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. James and the Giant Peach
    At least there’s plenty to look at among Selick’s beautifully detailed characters, who each have expressive bodies and their own ways of moving.
  2. Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid
    A dry, dour film where the moments of poetic Americana barely cohere.
  3. Brewster McCloud
    In the earthly realm, it’s a sledgehammer-subtle social satire filled with cartoonish Keystone Kops haplessly pursuing their elusive prey, and crudely drawn authority figures behaving like petulant children. On a more ethereal level, it’s an intermittently lyrical, strangely poignant fantasy powered by the beatific, magnetic presence of Cort and Shelley Duvall in an electric debut, and “Papa” John Phillips’ lovely songs.
  4. Let Him Go
    Writer-director Thomas Bezucha, adapting a novel by Larry Watson, shows remarkable patience in developing this low-key rescue mission — or maybe he just assumes that he’s courting an older audience who won’t need much prompting to side with Diane Lane and Kevin Costner, but will enjoy extra time with them all the same.
  5. Dolemite
    Dolemite's plot has something to do with Moore squaring off against crooked cops and a crooked politician, but as in all of his movies, the story is less important than the cheap entertainment.
  6. Happy Happy Joy Joy: The Ren & Stimpy Story
    When the movie does turn to the predatory behavior, it mostly feels like an aside; one gets the distinct impression that the filmmakers had to scramble to insert some uncomfortable new material into their otherwise completed documentary.
  7. The Photograph
    Across just a handful of scenes, [Rob] Morgan emerges as the soul of the film. It’s a testament to how much the right actor can do with even the briefest screentime—and a call to give Morgan a starring role worthy of him.
  8. Raya and the Last Dragon
    When Raya And The Last Dragon takes the time to ruminate on grief and recovery from trauma, it meaningfully distinguishes itself from the rest of the princess oeuvre. Just as unique as the film’s world-building is its sense of hope burnished by loss, not undermined by it. Only the Disney boilerplate messaging—believe in yourself/others—obscures the power of this moving tale and how it captures, intentionally or not, a specific form of sorrow.
  9. Jumbo
    This is a slight film, one that peaks early and spends the rest of its runtime shuffling its narrative cards, re-combining the same elements in different ways. But Jumbo still stands out, thanks to a concept and aesthetic much stronger than its story.
  10. Summertime
    The collaborative spirit of the project is inspiring, enough to recommend the film to creative teenagers and theater kids of all ages. The poetry can be pretty engaging, too, once you get over yourself.
  11. Bad Hair
    The impression is of a provocative logline that Simien never quite figured out how to expand into a satisfying movie; once you get the thrust of the story, it’s mostly repetitions on a theme.
  12. The Nowhere Inn
    Never consistently funny enough to work as straight comedy and too broad to succeed in its somber aspirations, the results are still engaging in their attempts to defy easy categorization. Like St. Vincent herself, The Nowhere Inn keeps morphing into something else.
  13. The Painter and the Thief
    Twists and turns shape the narrative, but not always to Ree’s benefit; he responds by scrambling his film’s chronology in ways that threaten to rupture any sense of trust between director and viewer. Questions that one might ordinarily have dismissed instead take hold and fester. Just how real is any of this?
  14. Zola
    The performances are a hoot . . . . But the film has perspective problems that extend beyond the slightly queasy, half-comic depiction of sex work.
  15. Lost Girls
    What’s both intriguing and frustrating about the screen version, however, is the way that it flirts with a much thornier and potentially richer possibility, only to ultimately back away from that idea in favor of a straightforward plea for justice.
  16. News of the World
    It’s a true star vehicle, practically a tribute to his enduring appeal. Yet for as comforting as Hanks is in the role, and for as much as he sells the poignancy of the film’s bittersweet final stretch, the film feels almost too built around his signature nobility to ever gain much in the way of actual drama.
  17. State Funeral
    With a running time of 135 minutes, it eventually becomes exhausting—but that is partly the point of a film about a population going through the motions, of a mass event with a hole where the middle should be.
  18. The Fight
    Snappily edited, with a visual style reminiscent of Steven Soderbergh’s modular design, The Fight tells viewers of a certain political perspective what they want to hear (that Trump is bad).
  19. The Courier
    As Trey Parker and Matt Stone have taught us, you need a montage, and The Courier serves up several expert ones, leaning hard on shots of Penkovsky snapping photos of documents in shadowy storage rooms. Cooke also has a terrific camera sense in general, and can create a mood just by abruptly shifting angles.
  20. Flesh+Blood
    Though Flesh + Blood tells a terrific story, written by Verhoeven with his longtime collaborator Gerard Soeteman, the presentation is rough, and not just because the film is packed with gore and rape. Verhoeven doesn't believe in tasteful framing that implies nudity; he prefers the bare-assed variety, the kind that makes the body's frailty plain.
  21. Foxes
    It’s not that great a movie, with a plodding pace that makes teenage wildlife look kind of dull, even as it wraps it in attractive packaging.
  22. Nine Days
    More often than not, it’s better when filmmakers have a point-of-view, a sense of style, and something to say—all of which is undeniably true of Oda. But Nine Days resonates at such a distinct frequency that some may find it hauntingly beautiful (and have found it so, ever since the film debuted at Sundance back in 2020) while others may find it much too blaring.
  23. The Wretched
    A potboiler that doesn’t break any molds or reinvent any wheels. Still, there’s something to be said for setting modest goals and achieving them; if this really was some lost relic of the VHS era, it’d pass the blind rental test: There is a witch, and she’s as creepy as the box art would surely promise.
  24. Homewrecker
    Its clever comedic writing couldn’t quite overcome its sometimes subpar camerawork.
  25. We Summon the Darkness
    The film is propelled by a confident lead performance from Alexandra Daddario.
  26. Blonde
    What Ana de Armas does in Blonde is nothing short of transformative, but unfortunately, the film will likely do little to change the way people see Marilyn Monroe—once again, a victim of people doing what they think is best for her, perhaps with consent but certainly not enough consideration.
  27. C'mon C'mon
    Mills’ core insight remains the same in every film: We’re all screwed up to some degree, all constantly improvising, all doing the best we can with relatively few guidelines. That’s not especially innovative or profound, perhaps, but seeing it refracted through a connection that movies tend to ignore lends it a certain sparkle.
  28. Arkansas
    While Arkansas is a promising and often very entertaining first feature, Duke doesn’t combine these borrowed ingredients—excellent though they are—into a fully realized original story, with its own personality.
  29. Irreconcilable Differences
    Differences would have benefited from a more cerebral lead actor, but O’Neal does a good job of capturing Bogdanovich’s ingratiating passion for cinema and his fatal hubris, and the script scores some clever jabs at the vapid self-absorption of show-biz types.
  30. Mogul Mowgli
    Ahmed can’t sand over all of the flaws through sheer charisma. But with him at center, the movie is always watchable, even in its imperfections.
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