The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 10,443 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: 5,584 out of 10443
  2. Mixed: 3,746 out of 10443
  3. Negative: 1,113 out of 10443
10443 movie reviews
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  1. Mountainhead
    A wry smackdown of four insanely rich bros hanging out at a gaudy estate in the Utah mountains, the movie generates a decent amount of laughs, but it’s best when Armstrong puts satire aside for rage, seething at the tech kingpins destroying our society to increase their profits.
  2. The Rose of Versailles
    The crossdressing, androgynous heroine, whose internal struggle around binary gender roles still feels fresh, grounds the broad emotions and classic, over-the-top aesthetic permeating the film.
  3. Ready or Not 2: Here I Come
    Happily, the narrative moves ahead quickly, the better to demonstrate new, inventive methods of reducing murder-happy billionaires to sloppy carcasses in between beats where Weaving and Newton get to play off of one another.
  4. Left-Handed Girl
    There’s something impersonal about Left-Handed Girl, like a greeting card written by a close friend with their non-dominant hand. Select words and phrases are legible, but the overall wobbliness has the entire sentiment feeling a bit fuzzy.
  5. A Private Life
    A Private Life offers plenty of fizzy pleasures alongside somber reflections on the passage of time and the regrets you have to live with.
  6. Deaf President Now!
    Deaf President Now! honors that struggle, even if the polished packaging doesn’t always possess a similar righteous fury.
  7. Urchin
    Despite his confident and unfussy direction, Dickinson owes most of Urchin‘s success to his lead actor, Frank Dillane.
  8. The Devil Wears Prada 2
    While there’s no recapturing the delightful surprise of the first, The Devil Wears Prada 2 is still a treat for fans of the original.
  9. The Lost Bus
    Without that grandeur—that Hollywood-sheen take on storybook resilience—the film’s uneven application of sad-sack strife might extinguish McConaughey’s guiding performance. But Greengrass’ throwback disaster-movie efforts, plus a healthy fury induced by our harmful ecological footprint, keeps feeding this fire.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    All You Need Is Kill
    Judged both in a vacuum and against its source material, All You Need Is Kill is a rare retelling that finds its own tenor.
  11. My Oxford Year
    Cute and comedic, but with a heavy dose of Lifetime Original energy (notably, source author Whelan cut her teeth as an actress in such vehicles), My Oxford Year may not be subversive, but it is serviceable.
  12. Anaconda
    Anaconda may be getting the benefit of the doubt here because of how few studio comedies make it to theaters. In another era, it might easily have gotten lost in a wave of post-modern updates that included The Brady Bunch and Starsky & Hutch. Its plot offers few surprises, but its simple foundations and character motivations give Rudd and Black so much room to play that it’s an amiable time.
  13. Is This Thing On?
    Is This Thing On? might come to its healing from an appropriately modest place, but there’s still a bit of actorly grandiosity under its skin.
  14. GOAT
    The actual sports stuff feels a little sweatier, with too much clamor for each animal teammate to really pop. But Goat still leaps over the worst pitfalls of big-studio kid-centric animation. Where it counts, the movie knows just enough ball.
  15. Late Shift
    Even with all these spinning plates, Volpe struggles with maintaining tension despite Benesch’s knack for immediacy and impeccable dramatic timing.
  16. The Woman in Cabin 10
    This is Hitchcock lite, with a great leading lady and a story that doesn’t overstay its welcome. It may not be the kind of film that lingers after it’s done, but for a good trip, rather than a long trip, it’s worth climbing aboard.
  17. Fuze
    Fuze doesn’t fly off the rails at its midpoint. It keeps moving forward at a steady clip. By its final stretch, however, the effort to sustain itself becomes more visible, and less quietly confident.
  18. Tuner
    Where Tuner truly shines is in the work of Oscar-winning sound designer Johnnie Burn and the film’s sound team as they carefully recreate Niki’s world through the film’s engrossing soundscape. Roher’s technically impressive approach to this element weaves itself organically throughout the film and its story, setting the crime drama apart from more typical crowdpleasers.
  19. Reminders of Him
    While the plot isn’t realistic, it’s deeply felt, which is what these kinds of melodramas are supposed to offer. It’s a leaps and bounds improvement over Regretting You, and though Reminders Of Him has fewer grace notes than It Ends With Us, it’s got a more cohesive, meaningful message.
  20. The Plague
    Aside from these shallow moments of over-explanation and a kinetic ending that lifts whole cloth from the aforementioned Beau Travail, this exciting debut boasts some honest and cutting commentary around these angry, confused little boys.
  21. In the Grey
    It’s Ritchie in fun-workhorse mode, more businesslike than Operation Fortune but fleeter than Fountain Of Youth.
  22. Forbidden Fruits
    If you don’t worry about the story and just immerse yourself in the gags, Alloway’s film is a must-watch for the Venn diagram overlap between Shudder subscribers and the slumber party crowd.
  23. Solo Mio
    While Solo Mio feels familiar, it doesn’t feel generic—and that’s a balancing act as impressive as James’ late-career pivot.
  24. They Will Kill You
    After so many smirky bloodfests, They Will Kill You scarcely needs believable human relationships to earn some goodwill. All it really needs is Beetz convincingly going through hell.
  25. Heel
    Heel wants to have its cake and eat it too, to present this darkly comic absurdity while dipping back into reality only when it suits the film.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    The Best Summer
    There’s an undeniable warmth and nostalgia here, but unless you were on those tour buses—or attended one of those shows—you can’t quite connect with The Best Summer like you want to. It’s like looking at someone else’s scrapbook or home movies. This very well could’ve been “the best summer.” It just wasn’t yours or mine, and that’s okay. We appreciate Davis giving us a peek at this cool moment in her life.
  27. Exit 8
    Exit 8 excels at capturing that isolation and disaffection in an elegant environmental ouroboros, though what it does once it establishes its atmosphere never matches that simple artistry.
  28. War Machine
    Forget the gritty realism and quippy one-liners that so often define the modern action genre, War Machine is proudly, almost guilelessly old-fashioned.
  29. Roommates
    The trouble is, Roommates‘ emotional realism is so compelling that by the time it decides to swing around to being a full-on black comedy, it’s hard not to feel disappointed by the ending. To be fair, that is the setup promised by the framing device, so the film doesn’t exactly pull a fast one, and the cast is equally committed to the more heightened comedy when it arrives.
  30. Deep Water
    In this case, Eckhart exudes the sort of unselfconscious paternal energy that’s needed to keep things moving in between the familiar, but well-executed disaster movie story beats. He almost single-handedly makes Deep Water a better-than-average genre exercise, though the bloody shark attacks and corny banter don’t hurt either.
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