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. Nine Queens
    Bielinsky's debut is a fine con picture, but at its best, it achieves even more, presenting the profession as a lifestyle with almost existential ramifications.
  2. Wattstax (re-released)
    Now an invaluable time capsule, the film has to transcend its own conceptual messiness.
  3. Goodbye, Dragon Inn
    It could all be done much more efficiently, but any other approach would lose Tsai's unique mix of stone-faced comedy and dewy-eyed lyricism.
  4. Japanese Story
    When the credits roll and the mood breaks, Japanese Story finally reveals itself as more dewy-eyed than deep, but as long as the mood holds, it holds fast.
  5. Monster
    In her feature-film debut, writer-director Patty Jenkins combines the gritty, claustrophobic neo-realism of "Dahmer" with the unlikely gutter romanticism of "Boys Don't Cry," creating a haunting portrait of how a person can feel so desperate and hopeless that murdering for a few crumpled bills and maybe a beat-up car can begin to seem like a reasonable option.
  6. Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over
    Filled with video-game in-jokes, Spy Kids 3 comes roaring to life in action scenes based on different gaming genres, each of which takes full advantage of the 3-D effects.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Evil Dead II
    But Evil Dead 2's rampant inventiveness and manic energy have ensured that it will endure as a cult classic.
  8. Morvern Callar
    Morvern Callar not only attempts to reveal an interior life, usually the province of novels, but also focuses on the interior life of a woman who refuses to open up to anyone.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Central Station
    While the cinematography is gorgeous and the script extremely sharp, Central Station owes much of its strength to its two mismatched leads.
  10. Pecker
    It's a winning comedy, though some of Pecker's jokes inspire silence and some scenes are awkwardly staged.
  11. Lilo & Stitch
    With its sharp wit and its portrayal of how broken families sometimes fit back together, Lilo would make a fine summer double feature alongside "About A Boy," another film that stays funny while dancing around a tiny abyss.
  12. Down with Love
    May register most immediately as a snappy whirl of visual gags, double entendres, overheated romance, and comically oversized living quarters, but beneath the exuberance of this fond counterfeit is a heartbeat as powerful as that of any film anchored in the present.
  13. Mean Creek
    Dyslexic, talkative, and permanently tethered to a video camera that documents his solitary life and vivid fantasy world, Peck, in a stunning performance, resonates as both monster and victim, predator and prey.
  14. Read My Lips
    For as long as director and co-writer Jacques Audiard focuses on the central relationship, his stylish film stays on steady footing.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Gattaca
    The film's bleak future society is admittedly nothing new, and there's no lack of contrived or wooden moments, but Gattaca's parable of nature versus nurture is compelling enough to make it worth seeing for reasons besides art direction.
  16. eXistenZ
    Though Cronenberg makes some creepy insinuations, eXistenZ is more effective as a black comedy than as a visceral shocker.
  17. The Return
    In its dramatic shift from the real to the allegorical, the ending of Andrey Zvyagintsev's auspicious debut feature The Return is likely to leave many viewers scratching their heads.
  18. To Be and to Have
    An early shot of two turtles crawling through the classroom establishes the film's deliberate pace, and To Be And To Have benefits from the care.
  19. Monsoon Wedding
    A sight worth seeing.
  20. Sex Is Comedy
    When she (Breillat) succeeds, as she does in "Fat Girl" and in the final minutes of Sex Is Comedy, the impact can be overwhelming for filmmaker and audience alike.
  21. Paycheck
    John Woo's smart thriller Paycheck may not intend to be political, but it's marked as much by its era as post-Watergate thrillers like "The Parallax View" or "Three Days Of The Condor."
  22. Spider
    Were he only trying to remark on that world's creepiness, Cronenberg would still succeed brilliantly, if coldly, but his sympathy makes the film.
  23. Shall We Dance?
    While the characters, situations, and gags are all familiar, Shall We Dance?'s gentle humanity and quiet exuberance are contagious.
  24. Election
    Witherspoon's broad, obsessive comic performance is bound to get the most attention, but Broderick does the best work of his career, finding an affecting spot between the all-purpose defiance of Ferris Bueller and the put-upon foil of his recent work.
  25. Lost Boys of Sudan
    The film offers a rare and fascinating firsthand look at two sides of the modern immigrant experience.
  26. Shanghai Knights
    Coasts heavily on Chan and Wilson's charm, which would be a big problem if those prodigiously gifted stars weren't taking on roles that fit like two pairs of comfortable slippers.
  27. Wag the Dog
    Wag The Dog is an oft-hilarious, witty, scathing satire that represents four gifted if uneven artists (De Niro, Hoffman, Levinson, and Mamet) at the top of their respective games.
  28. 10 Things I Hate About You
    Immensely likable.
  29. The Ladykillers
    Already as dark as London soot, the comedy hardly needed work to bring it in line with the Coen brothers' sensibility, but the remake moves to a beat of its own, one unexpectedly in sync with the gospel music dominating its soundtrack.
  30. Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner
    Director Zacharias Kunuk captures that feeling well, but he never quite develops it into a theme epic enough to fill Atanarjuat's scope. His film is by turns mesmerizing and trying, with enough of the former to make the latter worthwhile.
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