The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 10,422 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: 5,575 out of 10422
  2. Mixed: 3,739 out of 10422
  3. Negative: 1,108 out of 10422
10422 movie reviews
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  1. Me and You and Everyone We Know
    A quirkily funny, startlingly assured comedy-drama.
  2. My Summer of Love
    Pawlikowski's off-balance compositions and affection for odd close-ups suggest the influence of Wong Kar-Wai, but the film's low-key observational spirit owes as much to Mike Leigh.
  3. Ethan Mao
    Without contrivances, the movie would only run about five minutes.
  4. King of the Corner
    It's a low-key actor's showreel, harmless and toothless and sleepy. It'd go pretty well with a glass of warm milk.
  5. Batman Begins
    A rousing, reverent, often brilliant re-creation of a seminal comics character, Batman Begins proves Batman is at home in the 21st century as he was in the 20th.
  6. J.S.A.: Joint Security Area
    The new English track is predictably clumsy, but the story and images overcome it.
  7. Mr. & Mrs. Smith
    Plays like an old-fashioned romantic comedy with updated hardware.
  8. The Honeymooners
    Lunchbox-toting time-waster.
  9. High Tension
    Though staged with technical skill and unflinching brutality, it's an awfully familiar-looking slaughter filled with moments on loan from other movies.
  10. The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3-D
    Sadly, the film's creaky, sometimes painful dialogue makes it all too easy to believe that it was genuinely co-written by a small child.
  11. Howl's Moving Castle
    Miyazaki's animated adaptation of Jones' book is a charming and thoroughly absorbing treat.
  12. Wild Side
    A sustained mood piece of disquieting intensity, but its almost unbearable air of morose ennui becomes hard to take even in small doses, let alone in a highly concentrated torrent of misery like this.
  13. 5x2
    Unlike "Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind," which holds the memories of a doomed affair as precious, there's nothing bittersweet about Ozon's failed romance, but its problems are equally true.
  14. Café Lumière
    Concerns feelings that can't be expressed, relationships that can't flower, and connections that are impossible to bridge.
  15. Chrystal
    If the people in Chrystal are intended to be authentic, why do none of them look like they've ever seen the inside of a Wal-Mart?
  16. Hellraiser: Deader
    Hellraiser: Deader starts off okay—But that’s just Stockholm syndrome.
  17. Cinderella Man
    Lacking a more specific sense of time and place, Cinderella Man leans heavily on the technically proficient Crowe to slip into Braddock's skin, but he can only do so much with a character who's ready to be mounted in bronze over Central Park.
  18. Lords of Dogtown
    It's no surprise that when it ultimately tries to pluck at the heartstrings, it rings hollow. The film lives and dies by speed.
  19. Rock School
    The kids are great, but when they graduate from Rock School, will the valedictorian be the next Jimmy Page, or the technically proficient lead guitarist of a Led Zeppelin cover band?
  20. Apres Vous (After You)
    It's sweet, but way too silly.
  21. Deep Blue
    Deep Blue is a thrilling film, but not a thoughtful one; it'd be right at home on an IMAX screen, or possibly as the pretty, polished, and vaguely empty Successories poster it closely resembles.
  22. Milwaukee, Minnesota
    The middling new Milwaukee, Minnesota, on the other hand, qualifies as 100 percent faux-noir. It recycles much from classic thrillers but has little to add.
  23. Caterina va in città
    Teghil is a winning lead.
  24. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
    By the film's halfway point, the subplots have all started to head in the most obvious directions imaginable, which is too bad, since they all have real potential. Ferrera's story of spending the summer as an out-of-place ethnic element in the milk-white suburbs stays interesting the longest, in large part thanks to her performance.
  25. The White Diamond
    Herzog also finds extraordinary beauty in what Dorrington is trying to accomplish: Like Jean-Jacques Rousseau in his boat, Dorrington wants to float around the natural world in a reverie, and when he finally does, he experiences a connection with Plage that's genuinely transcendent.
  26. Or
    For long stretches, Or is a dialogue-heavy kitchen-sink drama, but its naturalistic style and unselfconscious performances give it an intensity that only builds as it progresses.
  27. Invisible
    Invisible is undeniably compelling, as Bojanov visits and revisits these people over a period of years.
  28. The Longest Yard
    The 2005 version refashions the material into a dual vehicle for Chris Rock and Adam Sandler, "Saturday Night Live" alums who specialize in lazy, ramshackle comedies that are just okay enough to not completely suck.
  29. Madagascar
    The tenor can be shrill, but there's no time to get bored. And on top of that, most of the gags actually work.
  30. Bomb the System
    Has an exhilarating edge. It's only when they open their mouths that the movie gets into trouble.
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