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. To a Land Unknown
    In its quiet reflection on the limited choices of those backed into a corner, the drama elegantly conveys how a people’s continued persecution not only starves, shoots, and bombs individuals, but erodes the solidarity of their whole.
  2. Smile 2
    Yes, the varying quality of performances from the supporting cast and the film’s slightly bloated 127-minute runtime might leave cheeks straining. But the film finds dark humor in taking these desperate feelings of unease and feeding them to a kaleidoscopic creature of pain and viscera.
  3. Heretic
    Divisiveness aside, and despite a few stumbles in pacing as it pivots from cool premise to interesting conclusion, Heretic is a wonderfully effective, chilling thriller from two of the best genre storytellers currently in the game.
  4. Never Let Go
    As recent horror offerings disproportionately lean toward disappointing remakes and tepid commentary on our modern way of life, it’s refreshing to encounter genre fare that is equal parts original and entertaining.
  5. I Know Where I'm Going!
    The film isn't as deep or ambitious as some of the Powell-Pressburger films that followed, but it's still a delightful love story, blessed with attractive leads, lovely locations, and witty dialogue.
  6. Marty Supreme
    The miracle of Chalamet’s performance is that as brazen, indecent, and dishonest as Marty is, he makes a temporarily convincing case for himself as a thwarted athlete, rather than a crook with an athletic fixation.
  7. Bookworm
    If you go into Bookworm expecting more of the same chills and thrills from Timpson and his collaborators, you may be put off by this far more accessible tale. Yet, peering closer, you can see reflections of the same rich emotional and character beats that have always been lingering within the more sordid genre trappings of Timpson’s previous work.
  8. Hamnet
    In traditional terms, it could simply be described as a tearjerker. Like Buckley’s performance, though, it’s richer than that, a cross between an out-of-body experience and a full-body sob. Some will likely resist it on those grounds, understandably. But, again, framing our reactions with the feelings of others is rarely a good idea, and despite its moments of faltering, Hamnet hits like an emotional wrecking ball—devastating as it clears its path.
  9. Sonic the Hedgehog 3
    Sonic The Hedgehog 3 lets its animated heroes shine. There’s less “live” in this impressively blended live-action movie, which is not a detriment.
  10. All of You
    As with so many great onscreen romances, it’s not that All Of You is doing something that’s never been done before, just that it’s doing it really well, with a great pair of actors at its center.
  11. Hard Truths
    It’s a boldly uncompromising work that strips some of the more cheerful elements to the bone. Yet despite this, there’s still a sense of warmth, of optimism, of quiet humor that shows how this deft storyteller can still surprise and enthrall, incorporating another exceptional ensemble willing and able to do the work to bring his lines to life.
  12. Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
    Just as warm-hearted, bouncy, goofy, and unassumingly sharp as ever, the film makes the case that no matter how close Wallace and his out-of-time village get to our digitized reality, long-suffering Gromit will be there to provide grounding glares—and remind us to take a moment to pet your dog.
  13. V/H/S/Beyond
    While other V/H/S installments have sometimes been scattershot, united by format and time period more than anything else, V/H/S/Beyond holds together almost perfectly as a thematic exploration of the things lurking just beyond our understanding.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Harvest
    Harvest is a film about capitalism, at first quietly and then like a blunt object to the skull. Simmering beneath that ultimate disruption, though, is a sense of communal collapse that is already creeping under everything.
  15. Juror #2
    To all appearances, it’s a solid, unpretentious piece of work, but like some of Eastwood’s more ambitious classics, it centers its murky moral contradictions without contriving a way to resolve them.
  16. Warfare
    Warfare is impressive, efficiently tense filmmaking.
  17. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
    It’s a neat surprise that DaCosta extracts more dark humor from the series than Boyle himself.
  18. Architecton
    Architecton acknowledges that everything we do is fleeting. There’s meaning in that. But it also posits that putting thought and respect into our temporary, tiny changes to Earth—laying fertile foundations that can roll with the punches that will always come—has a higher virtue.
  19. Sorry, Baby
    Its fragmented literary structure and Victor’s captivating lead turn cohere theme, form, and content, melding the elliptical episodes into a canny representation of memory.
  20. Rebuilding
    The importance of community for survival is a dominant theme in Rebuilding, and the bonds explored in the film feel authentically human as opposed to cloyingly optimistic.
  21. Predators
    In forcing a viewer’s roiling, complex feelings inward, Predators is also asking audiences to sit with cruelty, and ponder how contributive, even in a small way, they might have been—as well as just how deep their own personal reservoir of compassion might be.
  22. The Things You Kill
    Impotence and violence, two terrifying poles of threatened masculinity, rage throughout The Things You Kill, while its women more readily accept uncomfortable complexities.
  23. The Rule of Jenny Pen
    The Rule Of Jenny Pen‘s willingness to constantly challenge its audience with shadows and hints rather than some kind of outright horror mythos is one of its great strengths, and Rush embodies that with intense, compelling control.
  24. Take Out
    The movie took a long time to get distribution, but there's no expiration date on filmmaking this strong.
  25. Miracle Mile
    Miracle Mile is uniquely weird, and one imagines that audiences who caught it in the theater (among the few who did, anyway) walked out feeling shaken by its ending, even in a world where the Doomsday Clock had safely clicked back.
  26. We Bury the Dead
    For those looking to delve into more philosophical horror, We Bury The Dead is a thoughtful trek into the unknown.
  27. Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted
    Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted does stray into some dark areas—death, anxiety attacks, suicidal ideaton—but the spirit of the documentary (and the music) is overwhelmingly joyful.
  28. Here Comes Mr. Jordan
    Originally released at a time of national anxiety—four months before Pearl Harbor—the comic fantasy Here Comes Mr. Jordan positively radiates reassurement, in the form of a beatific and perpetually amused Claude Rains.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience
    The cumulative effect of Operation Homecoming is to bring to light the soldiers' collective experiences and the enduring nightmares they suffer in our place.
  30. The Roses
    The leads are magnets, whether they’re surgically picking each other apart with the cruelty of Caligula or steaming up a seductive romance. Their remarkable rapport makes The Roses essential viewing, a must-watch rom-com.
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