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. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
    With shades of Carrie, Harry's magical powers and adolescent angst make a combustible fusion, taking on frightening, vengeful implications that Cuarón honors by refusing to airbrush the shadowy regions of fantasy.
  2. The Motorcycle Diaries
    Handsomely shot by Brazilian director Walter Salles and beautifully played by the two leads, The Motorcycle Diaries would amount to little more than a minor, softly politically conscious coming-of-age story, if not for its historical context.
  3. Spanglish
    Though Brooks has a broad, crowd-pleasing sensibility, he knows how to appeal to the masses without insulting anyone's intelligence, and that's a rare gift these days.
  4. Love Actually
    Provides enough happy endings to make the audience forget that romance and Christmas miracles don't always work out.
  5. Ocean's Twelve
    What it retains is a playful sense of style, that combines with an anything-goes spirit.
  6. Peter Pan
    It's tacky and beautiful, sometimes both at the same time. Occasionally flatfooted even as it sparkles, the film suffers when Hogan lets the scenery do the directing for him, but he's chosen a cast capable of shouldering the film's weight.
  7. Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events
    At its best, A Series Of Unfortunate Events is the stuff nightmares are made of, a sick joke of a film that realizes the best children's entertainment doesn't hide from the bleaker side of life, but plunges into the void and respects kids enough to assume they can handle it.
  8. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
    Even when caught in a rut, Anderson's obsessive vision still yields many exhilarating surprises.
  9. Hotel Rwanda
    The Rwandan genocide was one of the most shameful marks on Bill Clinton's presidency, but for all the film's powerful images, George stops short of the forceful political statement that Rusesabagina's story demands.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    When We Were Kings
    When We Were Kings is an energetic, passionate documentary of this event, and a revelation for people who only know Ali as an ex-champ with Parkinson's and Foreman as a Care Bear.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Devil's Own
    What makes it worth the price of admission is the energetic performance Ford pulls off in the cookie-cutter role of big-city cop.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Prefontaine
    But at best, the movie has an air of immediacy, freeing it from the ossified myth-making that plagues many true-life biopics.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Welcome to Sarajevo
    Perhaps the worst thing you can say about Welcome To Sarajevo is that it's not a great film, but it's very good, and it should be seen.
  14. Schizopolis
    Fast-paced and ambitious, it never bores, and Soderbergh proves himself interesting to watch in addition to being gifted behind the camera.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Monument Ave.
    Though too short to earn any real sympathy for the characters, and too slow to generate any excitement, Monument Ave. is moderately haunting and occasionally affecting.
  16. Freeway
    Freeway is full of nice touches—such as making the villain a psychologist— that play off the expectations of a familiar story. While also working as a conventional thriller, its many twists on the fairy tale make it work on an almost subliminal level.
  17. Domestic Violence
    A bit too long. Conceptually, it's sensible to keep the camera running while these women bare their souls, but in practical terms, the gist of some of their stories would have sufficed. Nevertheless, Wiseman has scored another considerable achievement in the documentary form.
  18. El bonaerense
    As a morality play, it's a one-sided contest, because the question of whether power corrupts is never a question at all. As a queasily thrilling tour of a dirty little corner of the world, however, Trapero's film offers a memorable ride.
  19. Collateral Damages
    Sauret's approach isn't the most artful, but it doesn't have to be. Hearing his subjects speak for themselves is good enough.
  20. Superstar in a Housedress
    Plays like a 90-minute wake, albeit a warm and humorous one.
  21. People Say I'm Crazy
    What's so remarkable about the movie is how matter-of-fact it is.
  22. Proteus
    Greyson does a terrifically empathetic job of putting viewers firmly in the moment, by making it irrelevant exactly when and where that moment takes place.
  23. Imelda
    For the fascinating character study Imelda, Ramona S. Diaz was given a month's access to the former first lady, who supplies so many bizarre equivocations that it's hard to tell whether her actions were malicious or merely delusional.
  24. Sky Blue
    Sky Blue is never subtle about its images of loneliness and isolation, or in fact about anything else. But as clichéd as its images are, they're still visually and tonally stunning.
  25. Daybreak
    It maintains a strong enough sense of squirmy humanity that its characters' epiphanies and emotional growth feel both hard-earned and richly deserved.
  26. Sunset Story
    Has its share of look-at-these-cute-old-commies laughs… But Gabbert mostly avoids making her subjects into hobbling punch lines, or even turning them into one-dimensional heroes.
  27. The Other Side of the Street
    Montenegro's performance is typically multifaceted, displaying keen wit and a thick streak of self-doubt.
  28. Crazy Legs Conti: Zen and the Art of Competitive Eating
    Within its limited scope, the film celebrates Conti's peculiar dreams and earnest intensity without dipping into condescension.
  29. Sheriff
    But without taking anything away from Frederick Wiseman, who remains a master, Sheriff is almost as good any documentary he's made.
  30. Another Road Home
    Unforgettably documents the kind of journey that leads not to easy answers, but rather to an even thornier knot of questions.
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