The A.V. Club's Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
  1. The Simpsons Movie
    Though it never regains the inspiration or comic density of its brilliant first 20 minutes, The Simpsons Movie keeps the laughs coming from start to finish, a feat as rare and wonderful in film as it has been through 18 years of television.
  2. 3:10 to Yuma
    Mangold delivers a taut modern take on a lesser classic, preserving the "High Noon" themes about doing the right thing against all odds, and injecting a more modern pacing and urgency without going overboard. His film isn't Leonard's classic, but it's a solid, genre-respecting Western in its own right.
  3. The Hunting Party
    It's a hilariously half-baked scheme, one that quickly turns them from hunters to hunted, but the strength of The Hunting Party is its shaggy-dog quality.
  4. The Brave One
    The moody tone and carefully balanced drama turn a grubby premise into something unexpectedly elegant.
  5. Michael Clayton
    In a heartbreaking, scene-stealing performance, Wilkinson plays his bipolar character's manic delirium as a heightened form of awareness, a life-affirming source of moral clarity in a cloudy and corrupt world.
  6. Reservation Road
    It's a relentlessly downbeat, well-acted melodrama that's easy to admire, but intentionally impossible to enjoy.
  7. Wristcutters: A Love Story
    For a film about suicide, Wristcutters is agreeably loopy and game. Dukic is bitterly funny rather than maudlin, and his carefully plotted grunge chic, in addition to being cheap, lends the film a great deal of Jim Jarmusch grime to go with its unmistakable Jim Jarmusch quirk.
  8. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
    Ultimately, the film is just a smart caper picture with some good performances, but at times it's VERY smart, and Hoffman's performance in particular is one of the most natural and unexpectedly affecting that he's given in years.
  9. American Gangster
    Only Washington stands out; he's charming, intense, and charismatic as ever.
  10. Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten
    Temple introduces viewers to Strummer the punster, Strummer the womanizer, and Strummer the poseur, whom his mates could only really talk to when no one else was around.
  11. I'm Not There.
    An ingenious, maddening film inspired by the "many lives of Bob Dylan."
  12. The Mist
    What is surprising is how he (Darabont) rebounds from his weak, awkwardly compressed opening to produce one of the scariest King films since Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining."
  13. Margot at the Wedding
    Margot has a kitchen-sink realism that's genuinely unsettling, like a John Cassavetes movie populated by the hyper-articulate. If nothing else, Baumbach deserves credit for refusing to cozy up to the audience.
  14. Billy the Kid
    If the film has a significant flaw, it's that Venditti never explains in the film how she found Billy, or why she's interested in him. Billy The Kid often plays more like an extended home movie than something intentional and artful.
  15. Grace Is Gone
    Attempts to address grief frankly, gently, and without didacticism, and it largely succeeds.
  16. The Orphanage
    While some of the trappings and even some of the plot elements could easily be called unoriginal, Bayona and screenwriter Sergio G. Sánchez arrange them in a fresh way, crafting an emotionally resonant, nerve-jangling experience.
  17. The Band's Visit
    Tonally, The Band's Visit steps gingerly on the line between “sweetly humane” and “cloyingly quirky.”
  18. Be Kind Rewind
    The visual wit, game performances, and overflowing humanity have more than made up for the shortcomings by the time the film finds a final moment that's simultaneously abrupt and magical.
  19. 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.
  20. Heartbeat Detector
    Amalric gives another in a recent string of riveting performances, and Klotz gets a lot of play out of the ironic distance between musical expression and corporate rigor.
  21. Priceless
    Unlike Salvadori's previous comedy, 2003's "Après Vous," Priceless is less preposterous, and more grounded in character.
  22. Shine a Light
    Shine A Light pays tribute to the band's essential agelessness.
  23. Body of War
    Body Of War purposefully depicts an America in turmoil. But it also depicts an America far more capable of living with contradictions than the "Red State/Blue State"-obsessed cable-news pundits would have us believe.
  24. The Visitor
    Like few of his filmmaking peers, McCarthy understands and respects the power of quiet, and how a whisper can be as explosive as a shout.
  25. OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies
    The film bounces along on cheap but entertaining Mel Brooks-worthy audio and visual gags, like the live-chicken-throwing fight, or the sequence where the camera discreetly pans away from Dujardin and a partner making out on his hotel bed--only to focus on a full-length mirror in which they're still fully visible.
  26. Reprise
    Like many debut features, Reprise is a foremost a statement of purpose, and in that respect, at least, Trier shows limitless promise.
  27. Bigger Stronger Faster*
    Attempts to look beyond the hysteria and consider exactly how and why a culture that values physical power has internalized the idea that steroid use in sports is a scourge.
  28. Hancock
    It's a daring, even mildly challenging mixture for a superhero film, and while the pieces don't entirely add up, the puzzle is at least original.
  29. Hellboy II: The Golden Army
    Ron Perlman returns as the film's loveable title character, a demon gone good who's tough on the outside but tender underneath, with a soft spot for kittens, candy, and babies.
  30. Dreams with Sharp Teeth
    All told, Ellison is a fascinating person to spend 96 minutes with. But you probably shouldn't risk that 97th.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »