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. Office
    Office is one of the most original and imaginative musicals of the last decade, in spite of Lo Dayu’s largely unremarkable, temp-track-like score.
  2. Being There
    Being There finds humor in the way Sellers becomes a blank screen on which people project their expectations. But it also finds value in his simplicity, which might seem like a lot of New Age hokum if not for Sellers' disarmingly quiet performance.
  3. Chop Shop
    Though Chop Shop is an American film, it feels more like an Iranian movie or the Dardenne Brothers’ "Rosetta"; Bahrani introduces something like a plot point in the late-going, but he mostly focuses, to riveting effect, on how his young hero hustles and claws through everyday life.
  4. Raising Victor Vargas
    What makes Raising Victor Vargas so special, beyond its irresistible charisma, is how Sollett and his cast capture the thrill of first love.
  5. '71
    The setting may be Belfast ’71, but Demange’s sensibility — first-rate suspense coupled with black-and-white politics — is much more James Cameron ’86.
  6. The Cave
    It’s a monotonous descent into agony that coasts on the impossibility of anyone walking away unaffected by the imagery.
  7. Blackfish
    Blackfish’s strongest argument against the existence of parks like SeaWorld is how much more gorgeous orcas look in the open ocean than leaping about an oversized swimming pool. And the audience won’t get soaking wet watching them frolic in movies, either.
  8. The Guilty
    It might not be the kind of movie that anyone needs to see twice, but its variations on the classic building blocks of suspense implicate our own guesswork in interesting ways.
  9. I Wish I Knew
    Even in shortened form, I Wish I Knew can at times feel overly discursive. But its implications, particularly regarding the Cultural Revolution, are difficult to miss.
  10. The Girl and the Spider
    It pays off in a work of gorgeous stylistic precision where cautious glances and wistful anecdotes melt together to form a melancholy arthouse jewel about the tearing down of one woman’s identity.
  11. Corpse Bride
    Like all Burton's best work, it takes place in a distorted, vividly colored, meticulously crafted world where whimsy and gleeful ghoulishness mix freely.
  12. Young Frankenstein
    Young Frankenstein (1974) and High Anxiety are as much loving homage as irreverent spoof.
  13. Predators
    In forcing a viewer’s roiling, complex feelings inward, Predators is also asking audiences to sit with cruelty, and ponder how contributive, even in a small way, they might have been—as well as just how deep their own personal reservoir of compassion might be.
  14. Project Nim
    To an equal extent, Project Nim shows the human capacity for cruelty and narcissism as well as compassion and selflessness.
  15. Neil Young Trunk Show
    Demme’s excitement for Young and his music is evident throughout, and the songs fit comfortably in the unvarnished setting.
  16. The Lighthouse
    The Lighthouse is more satisfying when viewed through the prism of its pitch-black humor; it’s fine as a thriller, borderline brilliant as a comedy of cabin fever and competitive machismo.
  17. Spider-Man 2
    The filmmakers smartly counter heavy drama with goofy comedy, mining a rich vein of humor in the juxtaposition of the mundane and the superheroic. Maguire and Molina excel at opposite ends of the moral spectrum, but the film is stolen once again by J.K. Simmons.
  18. Saint Frances
    Saint Frances goes down easy. It’s refreshingly small and intimate, and is specific on the lives of very particular women without overreaching to look more politically salient or strike zeitgeist concerns. Bridget’s personal growth is understated, and so, for the most part, are the pleasures of Saint Frances.
  19. Mandy
    The look of the film is a hoot: double lens flares over wood paneling, psychedelic lighting, crude animated sequences, slow-mo and telephoto shots, and enough vintage MTV fog machines to kill a hair metal band.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    When We Were Kings
    When We Were Kings is an energetic, passionate documentary of this event, and a revelation for people who only know Ali as an ex-champ with Parkinson's and Foreman as a Care Bear.
  21. 20 Feet from Stardom
    Twenty Feet From Stardom touches on fascinating issues, but too often it does no more than that.
  22. Avatar
    Avatar is a weak patchwork of his other films: the leaden voiceover from "Terminator 2" here, the military/civilian conflict from "Aliens" there, even a Jack-and-Rose-style forbidden love story cued to adult-contempo soundtrack.
  23. 20th Century Women
    While Beginners unfolded almost entirely from the point of view of its directorial stand-in, 20th Century Women creates a more generous equilibrium of perspective.
  24. Pina
    It's also representative of Pina's major flaw: the inability of artists to get out of their own way.
  25. Animal Kingdom
    Animal Kingdom joins in the tradition of brutally unsentimental Australian crime dramas like "The Boys," in which the stakes are low, except to the people staring down the barrel of a gun.
  26. Hugo
    It's a complex fusion of film history and personal history, filled with dazzling embellishments and unabashed sentiment about the glories of cinema.
  27. Tenebrae
    Franciosa and John Saxon (as his agent) turn in amusing performances, and Argento makes some points about the intersection of art, reality, and personality, but the director's stunning trademark setpieces, presented here in a fully restored version, provide the real reason to watch.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The LEGO Movie
    Effervescent in style, conveying a substantive message without ever devolving into saccharine preachiness.
  29. Gloria
    Movies about middle-aged women are so rare that it’s tempting to praise them on that basis alone. Thankfully, the Chilean drama Gloria, which won Paulina García the Best Actress prize at last year’s Berlin International Film Festival, doesn’t require much critical mitigation.
  30. Drag Me to Hell
    Raimi’s new film feels distinctly unburdened and fun, happily frolicking in its own pulp silliness.
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