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. Clown
    While Watts deserves some credit for treating a totally ridiculous premise with a straight face, his grisly first feature plays very much like what it is: a 90-second joke stretched uncomfortably to full length.
  2. Nuts!
    Ultimately, this isn’t a film about goat balls at all, but the willingness of millions to believe that some slick-talking demagogue knows more about what’s good for them and their families than someone with actual qualifications.
  3. 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.
  4. Cosmos
    Made 15 years after Żuławski’s last film, Cosmos makes for a fittingly offbeat and mystifying statement of purpose for a filmmaker fascinated by confrontations with the cosmic unknown.
  5. Tickled
    All the same, Tickled does shine a much-needed light on that individual’s long history of abusive behavior, which has resulted in only a light slap on the wrist, thanks to inherited wealth and the power it confers.
  6. Raiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made
    Orson Welles famously called filmmaking “the biggest electric-train set any boy ever had,” and Raiders! captures that spirit without inviting the mockery that, say, American Movie does.
  7. Central Intelligence
    That it manages to score a good laugh every couple of minutes is mostly a credit to stars Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart, who make for a better mismatched-buddy comic duo than the movie probably deserves.
  8. No Stranger Than Love
    No Stranger Than Love offers an accidental lesson: Attempts to write poetry ought to be preceded by attempts to read it and, preferably, understand it.
  9. Land and Shade
    Land And Shade is a slow-paced art-film, where the static shots are held at length and the characters pause between lines of dialogue, to give viewers plenty of chances to register the mood, look, feel, and significance of everything Acevedo shows.
  10. Finding Dory
    There’s something a little canned about the film’s emotional arc; the strings show more than they used to on Planet Pixar, even with DeGeneres providing empathy by the gallon.
  11. 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.
  12. Now You See Me 2
    Now You See Me 2 gets giddy on its own unreality. That sense of freewheeling excess extends from the chip heist — set in a metal-free clean room — to the nonstop contrivances and coincidences to the cast.
  13. De Palma
    De Palma is just De Palma gabbing for two hours into a camera, and that’s its ultimate limitation, but also its great strength.
  14. Puerto Ricans in Paris
    Guzmán has been a delightful presence in countless movies over the years, and it’s neat to see him take on an unambiguously leading role, especially one focusing on two Puerto Rican characters. But the movie’s Luis is a surprisingly dull Ugly American.
  15. King Jack
    Rich detail and strong performances do battle with coming-of-age clichés in King Jack, an indie drama that winds up feeling overly beholden to the dictates of various screenwriting manuals.
  16. Diary of a Chambermaid
    In spurts, it resembles an homage to classic French cinema and an overheated, Tinto Brass-esque Euro skin flick, but still finds plenty of room for stultifying, upstairs-downstairs costume drama.
  17. Warcraft
    Definitively establishing that “state-of-the-art” and “chintzy” are not mutually exclusive qualities, Warcraft is a perplexing multiplex boondoggle: Rarely is so much time, money, and cutting-edge technology expended on a spectacle so devoid of wonder.
  18. The Conjuring 2
    When The Conjuring 2 focuses its efforts on scaring the audience, it succeeds, wildly. And why wouldn’t it? Wan’s got his horror technique locked down at this point. It’s the parts where it wanders away from the basics of creating and releasing tension that prevent it from outdoing its predecessor.
  19. Careful What You Wish For
    The dreary repetition of the affair sinks Careful What You Wish For. That, and the fact that both leads are lightweights. Lucas and Jonas are okay actors, but neither has the wit, gravity, or sensuality to stand up to the classic film noir duos they’re meant to evoke.
  20. From Afar
    From Afar plays like a typical first feature, with ambition outstripping execution by a hefty margin.
  21. The Thoughts That Once We Had
    At its best, The Thoughts That Once We Had functions like a kind of film-buff mixtape, queuing up one magic moment after another. But the quasi-academic aims of the project mute Andersen’s passion; the director must have felt he needed a respectable framework for his cinephilia, but the personal component often seems directly at odds with the Deleuze component.
  22. Me Before You
    These are not good performances, exactly. Clarke is endearing, but verges on mugging. Claflin is at his best when Will gives in to his competitive urges, which happens exactly once.
  23. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows
    While it’s not necessarily a good thing to aim this kind of weaponized marketing at kids, it’s also silly and colorful enough to nearly work as a live-action cartoon. It might rot brains, but perhaps not while regarding them with utter contempt.
  24. Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping
    No music mockumentary has really managed to reproduce This Is Spinal Tap’s comic mojo, but Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping gets closer than most to that subgenre-defining comedy’s mix of the dead-on and the over-the-top, even if it tends to go for quantity over quality.
  25. Approaching the Unknown
    Too high-minded to ever stoop to suspense or fun, Approaching The Unknown is almost completely interiorized, unspooling in voice-over narration that sounds like a writing exercise that got out of control.
  26. The Final Master
    Without Wong Kar-Wai’s visual grandeur to provide a sense of the epic, The Final Master just lurches clumsily from one scene to the next, flatlining whenever fists aren’t flying.
  27. The Witness
    Perhaps because any real closure is impossible at this point, The Witness eventually embraces its own inconclusiveness, like some documentary cousin to "Zodiac."
  28. The Fits
    Without ever saying exactly what her heroine is thinking, Holmer captures a lot of what she’s feeling. And what Toni’s going through should be familiar to anyone who had an awkward puberty — which is to say, nearly everyone.
  29. Time to Choose
    It isn’t a brilliant piece of filmmaking or even a revelatory work of journalism. But Time To Choose may provoke actual action, if only because it doesn’t conclude that we’re doomed.
  30. The Wailing
    The Wailing might be a somewhat meandering and nonsensical genre recombination, but that spell never breaks over its lengthy running time.
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