The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 10,414 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: 5,571 out of 10414
  2. Mixed: 3,736 out of 10414
  3. Negative: 1,107 out of 10414
10414 movie reviews
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  1. The Fabelmans
    The Fabelmans is a measured and incredibly intimate look at Spielberg’s upbringing as he developed his aptitude for storytelling through a medium that mesmerized him since the night he went to see The Greatest Show On Earth as a child. It also spotlights cinema as an extraordinary device that not only unveils powerful truths, but often shapes them as well.
  2. The Banshees of Inisherin
    Writer-director Martin McDonagh’s soulful masterpiece offers a a windswept elegy on a camaraderie that has reached its inexplicable expiration, as well as melancholic rumination on mortality.
  3. TÁR
    After an exhilarating 157 minutes, its grip feels less like a quagmire than a beautifully unanswered question—a symphony we’ve been equipped to understand, but which refuses to supply a definitive interpretation.
  4. An Autumn Afternoon
    Ozu lets the story of uneasy transitions play out against a Japan that's undergoing changes of its own.
  5. High and Low
    Miraculously, High And Low turns the mundane follow-through of police work into the stuff of white-knuckle suspense.
  6. Oppenheimer
    For all this and more, Oppenheimer deserves the title of masterpiece. It’s Christopher Nolan’s best film so far, a step up to a new level for one of our finest filmmakers, and a movie that burns itself into your brain.
  7. Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
    Mark Hamill nails every one liner the writers throw at him (I tried to get as many as I could in Stray Observations, but I’m sure I missed some), and his signature Joker laugh is used to chilling effect throughout the film.
  8. Saint Omer
    This is a rich text, bracing for the minutiae it includes and for what it excises. Its power comes from a director who knows exactly what story they want to tell and how to tell it well.
  9. Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
    Chantal Akerman’s radical 1975 masterpiece Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai Du Commerce 1080 Bruxelles turns the term “realism” on its face, exploring the contours of a woman’s life through the mundane routines that never make it into movies.
  10. Man with a Movie Camera
    It's a unique, unforgettable, enlightening experience.
  11. Sunrise
    Sunrise remains a magnificent tale of adultery and forgiveness, and contains more lessons in visual storytelling in any given five-minute sequence than most film schools deliver in a semester.
  12. Skinamarink
    We have a long way to go in 2023, but Skinamarink is already a top contender for the year’s most frightening film.
  13. Playtime
    Tati's most elaborate film, Playtime stands as his masterpiece, an awe-inspiring work of intricate choreography with a heart to match its technical expertise.
  14. Late Spring (1949)
    Each shot in Late Spring is striking on its own; the mature Ozu belongs to that rare category of filmmakers whose work can be recognized from a single frame. But together—with all their abrupt shifts in visual perspective and time—they become a mosaic, deeply poignant and ultimately mysterious in the way it envisions a relationship between two people trapped by how much they care for one another.
  15. The Passion of Joan of Arc
    Danish director Carl Dreyer's 1928 film The Passion Of Joan Of Arc is one of the indisputable masterpieces of the silent era.
  16. Late Night with the Devil
    Late Night With The Devil achieves that rare feat of feeling like something we were never supposed to see. But once we’ve seen it, we can’t look away.
  17. The Day the Earth Stood Still
    Working from a script by Edmund North (Patton), taken from a story by Harry Bates, Robert Wise directs the movie with a minimum of spectacle.
  18. Poor Things
    Poor Things is such a rare combination of talented collaborators working in perfect concert that it’s hard to consider the film anything short of masterful.
  19. The Zone of Interest
    As a piece of observational cinema that borrows from the very visual grammar of nonfiction films, The Zone Of Interest is an instant classic, a masterpiece whose every gorgeously framed shot aims to stun you into silence. And into forceful remembrance as well.
  20. May December
    With May December Haynes has crafted an implausible blend of raw authenticity and stylized histrionics that’s fueled by a curious intellectual inquiry: what role do we play in our own story?
  21. How to Have Sex
    Manning Walker proves herself a natural filmmaker, trusting that she doesn’t need to explain everything. As a storyteller she’s comfortable in the gray areas. As a director she’s able to coax wonderful performances and give them enough space to feel lived in.
  22. Fireworks
    Kitano infects the lyrical, meditative beauty of classical Japanese cinema with the jarring, low-down savagery of Western genre pictures. What emerges is more than the sum of its parts, an original and profound statement on mortality, how rich human life can be, and how quickly it can be taken away.
  23. The Mother and the Whore
    As in the best films of John Cassavetes, The Mother And The Whore transcends the medium of film altogether and appears to capture life as it is lived, in all its messy, painful, infinite sadness.
  24. Evil Does Not Exist
    Hamaguchi presents an uncomplicated tale about contemporary issues—corporate greed, climate change—packed with so many complex narrative beats that it plays like a dense 19th century novel. It’s simple, but it explains life itself.
  25. The Beast
    The Beast is a monster of a movie, one that will sink its claws into you, then ask you to contemplate the wounds it leaves. It’s not an easy watch, but it is a deeply rewarding one that you’ll be thinking about for days.
  26. All of Us Strangers
    Ultimately All Of Us Strangers says that only a lucky few get to free themselves to accept love and redemption. It’s a heartbreaking and sad notion, but when delivered with as much sensitivity and visual panache as Haigh does, it becomes cathartic.
  27. Green Border
    What’s most marvelous about Green Border—aside from its resounding commitment to humanization, buttressed by a thrilling and harrowing narrative—is that it doesn’t let anyone off the hook.
  28. We Grown Now
    There’s artistry here in how a boy’s world is coming to a close, an elegy for what was and a welcome invitation to see what could yet be.
  29. Anora
    This heroic journey is Ani’s story through and through. It’s a brilliant role, written with such range that it takes Madison’s strong performance to bring her to life without succumbing to archness. She makes us believe every second.
  30. Conclave
    A gradually swelling, deeply intellectual, and unexpectedly fun political thriller, Berger’s twisty film takes the audience behind the notoriously secretive closed doors of the Catholic Church for one of its most private processes: the election of a new pontiff.
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