The A.V. Club's Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
  1. High School Musical 3: Senior Year
    Efron is the epitome of sexless Disney heartthrobs, but he's an electrifying song-and-dance man, so much so that his castmates (Bleu excepted) look like they have concrete shoes by comparison.
  2. The Universe of Keith Haring
    Universe deals extensively with Haring's personal life--his open homosexuality, his regular visits with his family, etc.--but it doesn't penetrate too far below the surface.
  3. Fear(s) of the Dark
    These stories are frightening, but they contain few shocks or flinches; they're deeper and more psychological, more about adult anxiety than pure terror.
  4. Stranded: I've Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains
    Arijon's choice to film the survivors returning to the Andes with their children pays huge dividends, leading to an ending that puts the real meaning of their ordeal in moving terms.
  5. W.
    Stone paddles down the giant river of Bush's life without exploring any of the tributaries; he passes by two or three dozen better movies along the way.
  6. Filth and Wisdom
    Madonna presents the three leads as flawed but essentially decent and redeemable, but they're bound up in a story that's meant to affirm a vague set of values. If she needs to justify the "Sex" book by charting her own contrived path from filth to heavenly wisdom, that's fine. But she should do it on her own time.
  7. Max Payne
    In a post-Matrix, post-John Woo world, a handful of slow-motion shootouts shouldn't be all that's on offer.
  8. The Secret Life of Bees
    It's pleasant and often touching, and the well-chosen cast sells what little drama they get, but there's no depth and little affect, and every would-be conflict peters out noncommittally.
  9. Sex Drive
    Sex Drive offers a limp variation on a hoary old teen-film trope.
  10. Frontrunners
    What makes the movie fascinating is the particulars of the campaigns.
  11. Body of Lies
    It's not like the screens are so flooded with decent movies that we couldn't use another, particularly a timely, clear-eyed thriller about the Middle East and the role of the U.S. therein.
  12. City of Ember
    Ember is seldom riveting, but it's consistently compelling, and its uncompromising literal and metaphorical darkness renders its climax enormously satisfying.
  13. The Express
    Long on inspiration, short on specifics.
  14. Good Dick
    Mainly, Good Dick just proves that TV actors like Ritter make good indie-film hires, because they'll go along with whatever ridiculous nonsense a novice filmmaker concocts.
  15. Happy-Go-Lucky
    Typically, Leigh withholds his own judgment as to whether Hawkins is a delight or a terror. But he does create a noticeable tension between the audience's expectations and the way the story plays out.
  16. Quarantine
    Dowdle manages a few nice shocks and some neat moments of pitch-black gallows humor, but Quarantine nevertheless feels awfully familiar, and it grows less convincing with each passing moment. At its worst, it abandons realism entirely and flirts with gory kitsch.
  17. Dung che sai duk
    Yet for all Ashes' frustrations, it's still a gorgeous piece of filmmaking.
  18. Nights and Weekends
    To some extent, if you've seen one Swanberg film, you've seen them all; Nights And Weekends contains the usual mix of frank, awkward sex scenes and couples talking passive-aggressively around each other.
  19. RocknRolla
    As is the norm for Ritchie, Rocknrolla is also too long, too coolly violent, and too populated by characters who all talk like they've been reading the same pulp novelist.
  20. Rachel Getting Married
    It may be painful at times, but Rachel Getting Married sure is one heck of a party.
  21. Religulous
    Maher's too smart to make a movie this dumb.
  22. Beverly Hills Chihuahua
    This is not a movie for anyone who's aged past the "Oh! Cute!" phase of moviegoing. It's paced for little minds with short attention spans.
  23. Blindness
    There's a good movie here, but we get it in pieces that are sometimes hard to decipher.
  24. Flash of Genius
    It's a smart movie for grownups, an increasingly rare commodity.
  25. An American Carol
    Great satire never fits neatly within an ideological box. Attention, the ghosts of H.L. Mencken, Stanley Kubrick, and Jonathan Swift: David Zucker could use a visit.
  26. How to Lose Friends & Alienate People
    People's title proves prophetic, only this time the people being alienated are the suckers in the paying audience.
  27. Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
    It's the journey that matters, however, and sometimes the film doesn't seem to know where it's going.
  28. Allah Made Me Funny: Live in Concert
    There's little here that's especially cage-rattling or side-splitting. Ultimately, Allah only made these guys mildly likable.
  29. Ballast
    Hammer has a nice eye, and his premise develops engagingly in the final half hour, as he raises provocative questions about whether one man can truly step in for another.
  30. The Lucky Ones
    Like its lead characters, Lucky is wounded, lost, and impractical, but it has a messy, winning humanity and an agreeably leisurely pace that almost redeems it.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »