The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 10,440 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: 5,581 out of 10440
  2. Mixed: 3,746 out of 10440
  3. Negative: 1,113 out of 10440
10440 movie reviews
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  1. Waging a Living
    Waging A Living's biggest failing is that Weisberg gives his subjects too much of a pass when it comes to their bad past romantic and career choices.
  2. Rize
    Rize eventually gets a little preachy and sentimental, but a little sermonizing seems a small price to pay for such an industrial jolt of kinetic electricity.
  3. War of the Worlds
    In an unfortunate case of star casting, Cruise strains credibility as a hard-edged Jersey dockworker.
  4. Twist of Faith
    Perhaps because the trial hits so many delays and roadblocks, Twist Of Faith doesn't gather much dramatic momentum, though there's something to be said for the emotional grind of running in place.
  5. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
    There's little wrong with Charlie, but it needs the Burton of old to animate its candy-colored universe with mischief and awe. Instead, he remains trapped like Wonka in a hermetic house of wonders, and the movie suffocates along with him.
  6. Hustle & Flow
    The vibrant rap drama Hustle & Flow wraps the authentic around the inauthentic, telling an underdog story that sticks to formula, yet resonates with an undeniably real energy and texture.
  7. Last Days
    In the end, it feels like a life aestheticized, not examined.
  8. The Aristocrats
    A surprisingly fresh and funny feature-length look at an unrelentingly filthy vaudeville gag that's been passed down from comic to comic like an urban legend, often changing with every telling.
  9. Darwin's Nightmare
    Darwin's Nightmare would be just another "ain't it a shame" piece were it not for the way Sauper gradually reveals how all this human misery might play out.
  10. Duma
    The cheetah is the star in Duma, and no one directs animals more convincingly than Ballard, who knows better than anyone how to integrate patchwork nature shots into narrative action. Too bad the two-legged talking animals aren't as compelling this time out.
  11. Red Eye
    If constructing a thriller could be likened to building a house, then Wes Craven's Red Eye is a perfect piece of architecture: It's clean-lined and soundly structured, without a foot of wasted space or any materials left unused.
  12. El Crimen Perfecto (The Perfect Crime)
    As it progresses from black comedy to something approaching surreal horror, El Crimen Perfecto swells into a nightmare reminiscent of Griffin Dunne's journey through Soho hell in "After Hours."
  13. Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance
    It's a difficult balancing act, but Park crafts his layers carefully and masterfully. He's the kind of filmmaker who can meaningfully craft the gory details of an eye-gouging without ever forgetting the message that an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.
  14. The Constant Gardener
    Fiennes is the perfect John Le Carré hero: reserved and sophisticated, possessing the driest of wits, yet deceptively passionate in a way that people never really anticipate from him.
  15. Transporter 2
    Chucks the laws of logic and physics out the passenger's-side window, and it's all the better for it.
  16. Touch the Sound: A Sound Journey with Evelyn Glennie
    May be too heady to take in one sitting. Even given relatively calm passages-like a hushed tour through the courtyard of a Scottish castle or a mediation on ripples in a pond-there's just too much to absorb.
  17. Keane
    Throughout Keane, there's an unnerving feeling that Lewis is capable of anything, from harming himself to assaulting anyone around him.
  18. Proof
    Hopkins' increasing disconnection with his fellow actors and the material nearly sabotages Proof, an otherwise-respectable adaptation of David Auburn's Pulitzer Prize-winning play.
  19. The Future of Food
    Garcia's far-more-info-than-tainment style seems a little staid, but Future Of Food's clear, intelligent journalism and rich cinematography help take the edges off the immense brick of data Garcia lobs through the window of America's biotech industry.
  20. Lord of War
    Lord Of War charges bravely and relentlessly into volatile territory, and it's hard to leave unscarred by the experience.
  21. Thumbsucker
    It's a familiar story, but Mills and Pucci treat it as if it were the first time anyone had thought to tell it.
  22. Roll Bounce
    Behind the camera, Lee shows a steady hand and saves his best tricks for the big finale, which generates a lot of excitement out of the collision of disco music and some truly impressive skating.
  23. Dorian Blues
    Dorian Blues covers extremely familiar territory, but does so with low-key wit and ingratiating charm.
  24. Occupation: Dreamland
    A powerful documentary about a squad of Army grunts patrolling the Iraqi city of Fallujah in late 2004.
  25. MirrorMask
    Episodic, detached, and lacking in drive, but packed with amazing, hallucinatory dream-imagery that makes real dreams look flat by comparison.
  26. Good Night, and Good Luck.
    Where "Quiz Show" elevated its story to the level of Shakespearean tragedy, Clooney's film is too lightweight to reach such tragic heights. In part, it's too short--at 90 minutes, including musical interludes and lengthy monologues taken whole-cloth from the historical record, Good Night breezes by effortlessly when it really needs time and space to build up to appropriately epic dimensions.
  27. Two for the Money
    For all its swaggering bravado, Pacino's turn in Two For The Money is the reverse image of his "Devil's Advocate" character: Instead of the omniscient, all-powerful operator he presents himself as, he's a gambler grasping at a lifestyle that's always just beyond his means.
  28. Before the Fall
    It's an emotionally chilly movie with a blank, inexpressive protagonist, but it gains cumulative force en route to a viscerally moving climax.
  29. The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till
    Thankfully, it boasts a story that doesn't require a surplus of style to be compelling.
  30. Henri Langlois: The Phantom of the Cinematheque
    Though Phantom Of The Cinematheque is fascinating throughout, Richard squanders a chance to recreate one of those long Parisian nights where Langlois held court for his fellow movie buffs.
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