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. To Be or Not to Be
    Because the second half of To Be Or Not To Be, once Benny starts impersonating Nazis, is so outlandishly hilarious, it’s easy to forgive the film’s comparatively sluggish first half, which is mostly setup for gags to come.
  2. Room
    On their own, each segment of Room is tense and emotional. But they’re even better placed back-to-back.
  3. The Murder of Fred Hampton
    The last half of The Murder Of Fred Hampton shreds the official statements of Chicago law enforcement.... But the first half is all about the life and times of Hampton, as he rouses the rabble and defends the new socialism, while cautiously inspired by the ever-present cameras and microphones.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Dog Day Afternoon
    Dog Day Afternoon is a frank social melodrama that’s also a celebration of quotidian bravery. The camera might linger on guns and barely restrained violence, but it also dwells upon the love and the support that’s extended in the weirdest and most unexpected of places.
  5. An Elephant Sitting Still
    Still, the respectful thing to do, it seems, is to treat An Elephant Sitting Still like any other film, imagining how it would look were Hu already hard at work on his next project. A lot depends on just how much sustained misery one likes to endure.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé
    Beyoncé wants to show you the work, the grit, the ingenuity. She wants to show you, as she repeats, her renaissance.
  7. Anatomy of a Fall
    It’s a precise study of how strife and conflict metastasize if left unresolved. And by grounding these fine-tuned dramatics in the guise of a genre picture, it works to profound effect.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The English Patient
    Heartbreakingly beautiful film, a brilliant adaptation of Michael Ondaatje's equally beautiful novel, is a sort of Casablanca for our time.
  9. Nebraska
    Payne, who never met pathos he didn’t feel inclined to puncture with slapstick humor, has somehow made his best drama and his worst comedy rolled into one.
  10. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
    That it falls short when it comes to matching the emotional impact of Into The Spider-Verse is further exemplified by a surprisingly abrupt cliffhanger conclusion that instead of sending the viewer out on a rousing high just makes one wonder why such an otherwise sharp franchise is going the route of weaker MCU entries in shortchanging its effectiveness as a stand-alone film to tease a future installment.
  11. Stand Clear of the Closing Doors
    Effectively portrays New York City as a cacophonous collision of disparate voices, sidestepping the nightmarish outcome of that child’s story in favor of a different, more enduringly visible disaster.
  12. They Were Expendable
    The liberal Ford and the conservative Wayne had nothing in common politically, but artistically, they're perfectly in sync.
  13. Black Narcissus
    It remains a rapturous, near-indescribable work of cinematic art, spun from a simple story about nuns who travel to the Himalayas to start a school and a hospital, only to have mountain winds and native mysticism weaken their confidence and their faith.
  14. Million Dollar Baby
    Though conventional in many respects, it feels like no other boxing film ever made, due largely to Eastwood's unmistakable presence on both sides of the camera.
  15. Hard Boiled
    Plenty of entertaining action movies have been made since John Woo's 1992 Hard Boiled, but really, what's the point?
  16. Last Days in Vietnam
    It’s not a documentary that reinvents the form or will alter anyone’s perception of the war, but sometimes a rich, exhaustive chronicle is more than enough.
  17. Krisha
    At just 82 minutes, Krisha wouldn’t have hurt for a little more meat on its bones; the last act blows through a shitstorm of confrontation almost too abruptly.
  18. Dawson City: Frozen Time
    It’s much more involving as a work of pure and hypnotic collage than as a researched narrative of facts, dates, and names.
  19. Shadows
    Even though its rough edges (the wildly mismatched acting, the scenes that never take shape) look rougher today than they must have at the time, watching Shadows still feels like witnessing a mold breaking.
  20. Rebecca
    Shot like a horror film and featuring Olivier as one of the least sympathetic heroes in the Hitchcock canon, Rebecca's smart extrapolation on themes inherited from gothic thrillers and Brontë novels allows the director to begin with a suspenseful romance that barely keeps its subtext under the surface, and smuggle in a story of one woman's immersion into the sexual expectations of her era.
  21. The Inheritance
    Every object, many of them clearly worn by use, feels hand chosen; every shade of color feels handpicked; every piece of furniture or fabric feels specific to that room. Asili’s controlled design doesn’t render The Inheritance sterile. Instead, it swells with free-wheeling creativity and Black pride.
  22. The Babadook
    Believe it or not, though, the real horror of this superb Aussie monster movie has almost nothing to do with the title fiend and everything to do with the unspoken, unspeakable impulses he represents. Remove the Babadook from The Babadook, in other words, and something plenty terrifying remains.
  23. Little Men
    The younger characters are so full of life, and the older ones so full of trenchant but predictable talking-point issues, that it sometimes feels like a middling movie encroaching on a good one.
  24. Boogie Nights
    While it's very funny, Boogie Nights taps into something much deeper with its on-target depiction of the shifting political and social tides of the '70s and '80s and thoughtful relationships between characters. It's a deeply satisfying movie.
  25. The Kids Are All Right
    Cholodenko's casually observant style perfectly matches the cast's thoughtful work, though the film ultimately proves more successful at creating messy situations than trying to resolve them.
  26. Welcome to Chechnya
    What’s perhaps most remarkable about Welcome To Chechnya is the level-headed perspective many of these subjects have about what’s happening to them.
  27. The Great Escape
    McQueen speeding across the German countryside and leaping over the first of two barbed-wire fences leading into Switzerland may be the film's most iconic and enduring image. Dubious or not, it's a triumph of sorts that a tale that ends in war crimes could have such a rousing conclusion.
  28. Manakamana
    Really, though, the film’s focus is on neither the destination nor the journey, but on the individuals planting themselves in front of the lens.
  29. Cave of Forgotten Dreams
    In spite of some thoughtful-and occasionally just bizarre-rumination on what the marvels of Chaumet really signify, Cave Of Forgotten Dreams often feels as stifling as the place it explores, rather than the sensual odyssey its evocative title suggests.
  30. Our Land (Nuestra Tierra)
    Part procedural, part granular portrait of an increasingly silenced demographic, Nuestra Tierra asserts the global scale of Indigenous persecution from its opening shot.
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