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. Revanche
    Revanche is, first and foremost, a good story, craftily told.
  2. 28 Weeks Later
    Under Fresnadillo's assured direction, 28 Weeks Later blurs the line between genre entertainment and a photojournalist's shots of the next urban catastrophe.
  3. Bronson
    There are two Bronsons on display here: the impossible thug that we don’t dare release into polite society, and the guy we enjoy watching do his terrible thing. The man and the movie are both living, punching contradictions.
  4. Away from Her
    Has its heartbreaking moments and its surprise giggles, particularly thanks to Ron Hewat's minor role as a former hockey play-by-play announcer now narrating his nursing-home life.
  5. Sugar
    Instead of hitting all the usual beats, Sugar just moseys in a mostly delightful way.
  6. The Host
    Most of all, The Host functions as a popcorn movie par excellence, loaded with the most familiar conventions, but shot through with such conviction and visual panache that even its clichés seem invigorating.
  7. Bruno
    Cohen no longer has freshness and novelty on his side, but he’s retained the power to shock, offend, provoke, unsettle, and most importantly, entertain a jaded, desensitized public.
  8. The Girlfriend Experience
    The thinking behind Grey's casting, with its obvious sex-industry connections, lends the film a degree of verisimilitude, but it really pays off in a cameo by film critic Glenn Kenny, who brings a hilariously sleazy theatricality to the role of an "escort critic" who expects graft for his reviews.
  9. The President's Last Bang
    Though The President's Last Bang is undeniably dense-with more than a dozen significant characters-the particulars aren't too tough to understand.
  10. The Descent
    The Descent sustains a level of intensity that most horror films can barely muster for five minutes.
  11. Who Gets to Call It Art?
    Comes closer than most to seeing the whole picture.
  12. Sophie Scholl: The Final Days
    While the film doesn't dig deep, or hit particularly hard, it neatly achieves its modest goals: presenting a real-life heroine in real-life terms. A film this fictionalized rarely feels this much like fact.
  13. Dave Chappelle's Block Party
    Block Party is largely a giant love-fest, which is fitting given the staggering amount of simpatico musical and comic talent on display, though some conflict surfaces nevertheless.
  14. Duck Season
    Mexican writer-director Fernando Eimbcke got his start in short films and documentaries, and his first feature reveals a gift for concision: It doesn't overexert itself trying to come to big conclusions about these characters, and even the comedic scenes settle for gentle quirks over broad guffaws.
  15. Thank You for Smoking
    Much like his father Ivan (Ghostbusters), first-time director Jason Reitman has a broad, anything-goes comedic sensibility that allows silly gags and incidental humor to sneak in alongside the satirical barbs.
  16. The Devil's Miner
    So polished that it might pass for a scripted narrative feature, but that's not a bad thing. They found a remarkable spokesman in Bolivian teenager Basilio Vargas, and while his cogent, organized descriptions of his life, beliefs, history, and ambitions sometimes seem too calculated, at least they're calculated to communicate efficiently and appealingly.
  17. Inside Man
    With juicy supporting roles for Chiwetel Ejiofor and Willem Dafoe as Washington's fellow officers, the film works best when the characters are just sitting back and shooting the breeze, which is what they're doing much of the time. Here, puzzling out a robbery is more fun than stopping it.
  18. The Beauty Academy of Kabul
    Mermin presents all this without editorial comment, and her film would be worth watching if only for its look at a profound culture-clash. But it goes one better, and delves into one of those clashing cultures, capturing it in a moment of change that goes far beyond one beauty academy's superficial concerns.
  19. Slither
    Though it occasionally dips too deep into a well of redneck humor, Slither cleverly exploits the nervous laughter that fills a theater whenever a horror movie gets too frightening to bear.
  20. I Am a Sex Addict
    Zahedi isn't afraid to put himself out there, even when his thoughts and actions are profoundly unflattering; his self-effacement makes the film a reflection on narcissism and misogyny rather than an exercise in both.
  21. Mission: Impossible III
    Yes, it's fundamentally business as usual, but it's the best kind of business as usual, and it finds everyone working in top form. Abrams imports and enlarges "Alias'" smooth, stylish, yet remarkably visceral approach to action, and the actors pack a satisfying amount of drama into the moments between action scenes.
  22. Dead Man's Shoes
    For all Dead Man's Shoes' well-paced, well-observed boondocks melodrama, its premise seems simultaneously slender and overheated.
  23. Cars
    Cars is a fine example of the formula, with pleasant chemistry, the patented Pixar cleverness, and the usual sweetly melancholy nostalgia courtesy of songwriter Randy Newman.
  24. A Prairie Home Companion
    Altman and Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion is fittingly both a celebration and a winning example of the joys of collaboration.
  25. The War Tapes
    The War Tapes falls just short of greatness, because its scope is too limited.
  26. The Motel
    Like the best independent films, The Motel realizes that life is made up of minor pleasures and tiny epiphanies, not sweeping character arcs or big dramatic moments.
  27. Edmond
    Edmond would probably be completely unapproachable were it not spiked with so much dark wit, much of it coming from Macy's painful naïveté and cheapness, which comes through in negotiations with various women of the night.
  28. 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance
    The trilogy's conclusion, 71 Fragments, doesn't quite fit the glaciation theme, but it does show Haneke's willingness to experiment with the form and challenge the way audiences receive information. The film's radical deconstruction of various narrative strands questions the way such information is delivered and received.
  29. Miami Vice
    While it never approaches the richness and gravity of a great Mann film like "Heat," Miami Vice blurs the thin blue line to similar effect, and he features a couple of bravura setpieces, including a tense raid on an enemy hideout and a shootout with chaotic, you-are-there immediacy. If only all summer movies were this majestically slight.
  30. The Bridesmaid
    The Bridesmaid goes slack at times, as it follows multiple Magimel family subplots, but as always, Chabrol stages everything with an elegant economy, moving the camera in short bursts that direct the eye but don't distract. Still, the movie would fail completely if not for the dynamic between the two leads.
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