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. Judas and the Black Messiah
    Although Stanfield and Kaluuya offer up two compelling—and contrasting—performances, Judas And The Black Messiah is an ensemble piece with no weak links, only secret weapons.
  2. I Care a Lot
    I Care A Lot isn’t some brilliantly subversive social satire. It’s a tightly constructed, masterfully acted, lightly stylish little caper picture, which revels in just how mean it can be. It’s not essential, and it’s not for everybody. But for those who prefer their pulp to carry the faint aroma of moral rot, this movie is a real treat.
  3. Horse Feathers
    Anarchy finally reigned supreme in 1932's classic Horse Feathers, which was the first Marx brothers comedy that smoothly integrated the story into the troupe's routine.
  4. Time
    Bradley, who’s worked mainly in narrative cinema, lends a sharp eye for composition and a poet’s sensibility. This is a beautifully shot film that’s as interested in studying the changing faces of its subjects as laying out their struggle from end to end.
  5. David Byrne’s American Utopia
    The film has its own celebratory, eccentric identity.
  6. I Am Greta
    Still, there’s something instructive in how little progress Thunberg seems to make even with sympathetic politicians—which means that she has to keep raising her pitch. And there’s definitely something infuriating about all the clips of world leaders and snarky TV pundits mocking Greta, calling her stridently angry, dangerously naive, and even “mentally ill.”
  7. Totally Under Control
    If anything, the biggest knock against Totally Under Control is that with a length of just over two hours, it sometimes feels as exhausting as it does exhaustive.
  8. The Disciple
    For all the fascinating insight the film provides into a musical subculture passing slowly into the archives of history, its melancholy is more universal: Anyone who’s ever devoted themselves fully to a passion, only to discover that the rest of the world barely gives a shit, will smile sadly with recognition.
  9. Gunda
    You won’t learn much from Gunda. It’s an arty pastoral mood piece, not an educational tool. Which is not to imply it lacks a philosophy.
  10. Night of the Kings
    Lacôte’s got a lot on his mind, and despite a few missteps, his ambition pays off.
  11. Wolfwalkers
    A vibrant and expressive fantasy, magical and unyoked to realism without pulling any punches about the destructive folly of manifest destiny.
  12. Enemies of the State
    Over time, its perspective subtly mutates, even as its methodology remains exactly the same.
  13. Limbo
    The narrowness of the frame forces us closer to what is caught within it, and the result is often bracing or achingly tender.
  14. MLK/FBI
    It’s a useful reminder not just that this American hero was a widely vilified figure during his lifetime but also that he accomplished everything he did despite nonstop resistance from intelligence agencies, the media, and the public alike.
  15. Shiva Baby
    The style of humor in Shiva Baby can best be described as “sex-positive cringe,” in which the secondhand embarrassment comes less from the sexual situations themselves than our heroine’s collision with polite, conservative society.
  16. Monkey Business
    In casting the brothers as stowaways on an ocean liner, Monkey Business gets laughs from broad Keystone Kops chase scenes, but extends the absurdity even further with bizarre one-liners (Groucho claims he "licked his weight in wild caterpillars") and a sequence in which all four brothers try to get off the boat by impersonating Maurice Chevalier.
  17. Small Axe: Lovers Rock
    McQueen has zoomed in on a very specific milieu, but he’s also tapped into the universal and suddenly inaccessible joy of an endless night of music and dance, a house party for the ages. You don’t have to know your reggae or have been born 40 years ago to long for the ache of communal fun on which Lovers Rock waxes nostalgic.
  18. Small Axe: Red, White and Blue
    Red, White And Blue is stark and straightforward, further proof that McQueen has distinguished each entry in his bold foray into small-screen storytelling.
  19. 76 Days
    The overall impression 76 Days delivers is that of dedicated professionals coping with an unprecedented onslaught of emergencies to the best of their ability, grimly waiting for the curve to flatten.
  20. Pillow Talk
    It’s the perfect first-date movie: It’s flirty and romantic and a little bit saucy, but it leaves viewers with just a peck on the cheek at the end of the night.
  21. Mister Roberts
    With no battles and a setting that primarily stays on the U.S.S. Reluctant, Mister Roberts still captivates, aided by some shimmering dialogue already polished to perfection by the Broadway version, along with the renegade hijinks of the crew.
  22. Husbands
    John Cassavetes’ films ostensibly explore what happens when people stop being polite and start getting real, but his conception of stark, unvarnished reality sometimes feels awfully artificial.
  23. The Thin Man
    Powell and Loy's light, witty, unflappable characterizations became the unwavering backbone of a terrific series.
  24. Daughters of Darkness
    This psychologically dense, genuinely erotic vampire thriller lacks fangs, but it has plenty of bite.
  25. The Hidden
    The Hidden is a textbook example of how a B-movie can transcend its origins and budgetary constraints through craft, imagination, and all-around resourcefulness. Shifting genres almost as often as its villain changes bodies, it's at once an enormously effective thriller, a smart exercise in science fiction, an exciting action movie, and a kinetic dark comedy.
  26. The Company of Wolves
    A lush, ambitious, strikingly outsized play on Charles Perrault’s Little Red Riding Hood that makes explicit the dangers of a budding young woman straying from the path.
  27. Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
    The honesty behind Garcia's queasiest moments gives the film its pull.
  28. Robin and Marian
    Robin And Marian would merely be an exercise in theory if the actors didn't make it breathe. Their scenes together a combination of easy humor and wistful grace notes, Connery and Hepburn find an easy rapport, playing something between legendary lovers and an old married couple.
  29. Some Kind of Heaven
    Some Kind Of Heaven contrasts the dissatisfaction of its subjects with the sunniness of their surroundings, the better to stress the wide gap separating how they feel and how they’re expected to feel in a community one talking head refers to, un-ironically, as “nirvana.”
  30. 3 Godfathers
    The fairy-tale-like 3 Godfathers casts Wayne as one of a trio of outlaws charged with caring for a baby, and discovering responsibility and perhaps his soul (the two go hand-in-hand for Ford) in the process.
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