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. Clemency
    Alfre Woodard captures with exquisite nuance the emotional and physical toll it might take on someone, spending years overseeing executions; she grounds the film, which otherwise strikes a balance between broad empathy and a pointed call for criminal justice reform.
  2. Luce
    It’s a remarkable, chilling performance: from Harrison, certainly, but also from his character, playing code-switching mind games with his teacher.
  3. Midnight Family
    To his credit, Lorentzen never guides the audience’s moral response, allowing us to make up our minds about the Ochoas on a scene-by-scene basis. He also provides ample rationale for their actions by depicting their hand-to-mouth lifestyle alongside the on-the-job drudgery.
  4. The Report
    The actor’s (Driver) performance isn’t just gripping; it’s inspiring. He’s not just portraying Jones; he’s embodying an ideal.
  5. The Souvenir
    There are times when The Souvenir has the buttoned-up, removed manner of a costume drama. Certainly, it can feel like a movie from a different era, though that’s partially because Hogg shot whole stretches of it on glorious, grainy 16mm.
  6. David Crosby: Remember My Name
    Remember My Name still works magnificently as a tragicomic character sketch.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
    The movie is so unrelievedly pessimistic that only the most dedicated misanthrope could love it. But there’s something oddly bracing—noble, even—about a Hollywood picture that’s willing to say, without even a hint of soft-pedaling, that life isn’t worth living, and that it’s squalid, unfair, and disappointing.
  8. The Italian Job
    As a comic heist film, The Italian Job is diverting, though slight. As a feature-length advertisement for the MINI Cooper, however, it's an unqualified triumph.
  9. Dirty Mary Crazy Larry
    Director John Hough packs the film with stunning car stunts filmed in California backwaters. Though he sacrifices meaning for trashy thrills at every opportunity—and winds it all down with a brain-damaged variation on the end of Easy Rider—the way Fonda slowly loses his initially unflappable cool throughout the film makes it worth a look.
  10. The Apple
    The line for The Apple cult officially starts here. I humbly propose this as the ultimate midnight movie.
  11. Police Story (1985)
    Action geeks who rented Police Story on VHS back in the early ’90s could tell when the good parts were going to start, because that’s when the tracking would get fuzzy, from all the previous renters rewinding and re-watching the same scenes, over and over.
  12. The Parallax View
    The plot doesn’t always make sense, but it doesn’t need to, so thoroughly does it convey a sense that everybody is in on something, and there is no escape.
  13. Horror Express
    Poised on the edge of camp, Horror Express nimbly cycles through genres, with drawing-room mystery and procedural elements bleeding into Universal-style monster effects and science-fiction hokum.
  14. Fiddler on the Roof
    By preserving the exoticism and making sure the audience left the theater humming, Jewison made a grubby, European-flavored movie that Yanks could embrace.
  15. The Day Shall Come
    Bitter and bracingly funny new political satire from British dark-comedy master Chris Morris.
  16. Sword of Trust
    It’s a pleasure to see Shelton in her element again, guiding actors to places that feel unexpected yet authentic. Maron is an ideal match for her sensibility, and they make terrific scene partners, too. May this be the start of something special.
  17. Blow-Up
    Blow-Up defies analysis by design, given that it's about an artist who makes messes and cleans them up only in part, leaving behind the splatter that interests him. Antonioni follows a similar methodology, making strict interpretations of Blow-Up pretty pointless, and certainly less enjoyable than soaking up the mod decadence and ennui.
  18. Honeyland
    Though Honeyland is also about what it’s about; in addition to underscoring another inconvenient truth with planetary stakes, the film offers tender, patient portraiture to a woman wholly dedicated to her calling. The melding of the political with the personal has seldom involved so many stingers to the face.
  19. Medium Cool
    Aside from the romance between Forster and Bloom—which gets in the way of the volatile Summer Of Love action, and ends in typically nihilistic '60s-youth-pic fashion—Medium Cool still has impact.
  20. Wild Rose
    As a show-business fairytale, Wild Rose is pretty standard. But as a character study, it’s something special. That’s due largely to Buckley’s star-making performance as Rose-Lynn.
  21. See You Yesterday
    See You Yesterday finds a striking-yet-natural balance between genre concept and a harsh reality that is achingly familiar to the people who have to navigate it every day.
  22. Dreamland
    The film makes the most of its sparseness, using the strong performances of its ensemble cast (including a reliably excellent Margot Robbie) to question the accepted boundaries between right and wrong, citizen and outlaw.
  23. Always Be My Maybe
    Rom-coms have the tricky task of straddling the “rom” and the “com” part, with a lot of star-steered vehicles leaning toward the former. Always Be My Maybe thankfully focuses on the latter; there are a lot of laughs packed into its friendship-becomes-something-more story.
  24. American Woman
    At its best, though, American Woman brings to mind "Erin Brockovich" or "20th Century Women" or "Gloria Bell": films about how the constraints of gender, class, and age push down upon a woman in myriad ways. And Miller finally gets the chance to demonstrate what she can do as a proper protagonist, breaking away from the stereotypes she’s too often played.
  25. The Third Wife
    An unabashedly reticent arthouse film, The Third Wife takes its time drifting through May’s coming of age, which will try the patience of some audiences. But those open to the seduction of Mayfair’s understated drama and its beautiful natural imagery will be handsomely rewarded.
  26. Bacurau
    There are those who will surely argue that this is not a tonally coherent film. But I was nonetheless rather elated by the way Filho weaves in so many outside touchstones while still maintaining his core interests in social dynamics and anti-capitalist sentiment.
  27. Little Joe
    Visually, it’s a total feast for the eyes, contrasting art-deco pinks and mint greens against sterile, symmetrically framed expanses of white, vaguely evoking the aesthetic of some lost sci-fi film of the ’70s.
  28. Matthias & Maxime
    This is a film with big emotions and swoon-worthy wet hair moments, and it finds unexpected places in the subconscious to settle.
  29. The Whistlers
    Playing with genre cryptograms of gangster villas, opera-loving killers, and glamorously lit cigarette smoke, the film never takes itself too seriously, even if its characters never seem to smile.
  30. The Wild Goose Lake
    What it’s really about is the interplay of shadows and neon, and the endless possibilities of bodies in motion—planted on speeding motorcycles and racing up and down staircases, always chasing or being chased.
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