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. Chuen jik sat sau
    In keeping with Hong Kong's style-as-substance tradition, Fulltime Killers is beyond reproach.
  2. The Four Feathers
    Ledger is a charismatic, conflicted hero who internalizes his character's shame and anguish to powerful effect. Wes Bentley is similarly strong as Ledger's best friend turned romantic rival, and Kapur makes the most of Africa's breathtaking desert, crafting a gorgeous spectacle that's at once stately and hyper-real.
  3. Birthday Girl
    Nicole Kidman -- continuing the string of remarkable performances that have followed "Eyes Wide Shut" -- finds plenty of fodder in the long-delayed Birthday Girl. A grimy thriller with a wicked streak of humor.
  4. Girls Can't Swim
    "Adolesence can kill you," Birot has said in an interview. In a film that leaves the "you" intentionally vague, moment after moment she shows how.
  5. Sade
    In keeping with his concept that the mind and the body are inseparable, Sade builds to an extraordinarily powerful centerpiece when the two come together, fusing fear and desire, pleasure and pain, innocence and enlightenment.
  6. Undisputed
    A triumph of craft and narrative economy, the darkly funny Undisputed is as lean, mean, and skillful as its competing heavyweights.
  7. Home Movie
    Smith delights in these offbeat personalities and their jerry-rigged accoutrements, but the real joy in the film comes from the happy interaction between the subjects and their creations.
  8. Blind Spot. Hitler's Secretary
    Riveting testimonial.
  9. The Lady and the Duke
    In the lively exchanges between the titular duo and the technical innovation that links the past to the present, The Lady And The Duke brings the period to life with surprising immediacy.
  10. Gigantic (A Tale of Two Johns)
    Schnack's sprightly, engaging documentary Gigantic takes a leisurely stroll through TMBG's career, mixing energetic live performances with smartly chosen clips, a few quirky detours, and compelling interviews with the likes of Dave Eggers, Sarah Vowell, and Ira Glass.
  11. Late Marriage
    A daring and immediate debut feature for Koshashvili, Late Marriage could lead two likeminded people to opposite conclusions, and that may be its greatest strength.
  12. Brotherhood of the Wolf
    It's impossible not to admire what, apart from "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," may be the most ambitious action film since "The Matrix."
  13. Merci Pour Le Chocolat
    Chabrol handles the upended family dynamic beautifully until the final third, when a wildly implausible sequence of events lessens the suspense just as he should be turning the screws.
  14. Pleasantville
    To concentrate on the minor faults of a fable as beautiful and unusual as Pleasantville would be missing the point.
  15. Tosca
    Using a single set for each act and cutting minimally, Jacquot seems to recognize his limited ability to make the opera cinematic.
  16. Rabbit-Proof Fence
    Where Noyce could easily have given Branagh a mustache and tilted the film toward old-fashioned melodrama, he leans on tactics that are less obvious and more effective.
  17. Manic
    Honest and moving.
  18. Shine
    Memorable, deeply affecting movie.
  19. Willard
    It only takes rat trainers and CGI artists to create swarms of vermin, but it takes a twisted kind of genius to treat them as equals.
  20. On the Run
    A taut, diamond-cut piece of storytelling.
  21. Rounders
    Rounders is such a smart, tough little film that its strengths override its fairly serious weaknesses.
  22. Idle Hands
    Loaded with smart sight gags and endearing secondary characters, it effectively mixes slapstick splatter and deadpan satire...Pretty damned irresistible.
  23. Analyze This
    A funny, tightly plotted, well-conceived comedy that transcends both Crystal's '90s curse and its horrible title.
  24. The Secret Lives of Dentists
    With Scott playing the perfect foil to Leary's exasperated sage, the fantasy sequences are hilariously caustic, but as they accumulate more rapidly, the distinction between real and imagined situations becomes disturbingly vague.
  25. Dark Blue
    Flaws and all, Dark Blue has a combustible energy that's usually anathema to Hollywood, reopening an old wound that has festered too quietly for more than a decade.
  26. Big Animal
    Shooting in dreamy black and white, Stuhr finds quiet poetry in shots of his character wandering the countryside with his new friend, and deadpan comedy in scenes of the camel patiently watching his new owners eat dinner, his head filling a window frame as he waits for scraps.
  27. The Man Without a Past
    Quietly asserts its eccentric romanticism with an assured, matter-of-fact blend of humor and pathos.
  28. Swimming Pool
    Swimming Pool returns Ozon to the psychological complexities of "Under The Sand" and his early mini-feature "See The Sea," and he again proves himself a master of building shocking moments from a series of seemingly insignificant gestures and throwaway lines.
  29. Daughter from Danang
    Devastating in part because it's so chillingly familiar.
  30. Buffalo Soldiers
    Tightly plotted and well-acted, the film litters its brisk run time with darkly funny and haunting setpieces.
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