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. Nancy
    In the end, Nancy is a bit too dogmatic in its refusal to provide easy answers, its emotional impact dissipating like dust in a sunbeam with every understated non-revelation.
  2. Outrage
    Outrage is compelling to watch until it becomes exhausting.
  3. Kawasaki's Rose
    The problem with Kawasaki's Rose is that the theme is far more compelling than the movie.
  4. The Final Year
    The documentary follows — and frequently lionizes — three Obama officials throughout 2016, and frequently feels like it was intended as a well-deserved victory lap.
  5. Fitting In
    Though not without its rough edges, McGlynn’s film is emotionally raw and willing to engage with the complexities and nuances of her situation, providing a fascinating look at the intersectionality of burgeoning womanhood, intersex identity, and messy sexuality that doesn’t adhere to rigid or widely acknowledged labels.
  6. Wild Canaries
    At its core, Wild Canaries is a reminder that relationships require a sense of adventure, and maybe a little mystery, to keep the magic alive. Indie comedies, as the film proves, benefit from the same.
  7. This Is It
    At best, it angrily demands to be rechristened This Is It! Too often, however, an incredulous This Is It? seems more apt.
  8. When Evening Falls on Bucharest or Metabolism
    At times, Porumboiu’s mix of repetition and resignation recalls Samuel Beckett, and if the overall result is more of a clever exercise than a proper movie, it’ll still have some dryly amusing appeal for those who appreciate intellectual absurdism.
  9. The Way We Get By
    Neither pro- nor anti-war; it’s a somber study of perpetually unsettled lives.
  10. Somewhere
    It's all so uneasily compelling and quietly moving, it might be too much to ask her to sustain it through the conclusion.
  11. Smile 2
    Yes, the varying quality of performances from the supporting cast and the film’s slightly bloated 127-minute runtime might leave cheeks straining. But the film finds dark humor in taking these desperate feelings of unease and feeding them to a kaleidoscopic creature of pain and viscera.
  12. Home Movie
    Smith delights in these offbeat personalities and their jerry-rigged accoutrements, but the real joy in the film comes from the happy interaction between the subjects and their creations.
  13. Karmen Gei
    The film offers plenty of powerful impressionism to make up for its lack of a coherent statement.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    In Heaven Underground: The Weissensee Jewish Cemetery
    Most people wouldn't expect a film that's inherently about death (and, to a lesser extent, the Holocaust) to be uplifting, but the gentle, tender documentary In Heaven, Underground ultimately achieves it.
  15. Lost Girls
    What’s both intriguing and frustrating about the screen version, however, is the way that it flirts with a much thornier and potentially richer possibility, only to ultimately back away from that idea in favor of a straightforward plea for justice.
  16. The Wind and the Lion
    The Wind And The Lion—which was a hit, but not on the order of Milius’ later Conan The Barbarian or Red Dawn—never feels like the product of post-Vietnam America; it just comes from Milius’ imagination, where history and fantasy meet each other halfway.
  17. Oxygen
    As one might expect, much of the responsibility for keeping Oxygen compelling rests on Laurent, who runs through all the stages of grief, from denial to acceptance, as she thrashes against her high-tech prison. She’s supported by ingenious filmmaking.
  18. The Alpinist
    This is a movie, not a book or feature article. And having a subject who largely refuses to cooperate, thereby forcing the filmmakers to sit around at home and relate much of what happens indirectly, doesn’t exactly make for a classic.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    ChaO
    A talented animation team does its best to bail water from this sinking ship, but an overreliance on contrivances and slapstick leaves too many holes to plug.
  20. Barbershop: The Next Cut
    Though this series is built on comic looseness, it’s that sincerity that carries through its minor comedic missteps, like underusing Hall and leaning too heavily on Cedric’s wacky-old-man shtick.
  21. The Book of Life
    The characters move around in a thoroughly realized universe full of imaginative and beautifully rendered detail. Too bad the rest of it isn’t more interesting.
  22. Save Yourselves!
    Save Yourselves! didn’t have the budget to pull off its ambitiously bizarre and essentially unresolved ending (which might not have been satisfying even had it been fully realized—it’s really way out there, quite literally), but it gets the small things just right, and that’s far more important.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    The Wrecking Crew
    As a love letter to the director’s late father, The Wrecking Crew sparkles. As a potentially comprehensive, context-rich chronicle of one of pop music’s most inspired engines of rhythm and melody, it mostly sticks to one note.
  24. The Contestant
    Titley doesn’t mine for anything other than what’s already been explored elsewhere.
  25. The Page Turner
    A little too neat, and self-consciously vague at the end. But it's fascinating to observe and try to interpret François' mysterious smile as she eyes her boss.
  26. Flanders
    Once again, Dumont cycles through the pet themes of films like "L'Humanité" and "Twentynine Palms," but their repetition is beginning to seem like shtick.
  27. White Elephant
    It’s hard to imagine a more potent symbol of good intentions gone to seed than the decrepit Buenos Aires building that gives White Elephant its title.
  28. The Final Member
    The Final Member boasts a stranger-than-fiction subject so odd and funny it almost couldn’t miss. But Bekhor and Math make the film much more than a limp gag.
  29. 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.
  30. North Face
    The historical backdrop is fascinating and an important part of this story, but there’s a pervasive sense that director Philipp Stölzl and his screenwriters soft-pedal it as much as possible in order to exalt their heroes.
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