The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 10,419 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: 5,574 out of 10419
  2. Mixed: 3,737 out of 10419
  3. Negative: 1,108 out of 10419
10419 movie reviews
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  1. The Roaring Twenties
    This is an exciting, sweeping vision of American life, which treats crime like the ultimate small business, crushed by the machinations of the truly powerful.
  2. Peter Hujar's Day
    The little things, the random asides and minor revelations, are just as powerful as the star-studded namedrops during this extensive conversation.
  3. Train Dreams
    Train Dreams, at just 95 minutes before credits, is as efficient, accessible, and poignant as a good short story.
  4. If I Had Legs I'd Kick You
    Byrne excels at evoking pain and exhaustion, but also selfish ambivalence, and the kind of frazzled mother character she played in the Insidious franchise is put to far better use by Bronstein.
  5. Resurrection
    Divided yet compounding as the totality of Resurrection unfolds, our sharpened senses catch onto the details of Bi’s work, our awareness heightened around how many ways we can engage with the film in front of us, and movies in general.
  6. The Secret Agent
    By delicately weaving the veracity of archive, the reverie induced by celluloid, and the inevitability of corruption into its narrative, The Secret Agent becomes a career-spanning treatise that cozily situates itself amid the staggering cinematic epics that Mendonça pays respect to.
  7. It Was Just an Accident
    By narrativizing the collective mistreatment of political dissidents—both those he personally forged bonds with and the countless others persecuted by the Iranian state—the fearless filmmaker crafts his most radical condemnation of the forces that have long attempted to silence him.
  8. The Testament of Ann Lee
    The frenzied, lustful energy of the film’s first half makes it one of the most thrilling cinematic experiences of the year and, though the slower, more mannered second half struggles to recapture that same sense of propulsion, there’s a purpose to that too.
  9. Magellan
    Diaz makes a mockery of Magellan in his depiction of the revered globetrotter, his take on the Age Of Discovery damning to say the least.
  10. Blue Heron
    By the time Zimmer helps connect past and present, memory and reality, the ensemble’s lived-in performances already gesture towards the logical outcome. We just hope it isn’t true.
  11. Obsession
    Through clever cinematography, editing tricks, and a cast that’s fully committed to the director’s unnerving vision, Barker reimagines a classic horror idea for a new generation.
  12. Sideways
    Good comedies are rare, but rarer still are those that conflate laughter with intimacy.
  13. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
    All in all, it's a fitting conclusion to the series, and yet there are disappointments built in. For one, Jackson has opted not to film Tolkien's downbeat "Scouring Of The Shire" epilogue.
  14. Memories of Murder
    It takes enormous skill to pull off such a high-wire act without diminishing the gravity of the situation, but Bong and his first-rate cast are up to the task.
  15. Tony Takitani
    Movies can't exactly replicate the feeling of reading a book, but Jun Ichikawa's adaptation of Haruki Murakami's short story Tony Takitani comes remarkably close.
  16. Broken Flowers
    Murray and Jarmusch, two modern masters of minimalism, triumphantly join forces in Broken Flowers, a bittersweet tour de force about a wealthy, deeply depressed lothario.
  17. 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.
  18. Separate Lies
    This material could easily have devolved into soap opera or romantic melodrama, but Wilkinson and Watson's superb, subtle performances lend it tremendous depth and gravity.
  19. Nine Lives
    As a film composed entirely of nine continuous long takes, Nine Lives certainly qualifies as unique. But what makes it rarer and more auspicious is that it offers such a rich bounty of great roles for middle-aged women.
  20. King Kong
    After a start heavy on exposition, the film strings one action setpiece after another, each realized with the breathless excitement of an adventure pulp cover. It's as if Jackson set out to bring to life every fantasy of the last moment before earth gave way to space as the site of the final frontier.
  21. Munich
    Breaking from the Spielberg oeuvre, Munich isn't a particularly hopeful movie, but it's a fair and morally dignified one.
  22. Esther Kahn
    Summer Phoenix has a screen presence that's simultaneously distancing and transfixing, an inscrutability that makes her seem either mysterious or a complete blank.
  23. Lovely & Amazing
    Emerges as something rare, an issue movie that's so honest and keenly observed that it doesn't feel like one. It earns its thesis statement through minute details and a unique grasp of a commonplace problem.
  24. Devils on the Doorstep
    Though shorn of 20 minutes for its U.S. debut, the film's wry comic portrait of the Japanese Occupation during WWII hasn't lost any of its incendiary brilliance, both as a political provocation and as a brusquely humane take on the horrors and absurdity of war.
  25. I Am Trying to Break Your Heart
    A superb portrait of a band and an industry in flux.
  26. The Son's Room
    In the end, it's that reserve that makes it work. Keeping his distance, the director lets viewers see in full the moments in which grief turns the world into a narrow, never-ending tunnel.
  27. Amandla! A Revolution in Four Part Harmony
    In Amandla!, history doesn't just come alive--it sings, dances, and issues a passionate plea for justice and equality. The film joyously celebrates music as both a means to an end and an end unto itself.
  28. Stevie
    Neither condemning nor forgiving, the film is a model of documentary evenhandedness, even though James makes no claims of objectivity.
  29. Ulee's Gold
    Though it occasionally wears its metaphors on its sleeve, Ulee's Gold should, if there's any justice, find the same thoughtful-drama-hungry audience that made "Sling Blade" a hit.
  30. Derrida
    As the film takes shape, the form and the subject develop a fascinating symbiosis, with Derrida cast as an active participant in the deconstruction of his own documentary.
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