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 History Boys
    History Boys boasts a dazzling verbal cleverness--the gleeful rat-a-tat of snappy banter expertly executed--that doesn't keep it from also being deeply, exquisitely sad.
  2. A Mighty Heart
    Jolie simply exercises Mariane's persistent will, and honors her in the process.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Breakdown
    Breakdown is just a skillfully constructed, smartly conceived, escapist thriller that does just about everything right.
  4. Sir! No Sir!
    Ffor all its clumsiness, Sir! No Sir! movingly captures the raw excitement of grunts discovering their power and their voices in their ability to resist.
  5. Invictus
    It’s a simplistic, superficial approach to a real-life story that marginalizes most historical details not involving scrums and tackles. It’s also pretty effective, in spite of the gloss.
  6. Big Hero 6
    Big Hero 6’s considerable graces as an animated film — its fantastical layouts and bouncy sense of figure and motion — are offset by its deficiencies as a second-rate superhero flick.
  7. Bad Hair
    Bad Hair can best be described as expertly depressing—a subcategory of art cinema that seems worth the punishment only when the gloom is counterbalanced by at least a few transcendent moments. No such moments ever surface here, however, apart from a brief fantasy during the closing credits.
  8. The Italian
    Before reaching a bittersweet finale that doesn't ring as loudly as it should, The Italian starts to look too much like a neo-realist "Home Alone" sequel, as Spiridonov outwits his pursuers in one scene after another.
  9. Mommy
    If it merits no other superlative, Mommy is unquestionably the most hyperactive movie of the year. It begins at a fever pitch and maintains that degree of in-your-face intensity for well over two hours, to either exhilarating or exhausting effect, depending on one’s tolerance level.
  10. The Duchess of Langeais
    Though not exactly a "comedy" of manners, since it's more melancholy than funny, The Duchess Of Langeais is very much concerned with how the rules of social etiquette interfere with raw human need.
  11. Starlet
    Starlet is an unusually subtle, quiet character study - especially given the potentially salacious subject matter - that builds to a quietly powerful climax.
  12. My Kid Could Paint That
    When others can't see what parents see, there's an inescapable ache. As much as anything, My Kid Could Paint That is about that ache.
  13. Two Lovers
    The characters are all a little too old for this sort of drama, and they know it, but that makes Two Lovers as much about last chances as new loves.
  14. 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.
  15. Cosmos
    Made 15 years after Żuławski’s last film, Cosmos makes for a fittingly offbeat and mystifying statement of purpose for a filmmaker fascinated by confrontations with the cosmic unknown.
  16. Kill
    There’s something here about men becoming monsters, righteous goals, and so on, but the symbolism is inchoate; the violence, however stylized, never represents anything more than itself.
  17. Sin City
    Sin City draws on the cumulative history of both mediums, creating a pastiche that would have been technologically impossible even three years ago. Its creators invent a queasily intoxicating new world.
  18. Neil Young Journeys
    The heart of any concert movie is the concert itself, and in the case of Neil Young Journeys, it's a great one.
  19. Land and Shade
    Land And Shade is a slow-paced art-film, where the static shots are held at length and the characters pause between lines of dialogue, to give viewers plenty of chances to register the mood, look, feel, and significance of everything Acevedo shows.
  20. For the Love of Spock
    The scenes that most linger in the mind are more like the one where the director confesses his complicated feelings about his father to another Spock, Zachary Quinto. It’s moving to know that even Nimoy’s son is as in thrall to an icon as the rest of us.
  21. tick, tick...Boom!
    In joyfully embracing just about every tool in the movie-musical toolbox, Miranda crafts a fitting tribute to the act of artistic creation. And he might just make some musical converts in the process.
  22. My Country, My Country
    Reserving the only trace of editorializing for the end credits, which list some sobering numbers on the occupation and this so-called successful election, Poitras mainly allows her subjects and the circumstances to speak for themselves.
  23. She Said
    There is a compellingly naturalistic chemistry between Kazan and Mulligan as the reporters develop a bond of their shared pursuit of the truth, but these character beats are, at best, a garnish on the side of a relatively bland meal.
  24. The Nazi Officer's Wife
    Well-crafted but frustratingly superficial documentary.
  25. Metallica: Some Kind of Monster
    It's a measure of the film's brilliance that it strips away the trappings of superstardom and allows audiences to see these men as flawed human beings first, musicians second, and rock gods a distant third.
  26. Source Code
    For a while it's the rare film that-in the mold of the first "Matrix" movie and "Inception," although on a more modest scale than either-mixes heady puzzles with gripping suspense.
  27. Beast
    There’s such a thing as being too damn ambiguous.
  28. Oklahoma!
    Both State Fair and Oklahoma! exemplify the composers' re-imagining of the musical form, which relied on more subtle vocal techniques, and songs that were catchy without always being hooky. The movies also catch the pair's unique version of nostalgia, which salutes provincial values while suggesting that they may not be enough to satisfy.
  29. Little Woods
    Little Woods revolves around a remarkable lead performance: Thompson shows her range as an actress in this film in ways that, as fun as they can be, she just doesn’t get to in any of her blockbuster roles.
  30. Joe
    For two hours or so, he becomes a magnetic actor again, the same vibrant presence who wowed audiences with his work in "Leaving Las Vegas" and "Adaptation." He is, in these rare instances, just plain good.
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