The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 10,442 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: 5,583 out of 10442
  2. Mixed: 3,746 out of 10442
  3. Negative: 1,113 out of 10442
10442 movie reviews
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  1. After the Cup: Sons of Sakhnin United
    There’s a great story to be told here, but After The Cup feels more like an outline than a finished draft
  2. 11/8/16
    Perhaps when history has had its way with this era, it will be enlightening to re-experience U.S. presidential election night, 2016. But all 11/8/16 does from this near distance is confirm a recent memory and reinforce some safe assumptions.
  3. Hotel Mumbai
    If the thought of seeing a lot of people get murdered with automatic weapons at close range makes you queasy right now, Hotel Mumbai is not a film you want to go anywhere near. Few slasher movies have such a high, graphic body count.
  4. Anything's Possible
    Anything’s Possible may be flawed for what it fails to fully develop around the edges of its story, but the central relationship that holds the film together is so compelling that the rest hardly matters.
  5. Severance
    Severance still seems a few rewrites away from living up to its potential, but it's remarkable how much just a modicum of wit can spice up the standard backwoods slice-and-dice. Scaring people with a horror film is easy; entertaining them takes a little skill.
  6. The Young Karl Marx
    From its lifelessly anachronistic English dialogue to its Masterpiece Theatre lighting and production design, The Young Karl Marx tries to filter radical thought through the pace and aesthetics of a middlebrow drama.
  7. V for Vendetta
    Mostly, it's content to remain a compelling, visually striking political mystery with some big ideas woven into it--subversive notions about integrity, liberty, and political change.
  8. The Spiderwick Chronicles
    Anyone looking for handsomely presented, kid-friendly thrills need look no further.
  9. Oh, Hi!
    Oh, Hi! is an ambitious, thought-provoking look at modern romance that starts with the terror of weekend getaways before dissecting the gender stereotypes that keep people from finding their happily-ever-after.
  10. Bleak Street
    Neither Ripstein nor his wife and regular screenwriter, Paz Alicia Garciadiego, succeed in unearthing (or inventing) anything of more than sensational interest from this tragedy.
  11. The Same River Twice
    Moss offers few startling revelations, but gently gets at the truth of his subjects' lives by playing the past against the present.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Simon & the Oaks
    Ponderous and heavy with its own importance, Simon And The Oaks is the kind of film that's made for awards - it nabbed 13 nominations in Sweden's equivalent of the Oscars last year.
  13. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
    Ultimately, it's an absence of personality that does the film in. The creatures remain beautifully designed and Narnia still looks like a colorful, inviting place, but it feels as lifeless as the fantastical anyworlds found on glittery unicorn posters.
  14. Solo: A Star Wars Story
    It may be the only official Star Wars feature that seems concerned exclusively with delivering a no-frills good time. Unfortunately, the film’s idea of a good time includes neither dynamite banter nor particularly memorable action scenes.
  15. The Mask of Zorro
    The Mask Of Zorro is disarming for the same reasons, coasting on the charisma of its stars and a few exciting action setpieces.
  16. Iron Man 3
    Here, it’s hard not to wish Downey were sparring with his costumed comrades again, instead of trading barbs with the far-less-colorful cast members — old and new — of this busy, sporadically diverting sequel.
  17. Alien: Resurrection
    Perfectly in keeping with a series that began by simply putting a monster on a spaceship, then gave itself the creative freedom to explore what that monster and that spaceship really meant. [Quadrilogy]
  18. Hollywoodland
    Like Affleck's performance, Hollywoodland has its affecting moments. But generally it feels like an HBO original movie, where respectable but uninspired execution mars a fascinating subject and great cast.
  19. Backcountry
    Without effective characterization to drive the moments in between, the spectacle of humans painfully, extensively, gratuitously suffering for their arrogance is more sadistic than thrilling.
  20. Hell Hole
    When the guts and goop start flying, however, there’s no denying that the Adams Family have cooked up another bloody good time, even if the overarching mood doesn’t feel as consciously constructed.
  21. Call Jane
    Call Jane is a feminist work told with straight-arrow purpose. It assumes that the slightest melodrama would devalue the sacrifices these women made and the community they created. If that’s a miscalculation, the movie is still effective and enlightening—and a worthy companion to 2022’s The Janes, an excellent nonfiction documentary on this remarkable cooperative.
  22. 42
    The Jackie Robinson biopic 42 operates in a box inside of a box—and not the batter’s box, either, because that would imply it has some freedom to swing away. It’s thoroughly embalmed in the glossy lacquer of conventional baseball movies, and limited further by trying to deal with the horrors of racism in that context.
  23. Disturbia
    Once the plot finally kicks into gear, director D.J. Caruso (Taking Lives) effectively cranks up the tension.
  24. California Solo
    California Solo doesn't have much story. All of the details above are established in the first five minutes, then the movie becomes a character sketch, carried by its wealth of detail and a fantastic Carlyle performance.
  25. The Good House
    Weaver is so forceful and present she can plow through the movie’s flaws until we fail to notice them. For a film about denial, that sounds about right.
  26. Jackie Brown
    The most exciting thing about Jackie Brown is the director's seamless transition to a less flashy, revealing style; it's well-suited to the more character-oriented focus of the film... an assured, accomplished, and very good film.
  27. Kabluey
    While the film's social-satire elements are flat and overly familiar, its dry absurdity is unmistakably Lynchian.
  28. Beneath the Harvest Sky
    Like "Winter’s Bone" and "Frozen River," the movie attempts to re-mystify a handful of old tropes—the tragic snitch, crime as a family business—by placing them in unfamiliar terrain.
  29. Totally Killer
    Totally Killer is a film full of great talent, great moments, and an infectious sense of fun, which means that even when it doesn’t quite work, it’s an entertaining balance of slasher tropes and time travel adventure.
  30. When the Sea Rises
    It's content enough just to drink in the regional flavor, appreciate the carefree heartiness of the locals, and allows these two eccentrics to have some good times before the carriage turns into a pumpkin. The film treads lightly, but leaves little impression.
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