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. Songs from the Second Floor
    Though the laughs in Songs From The Second Floor tend to stick in the throat, they're also cathartic and oddly comforting, because the world outside the movie theater is bound to look cheerier than the one on the screen.
  2. Project Hail Mary
    Over two-and-a-half hours, the duo’s film gazes in wonder at alien engineering, opens its heart to human vulnerability through karaoke, and makes the case that inspiring the next generation (or at least perpetuating its existence) is alluring enough to shake the smarmiest manchildren from their self-imposed exile. Most effectively, though, Project Hail Mary sees a personal sense of humor shine through the bludgeoning grandeur of a AAA sci-fi.
  3. Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond — Featuring a Very Special, Contractually Obligated Mention of Tony Clifton
    There’s something bracing about the difficulty of reconciling this earnest middle-aged hippie with his maniacally impish younger self.
  4. Relic
    The kind of dread-infused slow burn that’s very much in vogue at the moment, Relic is so entirely, transparently, even explicitly about the horror of dementia and losing a loved one to it that the more traditional genre elements—like a potential supernatural presence in the house—feel rather redundant, maybe even unnecessary.
  5. 3 1/2 Minutes, 10 Bullets
    The toxic paranoia poisoning American life is on display in 3 ½ Minutes, Ten Bullets, a fine and timely documentary about the 2012 killing of black youth Jordan Davis.
  6. A Band Called Death
    The film springs to life in its second half, when the members’ grown kids, who are also working musicians, discover that their dads/uncles were in a forgotten, innovative band that the family had never once mentioned.
  7. Small Axe: Alex Wheatle
    A short coming-of-age film that works well within the Small Axe saga, Alex Wheatle has a a richness comparable to any long, drawn-out biopic that’s come from Hollywood of late, thanks to the the nuances McQueen layers into the story.
  8. Chi-Raq
    Chi-Raq, Lee’s modernized take on "Lysistrata," is mostly bad art; it’s about an hour too long, sometimes leadenly unfunny, and set in Chicago, a place the Brooklynite director has no feel for.
  9. Thelma
    How often does a film come along that you can comfortably recommend to literally everyone in your life? Not often enough. For that reason alone, Thelma deserves to be celebrated.
  10. Animal Crackers
    Animal Crackers leaves the song-and-dance to Groucho in the great "Hooray For Captain Spaulding," sends Harpo running after screaming blondes in the background, and breaks down the fourth wall for a wry Eugene O'Neill parody.
  11. Love Lies Bleeding
    Full of striking visuals from cinematographer Ben Fordesman, a healthy dash of horror and sci-fi in the script, and a monumental performance from O’Brian, Loves Lies Bleeding is another surrealist sapphic gem from Rose Glass.
  12. Calvary
    Some of Calvary is uncomfortably bleak... But writer-director John Michael McDonagh—brother of the English playwright and filmmaker Martin McDonagh (In Bruges)—has an ear for wry humor, providing his characters with a steady supply of acerbic wit.
  13. The House I Live In
    The result is a movie that jumps all over the place, but with the ultimate intention of showing how the public's attitudes and assumptions about drugs have changed over the past half-century, guided by politicians and businessmen with a stake in misinformation.
  14. Suzume
    Suzume is Shinkai’s biggest and possibly most complex movie, and parts of it feel more personal due to the invocation of real history, but it’s also a bit overly concerned with its plot—to the point where it seems to take its central relationship for granted.
  15. Apples
    The droll Twilight Zone absurdism is not without its pleasures, many of them comic.
  16. People's Republic of Desire
    Wu weaves together the stories of two live-streaming stars, a manager, and a devoted fan to form a portrait not only of the extreme acceleration that defines contemporary Chinese pop culture, but also the bizarre fantasy economy and parasitic interdependencies of late capitalism as a whole.
  17. The Hunt
    None of the complexity of that initial interaction between teacher and lovestruck little girl carries over into the town’s reaction, which closely resembles that of the villagers in "Frankenstein." It’s like watching a deer run from shotguns for two hours — it evokes some sympathy, but that’s about all.
  18. A Touch of Sin
    The bloodshed is fast and brutal — the flash of a knife, a splash of crimson in a backseat, an opening robbery gone horrifically awry. There’s even a little Tarantino in the staging, as when a blood-splattered wallflower unleashes her Kill Bill-style vengeance straight into the camera lens.
  19. The Beguiled
    What this Beguiled has done is deepen the material’s implicit wellsprings of loneliness and longing, mitigating some of the inherent sexism by attempting to genuinely grapple with the desires of its cooped-up characters. It’s “tasteful” hothouse pulp, if such a thing is possible.
  20. Winter Kills
    Winter Kills provides a perfect, absurd finale to the half-decade of post-Watergate paranoid thrillers that preceded it and compares favorably to the grand unified conspiracy-theory fictions that followed, such as Oliver Stone's JFK and James Ellroy's book American Tabloid.
  21. The Heiresses
    Brun, who had never acted onscreen before (like almost the entire cast), won Berlin’s Best Actress prize, and her guarded yet tremulous performance is the film’s primary virtue. But she can’t singlehandedly bring depth to the superficial scenario that Martinessi has engineered for this intriguing character.
  22. The Mustang
    It’s all well-trod territory. And yet — and here’s another cliché — The Mustang breathes new life into most of those conventions, thanks in no small part to Schoenaerts and his remarkable work.
  23. Somers Town
    The result is a movie that feels enjoyably aimless--one that invites viewers to just hang out for an hour.
  24. Scratch
    It's a doozy of a story, too, about a group of musicians who use the technology of the present and the mindset of the future to make a delicious hash out of the best parts of the past.
  25. Daughter from Danang
    Devastating in part because it's so chillingly familiar.
  26. Under the City's Skin
    At times, Bani Etemad succeeds only too well at capturing the confusing rush of Adineh's family life--the film presents more subplots than it can follow thoroughly, until its final act snaps all that's come before into sharp focus.
  27. Presenting Princess Shaw
    This film barely brushes up against the many, many issues it raises, but those conversations can be had in the lobby, after the pleasure of watching an underappreciated artist finally get her due.
  28. La Flor
    Some petals are admittedly prettier or more fragrant than others (and the film has serious stem problems), but there’s forbidding beauty in the sheer ambition itself.
  29. The Holy Girl
    Adjusting to Martel's style requires patience, but her indirection pays dividends, culminating in an unforgettable final shot that flies in the face of narrative expectations.
  30. Philomena
    Still, that doesn’t detract too much from what Philomena manages to accomplish: a sober consideration of how ideals relate to institutions — whether they’re religions or political parties — anchored by two well-rounded, funny lead performances.
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