The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 10,419 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 2.5 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: 5,574 out of 10419
  2. Mixed: 3,737 out of 10419
  3. Negative: 1,108 out of 10419
10419 movie reviews
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  1. The Last King of Scotland
    The Last King Of Scotland makes a stronger case when it's demonstrating how opulent power-lunches corrupt absolutely.
  2. After Innocence
    Taylor does her cause no real favors by trotting out only the most articulate, most clearly railroaded exonerees. It should be just as chilling to learn that even the shady get screwed.
  3. Gun Crazy
    Joseph H. Lewis’ kinetic, psychosexual B-movie laid many of the creative foundations of the American cinema of the 1970s, though it took a round trip to Europe for the movie to develop a reputation at home.
  4. Tomboy
    It's so much fun that as Tomboy moves toward its conclusion, the inevitable end of Héran's days as Mikael feels like watching someone die.
  5. Farewell
    As a political thriller, Christian Carion's Farewell is fairly feeble, rendering some of the oldest clichés of Cold War potboilers without much urgency or stylistic flair.
  6. The Orphanage
    While some of the trappings and even some of the plot elements could easily be called unoriginal, Bayona and screenwriter Sergio G. Sánchez arrange them in a fresh way, crafting an emotionally resonant, nerve-jangling experience.
  7. Bones and All
    Guadagnino’s formidable crew deserves credit for shaping the movie’s world too, including Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor and regular film composing partner Atticus Ross, who contribute a striking score that imaginatively combines spare acoustic strumming with intense synthesizer blasts. Like Bones And All itself, it’s simultaneously freaky and from the heart in a special, singular way.
  8. The Bleeding Edge
    [An] overstretched look at the poorly regulated medical devices industry.
  9. Dune: Part One
    However inconclusive as a story, the resulting film is a rarity among the overlong effects-heavy blockbusters of the last decade: One actually wishes it didn’t have to end so soon.
  10. Le jour avant le lendemain
    As the movie’s title implies, everything is about to change for these two. These are the last happy days before destructive modernity encroaches.
  11. Welcome to Pine Hill
    Welcome To Pine Hill is a short, docu-realistic film, with very little plot and scenes that play like loose improvisations. Miller is mainly interested in the various spaces Harper inhabits, and how he inhabits them.
  12. Cheatin'
    As is, Cheatin’ offers little narrative or emotional advantage over watching a series of the director’s more concise works. At 76 minutes, it should play like a short feature. Instead, it’s more like an extra-long short.
  13. The Invitation
    Kusama expertly manipulates the tone throughout, ratcheting up tension and releasing it in quick bursts of nervous laughter, only to build it up again.
  14. A Woman's Life
    Mostly, though, A Woman’s Life frustrates because it’s neither entertaining nor illuminating to watch a character passively absorb constant misery.
  15. Roxanne Roxanne
    By shaping Roxanne Roxanne as a character profile, Larnell accentuates his actors’ performances and crafts a nuanced community portrait, two strengths exhibited in his delightful first feature, "Cronies."
  16. End of the Century
    As for the unfortunates who aren't already in love with The Ramones, End Of The Century should give them a better understanding of what they've been missing, and leave them wondering why they've missed out on it for so long.
  17. Red Lights
    With ruthless efficiency and wit, Kahn ratchets up unbearable tension and releases it in startlingly visceral fashion, but his placid denouement is the most chilling scene of all.
  18. Raja
    Even without all the other complications, Doillon's handling of the language gap alone gives Raja a pungent dramatic edge.
  19. In the Shadow of Women
    Shot on black-and-white film that has the luster of hard coal, In The Shadow Of Women is often quite beautiful—and it has some jokes, too.
  20. Forty Shades of Blue
    Investing a lot of time on each corner of his three-sided character piece, director Ira Sachs (who co-wrote the film with Michael Rohatyn) has created a film as dramatically intense as it is opaque.
  21. Mysterious Skin
    Only half a great movie, because the other half follows a separate but related thread that isn't nearly as compelling.
  22. Rush
    Rush, in other words, is a foursquare sportsmanship movie, offering little in the way of surprises but plenty of earnest, satisfying thrills.
  23. The Time That Remains
    By making the jokes more personal, Suleiman charts the process by which the concept of "home" loses its meaning.
  24. 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.
  25. Bully
    There are many appalling moments witnessed and described in Lee Hirsch's documentary Bully: children beaten and humiliated, ostracized by their peers and misunderstood by their parents, left to face an apparently heartless world without a soul to turn to.
  26. The Half of It
    Although The Half Of It mostly sticks to what’s swiftly becoming the Netflix teen rom-com house style (moody amber lighting, Wes Anderson-inspired framing, and nostalgia for John Hughes’ oeuvre), Wu creates several compellingly original images as well.
  27. The Magnificent Seven
    Well-crafted, star-driven entertainment doesn't come much better.
  28. Kundun
    A slow, meditative movie-an appropriate choice given the subject matter-that ultimately fails, in spite of clearly heartfelt good intentions, because of its almost inhuman detachment.
  29. Winnie the Pooh
    Winnie The Pooh is a storybook brought to life with intelligence, wit, and palpable affection; where so many kids' films try desperately to come off as hip and timely that they often feel tacky and instantly dated, Winnie The Pooh is bravely quiet, old-fashioned, and wry.
  30. Armageddon Time
    It asks more questions than it answers, and doesn’t let anybody off the hook. It’s also a great movie for anyone who grew up in New York City area in 1980, with the right needle drops and art direction. This is James Gray’s eighth feature and, in the end, his simplest. It may also be his best.
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