The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 10,414 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 2.6 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: 5,571 out of 10414
  2. Mixed: 3,736 out of 10414
  3. Negative: 1,107 out of 10414
10414 movie reviews
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  1. Crazy Heart
    Crazy Heart could use more rough edges, but while it’s a little too sentimental and tidy, Bridges’ humane, deeply empathetic lead performance makes it easy to root for one man’s redemption.
  2. The Fool
    Yuri Bykov’s third feature is in the same vein as a slew of recent Russian films sounding a strident alarm.
  3. The Wrong Man
    The Wrong Man, an overlooked masterpiece from his greatest decade, eschews suspense for the straight-up nightmare of an innocent man dragged through the justice system.
  4. Goodbye, Dragon Inn
    It could all be done much more efficiently, but any other approach would lose Tsai's unique mix of stone-faced comedy and dewy-eyed lyricism.
  5. De Palma
    De Palma is just De Palma gabbing for two hours into a camera, and that’s its ultimate limitation, but also its great strength.
  6. His Three Daughters
    His Three Daughters is an extremely effective tear-jerker.
  7. Custody
    Custody doesn’t do much more than plunge the audience into this hellish situation, but it shrewdly understands the bad dad’s pathetic pathology, and the film may resonate for anyone who’s grown up under the unhealthy supervision of a mean bastard. Take that as a sobering recommendation.
  8. Under the Shadow
    There’s still something exciting about seeing familiar tropes placed in an unfamiliar context — in this case, a nation ravaged by violent conflict and stifled by fundamentalist law.
  9. Adaptation.
    Kaufman strikes just the right balance between playfulness and sincerity, leaping freely from one absurd situation to another before pulling back on the reins.
  10. Fighter
    Far from the solemn earnestness of most Holocaust documentaries, Fighter addresses the war and its oft-toxic reverberations with refreshing impudence and candor.
  11. The Forbidden Room
    For those attuned to Maddin’s goofy sense of humor, it’s easily the funniest movie he’s ever made—a series of several dozen comic shorts strung together on a ludicrous clothesline. The only downside is that the experience, at just shy of two hours, can be a trifle exhausting.
  12. My Dinner with Andre
    Their talk feels as unforced as it is intense, but even that’s an illusion piled on top of an illusion. The film keeps returning to questions about the nature of reality and the function of performance, whether in theater or in everyday life.
  13. An American in Paris
    An American In Paris is muddled as an artistic statement, yet unsatisfying as conventional Hollywood product.
  14. The Secret of the Grain
    The Secret Of The Grain stretches out at the relaxed pace of a seven-course meal, but at the end of it, Kechiche has squeezed the most he can out of percolating dramas within the family and he lets the audience get to know its members without needing to throw them all a subplot.
  15. The Disciple
    For all the fascinating insight the film provides into a musical subculture passing slowly into the archives of history, its melancholy is more universal: Anyone who’s ever devoted themselves fully to a passion, only to discover that the rest of the world barely gives a shit, will smile sadly with recognition.
  16. Horse Feathers
    Anarchy finally reigned supreme in 1932's classic Horse Feathers, which was the first Marx brothers comedy that smoothly integrated the story into the troupe's routine.
  17. Between the Temples
    Underneath the prickly screwball banter, the jokes, the movie-isms, the occasional zaniness are probing questions about how we define ourselves and whether a community of faith can still represent something more important than gossip and an annual Holocaust remembrance bake sale.
  18. The Wind Rises
    While The Wind Rises isn’t top-shelf Miyazaki, it features more than enough gorgeous imagery to make his loss feel acute. Studio Ghibli will surely continue without him, but it’ll never be the same.
  19. Fantastic Mr. Fox
    This is no more a kids’ movie for kids than "Where The Wild Things Are"; it’s a film strictly for Wes Anderson fans of all ages. By now, they should know who they are.
  20. Limbo
    While there’s little disputing Sharrock’s empathy for his dislocated, stranded characters . . . there’s something rather limited about his alteration of dry fish-out-of-water gags and scenes of people staring forlornly into the barren middle distance.
  21. In the Loop
    In The Loop floats above its chaotic world on wave after wave of beautifully profane dialogue.
  22. Bus 174
    Edited with an impeccable sense of timing and rhythm, with each new revelation and insight planted at just the right moment, Bus 174 examines an already gripping story from a moving and untold perspective.
  23. Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets
    It’s a film comprised of snapshots, glimpses from a hazy evening. But the Ross Brothers understand that these are the moments that paint people in their best, most unguarded light.
  24. Soul
    It’s overflowing, like a bright portal into a new reality, with gorgeous details. So what if they don’t quite add up to a deeper whole?
  25. Osama
    Effective as a drama as it spirals Golbahari deeper into her nightmarish world, Osama is similarly powerful as a fictionalized account of the Taliban's obscene wish for a world where the stringent enforcement of religious laws took the place of instinctual human kindness.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    The Salt of the Earth
    Whether snapping single-person portraits or expansive group shots, each of Salgado’s subjects is a unique and distinctive being. Their individuality resonates despite the fact that the world weighs heavy on them, threatening anonymity.
  27. The Perfect Neighbor
    The documentary’s damning look at stand-your-ground laws and the ineffectiveness of police even when they’re doing everything “right” (because the body-cam footage that makes up this film wouldn’t exist if they thought they were doing something “wrong”) is awful and thorough, avoiding cliché through a devotion to fisheye footage. Its upsetting, explicit-bordering-on-exploitative access drives its points into the pit of your stomach.
  28. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
    Most vitally, the filmmakers never let the audience lose track of how cool it would be to cruise the bottom of the ocean in an elegantly appointed super-boat. The secret of good escapist fare, as Disney's crew knew, is giving the audience someplace remarkable to escape to.
  29. Sing Sing
    The strength of the cast alone can’t elevate Sing Sing to the realm of truly socially conscious cinema.
  30. Turning Red
    We all need a little reassurance once in a while to stay true to ourselves, and Turning Red is speaking directly to generations of Asian women in the diaspora when they need to hear this the most.
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