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. Something New
    Something New sets out to dramatize just how little society's attitudes toward interracial relationships have changed over the past few decades, but instead ends up documenting just how little the interracial-romance message movie has evolved since the clumsy days of "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner."
  2. Who Gets to Call It Art?
    Comes closer than most to seeing the whole picture.
  3. Bubble
    It's almost condescending, as though Soderbergh were challenging himself to make Middle America interesting. And yet the movie IS interesting, almost in spite of itself.
  4. Annapolis
    At a time when movies, even from Hollywood, are finally turning their eyes to conflicts abroad, Annapolis seems conspicuously myopic and reactionary in its denial of the world outside campus, though a movie this formulaic wouldn't pass muster during peacetime, either.
  5. Big Momma's House 2
    There's something depressing about seeing the low-energy, family-friendly Lawrence sleepwalk through the film's sappy plot points.
  6. Nanny McPhee
    There are times when Nanny McPhee seems designed to drive all but the most sugar-crazed spazzes out of the theater: Colors that should never go together clash like a tempest, the camera whisks around in manic curlicues, and a musical score makes certain that nothing magical goes underemphasized.
  7. Dai si gin
    The movie is one of To's typically tangled meditations on the smearing of good and evil, in moments where instinct overcomes morality. And ultimately, To cares less about the motivations of opposing forces than about the spectacular collisions they produce.
  8. Imagine Me & You
    The film nearly works in spite of its adherence to formula, thanks to clever one-liners and appealing, sharply drawn supporting performances.
  9. Manderlay
    It's an extremely cynical perspective, enforced by some disappointingly turgid melodrama, but keep in mind, this movie was made before an almost uniformly poor and black population was left to rot in New Orleans floodwaters. Even at his worst, von Trier can still strike a nerve.
  10. Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story
    Has about a dozen layers of in-joke, and up to the eighth or ninth layer, they mostly work.
  11. Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World
    Like "The Aristocrats," Looking succeeds smashingly both as a comedy and as a savvy deconstruction of comedy.
  12. Why We Fight
    Ultimately, Why We Fight reveals itself as yet another leftie doc with an anti-war agenda. But the mere fact that it takes time to ask questions and listen to opposing viewpoints sets it apart from the pack.
  13. End of the Spear
    In spite of End Of The Spear's fundamental conservatism, the missionaries' disastrous initial encounter with the Waodani ultimately teaches the progressive message that when it comes to winning the hearts and minds of foreign cultures, Bibles and superior technology are no substitute for a thorough understanding of their language and culture.
  14. Underworld: Evolution
    There's a ton of backstory behind Underworld: Evolution, which gets slightly denser and rowdier than its predecessor, but it's ultimately all in the service of a nigh-endless series of numbing, mechanical battles in which snarling protagonists and CGI monsters shoot, claw, and bloodily eviscerate each other. In other words, it's "Underworld," but more of it.
  15. Pizza
    Christopher delivers cutesy jabber and one-note characters, as oily and devoid of substance as... well, you know.
  16. How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (and Enjoy It)
    Angio captures the outlandish twists and turns of Van Peebles' life with humor, color, and a welcome lightness of touch.
  17. The Fall of Fujimori
    If the end justifies the means, it would be hard to deny that the legacy of Alberto Fujimori, the disgraced former President of Peru, is largely triumphant.
  18. Glory Road
    Glory Road treats history as if it were a 7th-grade social-studies text laid out in a 16-point font, getting the basics right without trying to evoke any of the details that would make it memorable. In other words, it gets the Bruckheimer treatment.
  19. Last Holiday
    For a film ostensibly about how life means nothing without adventure and unpredictability, Last Holiday all feels as preordained as the film-ending Emeril cameo.
  20. Tristan and Isolde
    Moves so sluggishly that someone must have been dosing the cast and crew with Nyquil.
  21. When the Sea Rises
    It's content enough just to drink in the regional flavor, appreciate the carefree heartiness of the locals, and allows these two eccentrics to have some good times before the carriage turns into a pumpkin. The film treads lightly, but leaves little impression.
  22. Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Impassioned Eye
    It isn't a biography of the legendary photographer, and it's not exactly an essay. Mostly, Bütler fills the screen with Cartier-Bresson's photographs while people explain their greatness.
  23. State of Fear
    Builds to a key point about the consequences of democracies fighting terrorism by erasing its central tenets, but in doing so, it doesn't underplay the horrors wrought by Guzmán's organization.
  24. Fateless
    Fateless is a strangely beautiful film, enhanced by a typically lyrical Ennio Morricone score and by Koltai's hazy, grayed-out images.
  25. Hostel
    Roth gets the notes right while missing the music: He studiously replicates Miike's unblinking depiction of torture, but without much reflection or wit. It's merely unpleasant and more than a little dumb.
  26. Grandma's Boy
    Grandma's Boy aspires to nothing more than the frathouse goofiness and juvenile high spirits of early Sandler vehicles, but it possesses the energy of a funeral dirge played at half-speed.
  27. Kill the Poor
    Taylor makes the most of his tiny budget with creative editing and shooting, though his New York City is anemic, narrow, and underpopulated, and his constant repetition of the same damn 60 seconds of music becomes excruciating.
  28. BloodRayne
    With minimal flare and maximal gore, Boll simply delivers the turgid drama and incompetently staged action sequences that have made him the unstoppable Big Boss of the gaming community.
  29. The Promise
    For Kaige, The Promise can't exactly be called a return to form--it's more a return to "Hero" and "House Of Flying Daggers" director Zhang Yimou's form. Either way, it's still glorious.
  30. Match Point
    Just when the seemingly endless scenes of Johansson's nagging threaten to sink Match Point for good, the movie becomes the thriller that early reports promised.
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