The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 10,413 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: 5,571 out of 10413
  2. Mixed: 3,735 out of 10413
  3. Negative: 1,107 out of 10413
10413 movie reviews
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  1. King of the Hill
    Boasts one of the most expertly crafted screenplays of the ’90s.
  2. The Red Turtle
    The Red Turtle nevertheless remains throughout a simple, gripping story of survival, deriving its sense of adventure from the most basic plot imaginable: Here’s a human being, stranded in a strange place, using his strength, intelligence, and courage to forge some kind of a life for himself.
  3. How to Survive a Plague
    Drawing on a wealth of footage from inside ACT UP meetings and protests, David France's powerful documentary How To Survive A Plague pays tribute to their courage and relentlessness, but it's even better as a record of the tactics of effective activism.
  4. Chasing Coral
    Chasing Coral has a cogent, timely argument to make — and, crucially, it’s an argument that demands visual presentation. For once, reading a book or in-depth article on the subject wouldn’t be remotely as persuasive (except perhaps regarding the question of whether human activity is primarily responsible). If your eyes work, your heart will sink.
  5. Loveless
    "Leviathan" (2014) pushed pitiless corruption into something like black comedy; Loveless is anything but funny, but does at least acknowledge fleeting moments of joy and understanding, even as it insists that they’re not nearly enough.
  6. Showing Up
    To say Showing Up centers on the moments in between Lizzy unwittingly caring for a broken pigeon and making sure she has enough pieces to show at the gallery is accurate. Yet, in true Reichardt fashion, the point is not the plot so much as the spaces in between what’s happening on screen.
  7. The Thin Man
    Powell and Loy's light, witty, unflappable characterizations became the unwavering backbone of a terrific series.
  8. Barbara
    Petzold handles personal, formal, and political concerns in such perfect balance, it's difficult, and not especially desirable, to separate one from the next. The movie is dense but never feels it, assembled with easy mastery and engrossing throughout.
  9. Of Gods and Men
    Not withstanding rich performances from Wilson and Lonsdale, the film never comes close to embodying that level of complexity.
  10. One Cut of the Dead
    It reinvents the zombie movie.
  11. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
    Ultimately, the film is just a smart caper picture with some good performances, but at times it's VERY smart, and Hoffman's performance in particular is one of the most natural and unexpectedly affecting that he's given in years.
  12. Stranger Than Paradise
    There's more going on in the film's mundane moments than the excitement its heroes imagine is waiting beyond the horizon. They never find the postcard America they were promised, but there's a lot of beauty, and a lot of America, in the way they keep searching for it, never quite saying what's on their mind as they go.
  13. Bonnie and Clyde
    The playful performances haven't aged, and it still finds all the carefree thrills of being young, dumb, in love with life, and ready for death.
  14. The Beaches of Agnès
    If The Beaches Of Agnès has no clear structure, that's only because neither does Varda’s life--except in retrospect.
  15. Raiders of the Lost Ark
    Finds the right balance between reverence and wit.
  16. I Saw the TV Glow
    I Saw The TV Glow is a remarkable portrait of pop-culture obsession—how it can unite us, change us, and ripple down through our entire lives in ways both uplifting and unsettling.
  17. Deliver Us from Evil
    When victims and their families talk about having their lives wrecked by a sexually abusive priest in the forceful documentary Deliver Us From Evil, that destruction is as much spiritual as psychological.
  18. May December
    With May December Haynes has crafted an implausible blend of raw authenticity and stylized histrionics that’s fueled by a curious intellectual inquiry: what role do we play in our own story?
  19. Drug War
    Drug War brings to mind Soderbergh’s recent "Side Effects", a film defined by similar changes in perspective and genre. However, while "Side Effects" is best at its midpoint, before the viewer has really figured out what kind of movie it is, Drug War becomes both weightier and more playful with each transition, building to a harrowing finale.
  20. The Great Beauty
    A lovely but rambling excursion through moneyed Rome, the film can’t have remotely the same impact as its predecessor, but it does offer a cornucopia of dazzling images—so many, frankly, that it becomes a bit exhausting, especially at nearly two and a half hours.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Cover-Up
    At a time like this, Cover-Up is a vital reminder that demanding a better world is possible, straight from the people who have done the critical work required to confront America’s darkest forces.
  22. Vitalina Varela
    His muse Ventura is there, too, cast as a meta character; he plays a clerygman who has lost his flock and now ministers to an abandoned church that looks suspiciously like a small movie theater. Which is about as close as Vitalina Varela comes to bluntly stating its themes: presence, absence, rekindled faith.
  23. Happening
    The real reason Happening manages to be so persuasive is because it tells such a vivid, intimate and relatable story, whether as a viewer it has happened to you or someone in your life, or your biggest fear is that it will.
  24. Patton
    A giant Rorschach blot of a film, Patton can be read any number of ways, from a sly satire of gung-ho militarism to an epic glorification of Patton's old-school mentality.
  25. The Lost Daughter
    For most of the movie’s running time, Gyllenhaal pulls off a remarkable trick, turning everyday inconveniences like rotting fruit and rude people—and deeper existential crises like regretting parenthood—into sources of nerve-jangling tension. The film is like a chase picture, with a heroine racing in vain to escape societal expectations.
  26. Black Mother
    What distinguishes the film is Allah’s superb eye and talent for portraiture.
  27. The Big Sick
    There was more than the usual dating-scene obstacles threatening their future together. Collaborating on the screenplay for The Big Sick, Nanjiani and Gordon have made a perceptive, winning romantic comedy from those obstacles, including the unforeseen emergency that provides the film its title.
  28. Argo
    Only the finale threatens to undo all that hard work. Though well-done, the last act leans less on the facts of the case than on Hollywood contrivances, heightening the tension with embellishments that feel at odds with the methodical, deliberate film leading up to them.
  29. Summer Hours
    Its final scene is almost overpoweringly tender and beautiful, offering a hopeful rejoinder to all the prior scenes of family members shedding their shared legacy.
  30. Talk to Her
    The marvelous new Talk To Her has elements that wouldn't have seemed out of place in an Almodóvar film of 20 years ago
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