The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 10,436 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: 5,578 out of 10436
  2. Mixed: 3,746 out of 10436
  3. Negative: 1,112 out of 10436
10436 movie reviews
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  1. Gimme Danger
    Considering how cheerfully its subject courted controversy, this is a chummy, openly booster-ish profile, designed as an introduction for those ignorant of the Stooges’ legacy. It’s plenty entertaining, but it’s also nearly as tame as Iggy, in his prime, was wild.
  2. Nocturnal Animals
    Like Ford’s debut, Nocturnal Animals treats film as a medium of luxury, where the emotive and the self-indulgent cross paths. He is primarily a sensualist.
  3. Gleason
    He can afford the best treatments and technologies and — by the end — even to extend his life, because he’s a well-off former NFL player. Most patients don’t have these luxuries.
  4. Phantom Boy
    Even though it doesn’t all come together thrillingly, Phantom Boy garners a lot of goodwill just for looking and feeling original.
  5. Department Q: A Conspiracy of Faith
    These are the kind of character- and plot-driven police procedurals designed for binging, a lot like Netflix favorites "Happy Valley" and "The Fall." Although each of the first three films tells a full, discrete story, they work best cumulatively, as the ongoing adventures of one cranky, conscientious cop.
  6. The Discovery
    At the very least, its central mystery keeps you guessing, right up until a final turn that’s nearly as clever as it is convoluted.
  7. The Mind's Eye
    From its opening title card proclaiming “This film should be played loud,” the telekinetic body-horror film The Mind’s Eye is punk as f--k.
  8. Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie
    Overall Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie is as shallow as a puddle of Dom Pérignon spilled on the bow of a luxury yacht. That’s the joke, you see.
  9. The Foreigner
    The Foreigner is a good, lean cut of meat—in other words, a typical Martin Campbell movie, expeditious and cold-blooded in its cross-cut, cloak-and-dagger plotting and violence.
  10. Ouija: Origin of Evil
    Flanagan has a couple of solid genre films on his résumé already; at this point in his career, it would have been surprising if Origin Of Evil wasn’t better than Ouija. It is better, though, in every conceivable way, from casting to story to atmosphere.
  11. Imperium
    Radcliffe’s performance also ramps up toward the end of the movie, when the pressures of undercover life and his struggle to empathize with these people — his main asset as an undercover agent — really begin to weigh on him.
  12. Richard Linklater: Dream Is Destiny
    Although it’s casual to a fault, Dream Is Destiny is generally engaging and liberally sprinkled with real insights into what makes this filmmaker special.
  13. Ralph Breaks the Internet
    Like a lot of memes, Ralph Breaks The Internet appears proud both of its clear place within a system and its ability to stand outside and poke fun at that system.
  14. Demon
    It’s the kind of film that, rather like its mournful title apparition, clings to your sleeve and follows you home.
  15. For the Love of Spock
    The scenes that most linger in the mind are more like the one where the director confesses his complicated feelings about his father to another Spock, Zachary Quinto. It’s moving to know that even Nimoy’s son is as in thrall to an icon as the rest of us.
  16. Danny Says
    A bunch of Fields’ war stories are rendered with simple animations, and while those aren’t as effective as the dozens of great photographs that dot the film, they do break up what might otherwise be an overly talky doc.
  17. Spa Night
    Though it leaves too many narrative blanks unfilled, Spa Night is a promising debut from a filmmaker with a lot of insight into the different guises that immigrants and their offspring wear as they make their way through the world.
  18. The Beatles: Eight Days a Week - The Touring Years
    It’s a testament to the buoyancy of the film that such exhausted, well-trod material can still feel fresh.
  19. Little Sister
    A slight, sweetly cynical indie dramedy about family and belonging and the ways we cope with life’s disappointments.
  20. Neither Heaven Nor Earth
    This virtually action-free war movie (which premiered at Cannes last year with the English-language title The Wakhan Front) will frustrate anyone seeking concrete explanations. Its haunting atmosphere, however, in conjunction with its half-harrowing, half-sleepy milieu, keeps the film fascinating until it finally fizzles.
  21. The Girl with All the Gifts
    Starts off strong but dilutes its impact with every consecutive reveal.
  22. Land of Mine
    The cheesiest thing about it is the punny English-language title with which it’s been saddled. Otherwise, Land Of Mine is tough and admirably grim, turning a harrowing history lesson into a study in how the battles of wartime don’t always cease with the ceasefire.
  23. The Eagle Huntress
    Director Otto Bell has found himself in awe-inspiring territory. Aisholpan is a remarkable person interacting with majestic creatures, surrounded by staggering natural beauty. It’s easy to become entranced.
  24. Sid and Nancy
    For a while, the tension powers the film. And when it doesn’t, the lead performances by Oldman and Webb pick up the slack.
  25. Abortion: Stories Women Tell
    Stories Women Tell does succeed at what it primarily means to do, which is to take abortion out of the realm of the theoretical and make it more personal.
  26. Being 17
    Téchiné has made one of his simplest and most elemental films, which is both Being 17’s most arresting feature and its weakness.
  27. Cameraperson
    As an autobiography told in pictures rather than words (including occasional glimpses of Johnson’s parents and her children), Cameraperson makes a strong case for the merits of the observational life. As a bonus, it also demonstrates what it looks like when the person who’s holding the camera sneezes.
  28. Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer
    In a sense, what we’re watching is a classic con-artist movie, built around someone who plies his shady trade not for money but esteem—the feeling that he matters, that his name carries weight.
  29. Peter and the Farm
    This is one tortured soul, and a rare case in which a farmer’s struggles seem to be entirely of his own making.
  30. Barry
    Barry doesn’t so much offer glimmers of the man Obama would become as lay experiential groundwork for his later life choices.
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