The A.V. Club's Scores

Select another publication »
For 10,414 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: 5,571 out of 10414
  2. Mixed: 3,736 out of 10414
  3. Negative: 1,107 out of 10414
10414 movie reviews
view
per page
  1. Iron Man
    Iron Man is the rare comic-book movie that makes the prospect of a sequel seem like a promise instead of a threat.
  2. Silent Light
    At bottom, Silent Light is less about faith than matters of the heart, and in Reygadas' hands, the ache is bone-deep.
  3. Control Room
    Remarkable and timely film.
  4. Deceptive Practices: The Mysteries and Mentors of Ricky Jay
    The film never even attempts to peer behind the curtain of Jay’s colorful existence; it’s content that the show in front of it is spectacle enough. But Deceptive Practices would be a richer, deeper experience if the filmmakers had penetrated Jay’s fierce boundaries even a little.
  5. How to Have Sex
    Manning Walker proves herself a natural filmmaker, trusting that she doesn’t need to explain everything. As a storyteller she’s comfortable in the gray areas. As a director she’s able to coax wonderful performances and give them enough space to feel lived in.
  6. Only Lovers Left Alive
    In many respects, Adam and Eve are nocturnal cousins to the angels from Wim Wenders’ "Wings Of Desire": They’re secret observers of history, living records of the past with little control over the future. But Jarmusch has no interest in the kind of guilt and grief Wenders wove through his movie; Only Lovers comes in a hipper, sexier shade of melancholy.
  7. So Much So Fast
    The movie captures the way scientists sometimes make breakthroughs simply by attempting the impossible.
  8. Chained for Life
    A meta-commentary on filmmaking in general and cinematic conceptions of beauty in specific, the film is clearly enamored with its own cleverness—which isn’t to say that it’s not clever, just that a more clear-headed film could have distilled its ideas better, and been more satisfying as a result.
  9. In a World...
    The movie actually does feature a world — the insular voiceover world — and whenever it strays, it falters.
  10. Selma
    As cinema, Selma is commendable; as cultural barometer, it’s beyond reproach.
  11. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
    Almost every piece of Furiosa comes across visceral and real, which reminds you how special it is to get this kind of experience at the movies every once in a while.
  12. Poltergeist
    Make no mistake: Poltergeist is a Spielberg film, no matter what the credits say. His stylistic fingerprints are all over the movie, never more so than in the opening third, which turns a suburban haunting into an occasion for Spielbergian movie magic before the ghosts get down to business.
  13. Thunder Road
    Through a combination of caricature and psychological portrait, subtle touches and howls of impotent, uniformed rage, [Cummings’] film offers a memorable depiction of a man ill-equipped to deal with or direct his feelings—probably not all that different from the rest of us.
  14. Tabu
    Like other great pastiche artists, Gomes has created a time machine to a cinematic era that never quite existed, so it feels simultaneously borrowed and new.
  15. The Thoughts That Once We Had
    At its best, The Thoughts That Once We Had functions like a kind of film-buff mixtape, queuing up one magic moment after another. But the quasi-academic aims of the project mute Andersen’s passion; the director must have felt he needed a respectable framework for his cinephilia, but the personal component often seems directly at odds with the Deleuze component.
  16. For All Mankind
    It’s breathtaking on two fronts: Reinert unearths stunning footage—far removed from the fuzzy copies used as B-roll in other documentaries—that captures the full scale of NASA’s accomplishment. But he keeps that footage grounded in the image and voices of the modest men and women who made it happen.
  17. Thieves
    At two and a half hours, it's a bit too long, but it's probably the most emotionally authentic film noir since The Grifters.
  18. The Assistant
    The Assistant is more of a spartan procedural, its narrative a methodical accounting of one day—typical in incident, atypical in dawning realization—for an entry-level employee at the New York production house of a Weinstein-like figure.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Underground
    The same message could have been delivered in half the time, at half the volume.
  20. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
    Yet for all the heart and soul the actor pours into his role, watching Dawn still feels a bit like seeing massive, expensive wheels spin in place.
  21. Blind Spot. Hitler's Secretary
    Riveting testimonial.
  22. Affliction
    Schrader has always been better as a writer and a critic than as a dramatist, which is why his most successful work has either been published in film journals or directed by Martin Scorsese. His flat, awkward staging diminishes some good performances -- particularly those of Nolte and a welcome Sissy Spacek.
  23. Hustlers
    Plenty of crime capers end ruefully, but few feel this potently bittersweet.
  24. Let the Sunshine In
    Perhaps it’s best to approach Let The Sunshine In as a talky palate-cleanser before Denis’ next big genre experiment, the forthcoming sci-fi movie "High Life." In space, one hopes, nobody can hear you blather.
  25. Life of Pi
    The larger messages about spirituality often seem forced, and it's more compelling to focus on Lee's visceral cinematic experience than on the larger, fuzzier messages Martel's story conveys about humanity's connection with God.
  26. Let Me In
    Let Me In is a beautiful redundancy.
  27. Fences
    Washington gives a magnetic, layered performance, backed by a largely superb cast, most of whom reprise their roles from the Broadway revival of Wilson’s classic. But the film itself is eluded by the epic qualities of the original text, which play directly to the captive space of the theater.
  28. Chats perchés
    The Case Of The Grinning Cat is a sequel of sorts to Marker's epic three-hour 1977 documentary on the decline of the left, "A Grin Without A Cat"--though this new work is both shorter and more playful.
  29. Kimi
    When this film is over, viewers with voice-activated smart TVs are liable to look around for the long-dormant physical remote.
  30. The Witness
    Perhaps because any real closure is impossible at this point, The Witness eventually embraces its own inconclusiveness, like some documentary cousin to "Zodiac."
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »