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. Vitalina Varela
    His muse Ventura is there, too, cast as a meta character; he plays a clerygman who has lost his flock and now ministers to an abandoned church that looks suspiciously like a small movie theater. Which is about as close as Vitalina Varela comes to bluntly stating its themes: presence, absence, rekindled faith.
  2. Martin Eden
    Yet without dumbing down its message, Marcello’s sweeping Künstlerroman has all the pleasurable characteristics of a simmering romance and a poignant tragedy, too.
  3. The Killers
    Though Siegel's The Killers dispatches Hemingway after six unfaithful minutes, its roundabout treatment seems truest to his spirit.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Hands on a Hardbody: The Documentary
    The camaraderie among these strangers tossed together by fate is inspiring, as the competition gives way to good sportsmanship and, ultimately, good will.
  5. Forbidden Zone
    Forbidden Zone never really jells as a movie. But as a tuneful spectacle of weirdness, it doesn't really have an equivalent, and it's easy to see the influence of its free use of pop-culture relics in everything from Tim Burton's films to The Powerpuff Girls.
  6. Race with the Devil
    A near-exact cross between Rosemary's Baby, Duel, and The Parallax View, Race With The Devil has problems getting over the flat, TV-style direction by Cleopatra Jones director Jack Starrett, but it gets by on engaging drive-in goofiness, even if it's tough to swallow the idea that mid-'70s Texas swarmed with Satanists.
  7. Shivers
    Like the creatures in the films, and many of Cronenberg's other films themselves, Shivers is disturbing on an almost biological level.
  8. Swiss Family Robinson
    Still appeals to the lingering adolescent taste for daydreams.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Daytrippers
    Comic-ensemble performance at its darkest.
  10. The People Under the Stairs
    It’s that intuitive fusion of whiplash-inducing plot twists and political anger that makes The People Under The Stairs so fascinating, even when the humor’s too blunt or the scares too soft.
  11. After Parkland
    This documentary might’ve been better with another few years’ worth of reporting and perspective.
  12. Promising Young Woman
    Fennell complicates matters throughout, toying with our identification by pushing Cassie’s tactics into some uncomfortably nasty places, even as she slowly reveals her motives.
  13. Never Rarely Sometimes Always
    Hittman isn’t really a polemicist. She expresses her empathy and political conscience through a refined version of what’s become her signature style, zeroing in on details of place and behavior, both magnified by the reliably involving scenario of two kids from the sticks navigating the hustle, bustle, and bright lights of the city. And moments of startling, unaffected tenderness peak through the grimness of the circumstances.
  14. The Vast of Night
    It’s impressive to see such sophisticated camera work from a newcomer. But to combine that with experimental narrative and sound techniques, and place it in a detailed mid-century modern environment, and to have all these ambitious gambits (mostly) work, all on an independent film budget...well, it’s quite the feat.
  15. 1900
    The story is almost too small for Bertolucci's sprawling approach, and the ungainliness of his international cast stifles both the dialogue and the performances.
  16. Inferno
    For all its nonsensical qualities, it also contains some of Argento's most hallucinatory images and unforgettable setpieces, as always reason enough to watch even when the usual reasons are nowhere to be found.
  17. Dick Tracy
    Dick Tracy has pop-art elements, imaginatively conceived montages, and a riff on crime-as-business that’s as pointed as the Godfather movies, if more family-friendly.
  18. Suburbia
    Suburbia has the attitude and exploitation kicks of other films about youth rebellion, including more than a few Cormans, but Spheeris’ fidelity to the real L.A. scene—including performances by non-actors and musicians like Flea, who appears with a pet rat—compensates for some contrivances in the writing.
  19. Two of Us
    The burden of love is the fear of loss, and that unease is compounded when it’s tied to the inability to live as your authentic self. Meneghetti understands that loving someone isn’t just a joyous experience. It’s an anxiety-inducing one, too.
  20. I Wish I Knew
    Even in shortened form, I Wish I Knew can at times feel overly discursive. But its implications, particularly regarding the Cultural Revolution, are difficult to miss.
  21. Shirley
    Mocked by her peers, mistreated by her husband, and burdened by mental illness, Jackson lived with the psychic evils that lurk in her writing. But for Decker, what’s important about Shirley’s misery is how she used it to fuel her work.
  22. Palm Springs
    It turns out to be something kind of special in its own right: a modern rom-com that’s funny and inventive and sweet and totally mainstream and a little deranged all at once.
  23. Possessor Uncut
    In the end, Possessor privileges the visceral over the cerebral. Which is not to deny that it lands somewhere rather provocative as a character study.
  24. Black Bear
    Black Bear is the movie that proves, beyond any lingering doubt, that Aubrey Plaza has much more to offer than the best eye-roll in the business. Maybe that was clear already.
  25. The Truffle Hunters
    Ironically, this charming and visually ravishing film may further fuel the demand for white truffles, inflating the bubble and ultimately accelerating their decline. On one level, that’s understandable; we all want to be part of something rare and beautiful. But if you truly heed what the film has to say, you’ll go to the park and play with your dog instead.
  26. Relic
    Combined with realistically messy family dynamics and expert turns from the ensemble cast — particularly Nevin, whose performance forges boldly into challenging territory — the result is powerful, if a style of horror audiences have grown used to in a post-A24 world.
  27. Herself
    In an era when neighbors often turn on neighbors, the film’s optimistic “It takes a village” perspective risks hokeyness. But thanks to Dunne’s quietly powerful performance as a single mother barely treading water, the end result is an effective, affecting look at community triumphing over fear.
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