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. Stone
    At its best, the film works as a morally freighted film noir, with Jovovich particularly good as a breathy femme fatale who seduces De Niro with a mere change in inflection.
  2. Monsters
    Gareth Edwards' low-budget science-fiction film Monsters is both a testament to what the latest technologies allow filmmakers to do, and-on the downside-a testament to the enduring importance of a good script.
  3. Burlesque
    Burlesque is a terrible film that will delight nearly everyone who sees it, whether they're 12-year-old Christina Aguilera fans or bad-movie buffs angling for a guilty pleasure.
  4. Resident Evil: Afterlife
    Really, the whole series would be unthinkable without the films of George Romero. In that respect, Anderson has taken another page from the Corman playbook for his superior B-movie: If you're going to steal, at least steal well.
  5. Freakonomics
    Like the 2005 bestseller that inspired it, the movie version of Freakonomics is fleet and accessible, an enjoyably light and lively pop artifact aimed at bringing some unusual economic theories to the masses.
  6. 127 Hours
    Worse still, all that introspection adds up to a disappointingly shallow accumulation of regrets and life lessons, none of them surprising. After the adrenaline rush, 127 Hours turns to vapor.
  7. Unstoppable
    As long as Unstoppable stays on the train, it's queasily effective.
  8. Love and Other Drugs
    When Gyllenhaal stops selling out, the movie starts.
  9. Don't Be Afraid of the Dark
    Absent any qualities beyond the surface, like the history and politics that trouble Del Toro's best films, Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark is little better than a half-decent scare machine.
  10. William S. Burroughs: A Man Within
    Offers a concise summary of Burroughs' life and works. Maybe too concise. At a mere 88 minutes, it feels a bit glancing. But as an introduction or refresher course, it gets the job done.
  11. The Tempest
    The best thing about Taymor's Tempest is also the worst: It's not stunning but it is sturdy, a handsome-enough showcase of a film that never really comes to life. It plays like a challenge politely declined.
  12. The Rocky Horror Picture Show
    The plot is only semi-comprehensible, but the nearly non-stop musical numbers-brilliant conflations of glam-rock and showtunes-and transgressive sexual energy keep things moving.
  13. The Taqwacores
    Deepens as it plays out, and rewards viewers who stick with it through the clumsier passages. The film is moving and thought-provoking.
  14. Barney's Version
    The film, lacking narration or much explanation of the character, is an outsider's version rather than his own. It's intriguing, but almost always frustrating.
  15. Heartless
    Heartless gets progressively better as it goes along, and benefits from a poignant late cameo from Timothy Spall as Sturgess' beloved father, but it never recovers from a dull first hour.
  16. Tiny Furniture
    Tiny Furniture offers a 21st-century, East Coast spin on "The Graduate," but with comedy-writer-ish dialogue and a mannered style that never fully gels.
  17. The Dilemma
    It never coheres as well as it should, but the film makes a fine mess.
  18. Sanctum
    While Sanctum is frustratingly familiar, it's easy to get caught up in the action.
  19. Rango
    Ignoring the weak storyline entirely, Rango is a joyously weird experience.
  20. Kawasaki's Rose
    The problem with Kawasaki's Rose is that the theme is far more compelling than the movie.
  21. A Somewhat Gentle Man
    Skarsgård brings some redemptive soul to the role of a man who gradually begins to understand the aptness of his favorite Pretenders album: "Learning To Crawl."
  22. The Housemaid
    Though impeccably photographed and acted, The Housemaid begins to feel stifling and airless once Im's thesis about the abuses of the powerful starts to drive the film to a foregone conclusion.
  23. No Strings Attached
    No Strings Attached isn't a BAD piece of formulaic product.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Let the Bullets Fly
    That dedicated wryness makes the endless twists and betrayals easier to process-these are awful people, but it's sure a lot of fun to watch them fight it out.
  25. Hall Pass
    Though the film never balances the grown-up stuff with the gross-out gags, it suggests the Farrellys might be able to do mature after all.
  26. Cold Weather
    The movie does have a charm that develops gradually.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1
    It may be impossible for anyone but existing fans to take this seriously, but for the unconverted, it's still a legitimately engaging, gape-worthy nutso spectacle.
  28. The Beaver
    While The Beaver starts with Gibson in "What Women Want" slapstick mode, it eventually goes to such exaggerated, extreme places that it becomes as much of a must-watch train-wreck as Gibson's own real-life situation.
  29. The Muppets
    Henson's characters maintained an essential innocence while sending up the very idea of entertainment. They put on a show with quotation marks around it, but the irony never felt cynical. When it isn't getting bogged down in unearned sentiment, The Muppets gets that right.
  30. The Sitter
    Yet in its best moments - and there are several good ones scattered across this ramshackle comedy - The Sitter is a reminder that Green's sensibility has always been heavy on whimsy and play, and that maybe he hasn't strayed that far from home.
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