited breadsticks, sometimes copious portions of something completely straightforward manages to deliver exactly the experience you want.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Burial
    After lots of inconsequential talking that should have been streamlined, the film’s payoff—various shootouts and chases and showdowns—proves boring. Consequently, Parker’s film never fully recovers from its meandering build-up.
  92. Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul.
    At its most powerful, Adamma Ebo’s film is an empathetic indictment of a culture that has evolved—and perhaps mutated— from intercommunity support toward the asphyxiating glorification of gaudy figureheads.
  93. Gigi & Nate
    For a solid portion of its running time, Gigi & Nate at least delivers what it promises: a young man and his monkey—to be more specific, a young, newly quadriplegic man and his service monkey.
  94. 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.
  95. Me Time
    It’s not just that more timely humor would do better; it’s that most comedy fans would probably rather be watching MacGruber again. Instead of sitting down for Me Time, do that, and hope that Hart and Wahlberg figure out a proper story next time that gives their chemistry somewhere to go.
  96. Three Thousand Years of Longing
    Three Thousand Years Of Longing unfortunately undercuts its own effectiveness as a singular piece, presenting less as a unified vision of an auteur director than a scattershot assemblage of motifs, philosophies, and themes in search of a spine to hold them together.
  97. Samaritan
    It’s both ironic and fitting that while Samaritan positions itself as fresh territory for the actor, it’s only entertaining once it belatedly refashions itself as a throwback to vintage Stallone fare.
  98. Breaking
    Breaking is a noble and deeply sensitive effort that aims to commemorate an honorable veteran who was failed by the dysfunctional and racist country that he bravely served. But despite a committed cast, and a well-staged and devastatingly truthful finale, Corbin fails to break this story out of its predictable mold.
  99. Funny Pages
    The first feature from Owen Kline, Funny Pages is not a dramatic masterpiece, but its setting, tone, look, feel, and casting would send real comic book geeks off doing cartwheels—if only we possessed the coordination. Instead, it will have to suffice to sit there, mouths open with the typical drool, thinking “I feel seen.”
  100. Get Away If You Can
    One hopes the entire process made for great couples therapy, because watching it certainly doesn’t.
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