The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 10,441 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: 5,582 out of 10441
  2. Mixed: 3,746 out of 10441
  3. Negative: 1,113 out of 10441
10441 movie reviews
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  1. Gladiator II
    One can’t help but feel as though the whole movie were periodically bellowing the original’s most famous line: “Are you not entertained!?” The answer is no, not really, and no amount of digital gladiatorial carnage or bug-eyed overacting can mask the prevailing air of exhausted, decadent imperial decline.
  2. Snack Shack
    Even with the script’s problems, the film is kinetic, and as in Dinner In America, Rehmeier gets terrific performances from his cast.
  3. Something New
    Something New sets out to dramatize just how little society's attitudes toward interracial relationships have changed over the past few decades, but instead ends up documenting just how little the interracial-romance message movie has evolved since the clumsy days of "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner."
  4. Nobody
    Make no mistake, this is pure caveman bullshit. Yet it’s caveman bullshit made with style and wit, qualities that extend from its screenplay to its performances to its staging.
  5. The Ballad of Lefty Brown
    The Ballad Of Lefty Brown’s lack of flash keeps it from sinking comfortably into pastiche, but it doesn’t make for thrilling viewing.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Finding Fela!
    What makes Finding Fela! just as poignant is the fact that Kuti, while still listened to and appreciated by millions, is not as ubiquitous a cultural institution as Davis or Brown. Gibney doesn’t fully, forcefully make the case in Kuti’s favor — but he does take a big step in the right direction, all while sketching a vivid, evocative portrait.
  7. Greenland
    If a movie has to kill off most of the species in the name of the nuclear family, it should at least do it with some staging and style.
  8. The Mountain
    The movie itself sometimes feels a bit lobotomized. But never when Goldblum is on screen. He plays Freeman as a deluded fraud, horrifying but a little funny, too, in that stuttering, seductive Goldblum way.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Kinds of Kindness
    This ramping-up of darkness from episode to episode is largely what justifies Kinds Of Kindness’ triptych structure. It never feels like these evenly-timed stories would fare better in isolation; they build upon and complicate one another, gelling into something haunting that fits the touted “fable” description.
  10. Bright Future
    But save for the mesmerizing final tracking shot, Bright Future just mopes around aimlessly, hoping that its vague themes will eventually congeal into something profound.
  11. Ready Player One
    Ready Player One, based on the bestseller of the same name, is a pandering, crassly commercial victory of intellectual property law that’s also, in its best moments, a grand popcorn entertainment, made with skill and wit and even sincerity.
  12. Proof
    Hopkins' increasing disconnection with his fellow actors and the material nearly sabotages Proof, an otherwise-respectable adaptation of David Auburn's Pulitzer Prize-winning play.
  13. Star Trek: Insurrection
    In just about every way, Insurrection seems as if everyone involved is still stuck in the weekly grind of turning out the series, but the results don't disappoint too terribly.
  14. Jack Goes Boating
    Jack Goes Boating tells a tender story reasonably well, but it rarely lets viewers feel the emotions instead of thoughtfully observing them.
  15. In a Valley of Violence
    A by-the-numbers spaghetti Western that’s kind of slow and uneventful—and the world has no shortage of those.
  16. The Muppet Christmas Carol
    The Muppet Christmas Carol may be the most important Dickens adaptation of our time.
  17. The Lodge
    The thing that haunted me the most about the film afterwards—aside from Riley Keough’s choking screams in one particularly intense, symbolically loaded sequence—was the ludicrousness of its plot.
  18. Café Society
    Woody, now in his 80s, narrates the movie, which lends it a vaguely, symbolically autobiographical slant.
  19. 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.
  20. Nymphomaniac: Volume I
    The most shocking thing about Nymphomaniac, with its cock-shot montages and frankly descriptive narration, is how flat-out funny it often is.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Gattaca
    The film's bleak future society is admittedly nothing new, and there's no lack of contrived or wooden moments, but Gattaca's parable of nature versus nurture is compelling enough to make it worth seeing for reasons besides art direction.
  22. Robots
    The amiable but thin comedy Robots does have a little more going on, but not quite enough to make a difference, although it looks good enough to distract viewers from that fact for a while.
  23. Fire
    Fire is designed to provoke questions and spark debate. Mission accomplished, but, despite a heartfelt tone that pervades its every moment, it doesn't do much else.
  24. Summer of 69
    Summer Of 69 doesn’t flesh out its characters, themes, or jokes with enough finesse to even rank within the storied teen sex comedy canon.
  25. Last Call at the Oasis
    It's true that Americans contribute disproportionately to the problem, but catering to the idea that we're separate from the rest of the world isn't part of the solution.
  26. The Apprentice
    The performances are stellar, the pacing both restrained and engaging, the realization of Cohn and Trump’s world is top notch, and the dynamic between the two is as captivating as any.
  27. Greyhound
    If Greyhound isn’t a stylistic achievement on the level of Dunkirk, it at least manages to make something gripping out of staggering numbers and distances involved in combat at sea—even if its climactic stretch sometimes struggles with visual monotony.
  28. The Mystic Masseur
    The Mystic Masseur shows more signs of life than "Cotton Mary," but it's still a producer's movie: attractively mounted, dramatically inert.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Trekkies
    It's always nice to see real people, however eccentric, enjoying their lives; if Star Trek has anything to do with that, more power to them.
  30. Looney Tunes: Back in Action
    With the exception of its bland leads, Back In Action's frenetic plot serves as its biggest weakness, but it at least provides the framework for two Tashlin-worthy setpieces.
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