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. Videocracy
    If a team of clever screenwriters tried to script a cautionary tale about the politics of fame (and the fame of politics), they likely couldn’t come up with anything odder or more apt than Erik Gandini’s documentary Videocracy.
  2. Everyone Else
    It isn't pretty to witness, but the pain of it smarts.
  3. Exit Through the Gift Shop
    A documentary that doubles as a comic thriller, and it’s as entertaining as it is thought-provoking.
  4. Please Give
    Some people might find it distasteful to make a movie about guilty rich folks who give themselves permission to splurge. Others will rightly appreciate the honesty.
  5. Restrepo
    Restrepo can be tedious at times and nerve-racking at others, but why shouldn't it be? That's exactly what Junger and Hetherington saw on the front lines, so that's what they show, with very little filter.
  6. The Concert
    It acknowledges grief, horror, and loss, but never lets it get in the way of a big, bright laugh.
  7. Smash His Camera
    So what happens when people forget about all those people he stalked and snapped? Will his collection still be seen as an invaluable store of late 20th-century art, or the work of a celeb-obsessed hoarder?
  8. The Tillman Story
    In the propaganda-filled realms of politics, sports, and the military, that kind of no-bullsh-- -allowed truth feels cathartic. No wonder the Tillman family has spent much of the last 10 years fighting for it.
  9. The Social Network
    Zuckerberg's story ends up feeling bigger than his own life.
  10. Fair Game
    It's ultimately a tale of heroism in the face of fearsome, powerful opposition, but as stubborn pride masquerading as ideological purity proves Wilson's Achilles heel, the film's heroes reveal themselves as flawed to an almost fatal extent, and messily, fascinatingly human.
  11. Black Swan
    A florid, often lurid, completely enthralling film held in place by a disarming Portman, who rarely leaves the frame.
  12. Carlos
    Carlos is mostly tense and thrilling, revealing the poisonous side of global citizenship.
  13. Samson and Delilah
    Viewers may not realize how far they've been pulled in until the movie ends, and they might feel a sense of loss that it can't keep going just a little while longer.
  14. True Grit
    The Coens direct True Grit with a light touch, but like Portis' stark, funny novel, their adventure tale shaves off none of the rough edges.
  15. The Illusionist
    The result is one beautiful movie-and no less so for making a strong case that beauty is a lie.
  16. Another Year
    The performances are winning, the story is surprising without relying on unlikely twists, and the relationships are the richest and most nuanced since Leigh's "Secrets & Lies."
  17. Rabbit Hole
    Rabbit Hole is a tremendously sad movie, but it's also the furthest thing from a miserablist wallow.
  18. The Two Escobars
    Finds connections deeply embedded in a soccer culture fueled by the country's thieving cocaine trade.
  19. And Everything Is Going Fine
    It does justice to a subject who made his life and death works of art.
  20. Haywire
    In truth, Haywire is simply a delivery system for ass-kickings, calibrated to the specific talents of Gina Carano, a former mixed-martial-arts star and American Gladiator whose fists (and feet) of fury can rattle skulls and cave in chests.
  21. 13 Assassins
    The great Kôji Yakusho stars as a revered samurai who decides that enough is enough, and sets about assembling the assassins of the title like a men-on-a-mission movie.
  22. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
    As Cruise clings to the side of the building using malfunctioning equipment, and a sandstorm looms in the distance, the question shifts from whether Bird can direct an action film to whether there's anyone out there who can top him.
  23. Winnie the Pooh
    Winnie The Pooh is a storybook brought to life with intelligence, wit, and palpable affection; where so many kids' films try desperately to come off as hip and timely that they often feel tacky and instantly dated, Winnie The Pooh is bravely quiet, old-fashioned, and wry.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Warrior
    For all its titular bravado, Warrior never lets the audience forget the economic and spiritual desperation driving its two main characters, who bleed for the screaming arena crowd in exchange for their shots at redemption, and offer a rare glimpse of soul in a type of film that usually isn't obliged to provide one.
  25. Hugo
    It's a complex fusion of film history and personal history, filled with dazzling embellishments and unabashed sentiment about the glories of cinema.
  26. Damsels in Distress
    Even though I'm not sure I understand what Stillman was going for minute-to-minute, I was swept away by how original Damsels is, and how funny.
  27. The Future
    The Future's main characters are, undeniably, dopes. But July and Linklater turn their ineptitude into a funny running joke, which becomes surprisingly affecting in the second half.
  28. The Cabin in the Woods
    It's an exercise in metafiction that, while providing grisly fun, never distances viewers. And it's entertaining, while asking the same question of viewers and characters alike: Why come to a place you knew all along was going to be so dark and dangerous?
  29. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
    After establishing an atmosphere of nearly unbearable dread, Alfredson keeps thickening and chilling it.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Goon
    Where George Roy Hill's "Slap Shot," the former reigning champ of the narrow hockey-film canon, descends into anticlimactic late-game zaniness, Goon fully commits to its theme of violence for violence's sake. It's "Paper Lion" by way of Sam Peckinpah.
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