The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 10,435 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: 5,578 out of 10435
  2. Mixed: 3,745 out of 10435
  3. Negative: 1,112 out of 10435
10435 movie reviews
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  1. Five Minutes of Heaven
    Hirschbiegel fails to discipline his English-speaking cast, allowing Nesbitt so much rein with his caffeinated performance that sympathies shift to Neeson’s comparatively sanguine murderer.
  2. The Marc Pease Experience
    In a squandered lead performance, the adorable, winning Schwartzman plays the non-adorable, non-winning title character.
  3. Art & Copy
    The film is essentially a skillful advertising-industry infomercial that speaks its subject’s slick aesthetic language.
  4. My One and Only
    Dying to hear George Hamilton’s origin story? No? Well, too bad, because the mediocre, nostalgic-soaked comedy-drama My One And Only, loosely inspired by Hamilton’s childhood, has been produced with a few big stars attached.
  5. Passing Strange
    Lee doesn’t exactly reinvent the wheel when it comes to filming live theater, but he moves the camera artfully and edits with an energy that matches the music.
  6. Still Walking
    The movie seems like a perfect found object, as if it had always existed and was just waiting to be uncovered.
  7. The Headless Woman
    A remarkably nuanced, ever-evolving performance (María Onetto).
  8. District 9
    District 9 fuses science fiction mayhem and biting social commentary as well as any film since "Starship Troopers." It’s the rare alien invasion story that has the aliens running scared.
  9. Ponyo
    It’s essentially a stroll through a fantastically detailed pastel world, in which the plot is little more than an excuse for Miyazaki to dive into a world teeming with colorful (and sometimes prehistoric) life.
  10. The Time Traveler's Wife
    The story is still mostly fabulous, and its novelty helps carry the film, but this still comes across like a poor high-school stage version: sincere and kind of sweet, but endlessly clumsy.
  11. Bandslam
    Throughout its first two acts, Bandslam is charming, sweet, and funny enough to merit inclusion in the upper echelon of teen comedies. Then comes a third act weighed down with arbitrary romantic conflicts, leaden melodrama, and a tiresome subplot.
  12. The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard
    About Piven: When did it go wrong? When did the caustic character actor guaranteed to liven up even the dullest movie turn into a walking black hole of smarm from which no joy can escape?
  13. Earth Days
    Nearly a quarter of the way through Earth Days, the movie seems on-track to being just another tongue-clucking “Isn’t it a pity” doc, painted in broad strokes.
  14. It Might Get Loud
    The resulting jam session ought to be a music geek’s wet dream, but there isn’t enough common ground to produce more than a few flashes of inspiration.
  15. Taxidermia
    Frequently funny, for those who can stomach it.
  16. The Way We Get By
    Neither pro- nor anti-war; it’s a somber study of perpetually unsettled lives.
  17. A Perfect Getaway
    Even if you know what’s coming, it’s a neat bit of meta-thriller filmmaking, as much about the mechanics of storytelling as a reasonably satisfying example of it.
  18. Julie & Julia
    Two movies in one. That’s one more movie than it needs to be.
  19. Cold Souls
    The premise seems profound, but the claustrophobically inert execution lacks reach or imagination.
  20. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
    The Rise Of Cobra holds to a thrill-ride sensibility that’s unchallenging and more than a little goofy, but exciting and consistently well-managed.
  21. Beeswax
    Bujalski’s funny, diverting character piece has a lived-in quality that’s no small achievement.
  22. I Sell the Dead
    The movie goes out on a high, but until then, it plays almost like the pilot for a TV series. But it would be a GOOD TV series.
  23. Paper Heart
    This isn’t a movie. It’s a MySpace page.
  24. Funny People
    It's refreshingly unformulaic, but a rambling mess. It's also tremendously funny.
  25. The Cove
    The Cove's ultimate message gets muddled, especially since Psihoyos limits all counter-arguments to a few inarticulate or thuggish boobs.
  26. Thirst
    Thirst never picks up the momentum of Park’s best-known work. But its turgid pace creates a queasy fascination all its own, drawing viewers into an ever-darkening locus of sin and obsession where even the wish for redemption comes at a terrible cost.
  27. Aliens in the Attic
    Like those mild old Disney comedies of the ’60s and ’70s, it seems perfectly content with being a harmless distraction.
  28. The Collector
    For his directorial debut, The Collector, Dunstan streamlines the "Saw" concept slightly by silencing the killer and focusing more intently on a house that’s been converted into a jury-rigged deathtrap.
  29. Lorna's Silence
    Lorna's Silence feels like a refinement, even a repetition, of earlier themes. But the brothers are repeating themselves at such a high level that the redundancies are more than welcome.
  30. Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation!
    Think of Not Quite Hollywood as a vividly illustrated catalogue of astonishing smut.
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