The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 10,422 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: 5,575 out of 10422
  2. Mixed: 3,739 out of 10422
  3. Negative: 1,108 out of 10422
10422 movie reviews
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  1. Mrs Henderson Presents
    Poking fun at uptight British civility has long been a monocle-shattering comedic staple, and Mrs. Henderson Presents gets by for a while on its genial naughtiness.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Now, Voyager
    With its bittersweet romance and air of tragic empowerment, Now, Voyager represents the pinnacle of the woman's picture.
  3. The Room Next Door
    The Spanish maverick’s penchant for melodrama is somewhat off-kilter, but his exquisite eye for color and contrast is decidedly intact, with his lead actresses posing as perfect canvases.
  4. The Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector
    Currently serving out a sentence that will likely consume the remainder of his life, Spector turns the interview into a trial on his own terms--one that's gripping, revelatory, and a little self-incriminating.
  5. Fort Tilden
    For all its exquisite theater-of-cruelty viciousness, Fort Tilden is finally a work of empathy about people whose own supplies are running on empty.
  6. Double Dare
    Given how well Micheli captures the personality and aspirations of two complicated professionals, it's too bad she never answers the key question: What makes one person a stuntwoman, and another a star?
  7. The Motel
    Like the best independent films, The Motel realizes that life is made up of minor pleasures and tiny epiphanies, not sweeping character arcs or big dramatic moments.
  8. Yossi & Jagger
    A sprint when it should be a marathon, Yossi & Jagger crackles with promise, but much of it goes unrealized. Without the time or resources to develop its characters and overstuffed plot, the result feels like the Cliffs Notes for a longer, more satisfying film.
  9. Prisoners
    It makes for a compelling viewing experience, thanks to Villeneuve’s formal chops and the uniformly strong performances.
  10. I Love Boosters
    I Love Boosters paints another winning amusement park ride in the bright colors of its filmmaker’s politics.
  11. Year of the Dog
    White's gently perceptive film is a funny, poignant, emotionally honest minor-key character study.
  12. Batman Begins
    A rousing, reverent, often brilliant re-creation of a seminal comics character, Batman Begins proves Batman is at home in the 21st century as he was in the 20th.
  13. Earth Days
    Nearly a quarter of the way through Earth Days, the movie seems on-track to being just another tongue-clucking “Isn’t it a pity” doc, painted in broad strokes.
  14. Empathy
    Somehow, all of these scattered pieces of film and video fit together, as do the ideas they represent.
  15. Bal
    Bal mingles the bitter and the sweet, but it gets mired in its own stickiness.
  16. Bird People
    It’s also just magnificently goofy, unafraid to court ridicule and confident enough to take captivating detours.
  17. Theater Camp
    It’s constructed from the inside out, all of its characters and energy flowing from a genuine place.
  18. Standard Operating Procedure
    With Standard Operating Procedure, the Iraq War finally has its Hearts And Minds.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Star Trek: First Contact
    Of course, these movies are supposed to be big, but First Contact is the kind of porky, clumsy thing that would be ignored if it didn't come complete with an enormous guaranteed audience—and if it weren't actually kind of fun in spite of itself.
  20. I Love You, Man
    What saves I Love You, Man, at least partially, is the relaxed chemistry between Paul Rudd and Jason Segel, both very funny men who are genuine enough to push back against a premise that's often maddeningly artificial.
  21. Where's My Roy Cohn?
    To fully understand Cohn, to see how the larger-than-life force shaping the latter half of the 20th century came to mold the 21st as well, requires a more penetrating approach than Tyrnauer’s easily digested, skin-deep survey.
  22. Memory: The Origins of Alien
    The result often feels superficial; it is neither a definitive account of the creation of Scott’s touchstone of horror and sci-fi, nor a cogent analysis of its aestheticized subtexts, those gritty and unnerving surfaces and the things lurking underneath.
  23. Ushpizin
    Ushpizin's effortlessly authentic depiction of Jewish orthodoxy--and the palpable, almost ecstatic sense of joy its characters take in it--ultimately tips the film's hand.
  24. The Walk
    It’s when the walk portion of The Walk arrives that this unevenly scripted, fact-based thriller achieves its full potential. Even without the suspense of uncertainty, the sequence achieves a bated-breath intensity and wonder.
  25. The Barbarian Invasions
    The Barbarian Invasions' flaws are mainly glaring because the movie is occasionally so winning.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Dior and I
    Dior And I isn’t any kind of hard-hitting exposé. Tcheng — who previously co-directed another style doc, "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel" — is seduced by this exclusive world, and he communicates that allure with undeniable flair.
  27. Sundown
    Sundown has more substance, and a more intriguing premise, than most of Franco’s proudly sadistic work. But it still amounts to just a lot of artfully composed bleakness.
  28. Companion
    The ongoing sight of a blood-soaked Thatcher finding herself through violent confrontations, essentially figuring out on the fly whether she’s a Terminator or a Final Doll, is diverting enough. Her melancholic presence hints at the trippier, more genuinely unsettling horror movie this could have pivoted into. It’s also a reminder of how facile the rest of the movie really is.
  29. A Complete Unknown
    A Complete Unknown is an honest film that wants to get close to an enigma, maybe even unlock his mystery a little. After the film, Dylan might not be any less of an unknown, but it’s the film’s breathtaking pursuit that counts.
  30. Rock 'n' Roll High School
    Underneath its chipper, anything-for-laugh grin, Rock ‘N’ Roll is as subversive as teen movies get, with an ending that, for all its absurdity, is still surprisingly shocking.
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