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. Araya
    As a piece of documentary filmmaking though, Araya is more noteworthy for what it reveals about a changing artform than for what it has to say about its subjects.
  2. The World to Come
    Their attraction seems more intellectual than physical, which keeps the film’s romantic energy at a lukewarm simmer throughout.
  3. ABC Africa
    Beyond giving a human face to Uganda's crises, Kiarostami attempts to capture the actual place, a swirl of contradictions as vibrant and beautiful as it is troubled.
  4. The Execution of Wanda Jean
    Minimizes music and effects, relying on artful, informative screen titles to explain the action and letting the action explain the rest.
  5. Cuban Rafters
    Balseros doesn't fully measure up to Michael Apted's work because of the dingy quality of its video-to-film transfer, as well as flaws inherent to a project that started as one type of documentary and ended up as another--namely, that the filmmakers didn't ask enough of the right questions in the first two installments to make the third fully connect.
  6. School Life
    Maybe it won’t exist in Ireland much longer either, so it’s a good thing that School Life manages to capture its weird, wonderful world.
  7. Ai Weiwei: The Fake Case
    It’s curious that The Fake Case works best as a dark comedy, with one particularly memorable scene finding Ai sneaking up on a couple of newlyweds as they have their wedding photos taken and snapping a few of his own.
  8. The Killing of a Sacred Deer
    The Killing Of A Sacred Deer doesn’t have as sharp an allegorical edge as his best work — it’s no Dogtooth in that respect — but it does find the director honing his command of unnerving atmosphere to a razor point, enhanced by a camera that glides menacingly down hospital corridors and gazes from above with the severity of a merciless god.
  9. Wind River
    Driven by another of Nick Cave and Warren Ellis’ murmuring folk soundtracks, Wind River turns out to be the weakest of Sheridan’s loose trilogy — the one with the thinnest characterizations and the toughest time disguising its subtext as plainspoken townsfolk rapport.
  10. Free Angela & All Political Prisoners
    In spite of its attention-grabbing opening and provocative title, Free Angela And All Political Prisoners is less a work of agitprop than straightforward history, intriguing but never unsettling.
  11. One, Two, Three
    Although crafting a comedy about such world-altering topics was bound to be difficult, a master like Wilder could pull it off.
  12. Futura
    Self-reflexiveness is no guarantee of value in a documentary, and Futura works perfectly well as cinematic reportage. Still, the film does at times feel slack and arbitrary—a bit like a census that no one could argue is unimportant but which nonetheless has the feel of a box-ticking exercise.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Air
    For a few scenes, Air feels like a gently satirical movie about corporate skullduggery. But it’s really a sports picture, where outcomes are determined by dedication, and a purity of purpose no one else can match. Damon’s Sonny is the scrappy and unlikely contender, whose love of the game gives him heart.
  14. Marnie
    It's a must for those already enthralled by Rear Window, Vertigo, and the like, but a bit of a slog for anyone else.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Spider-Man
    Spider-Man brings the beloved comic-book character to the screen with both angst and action undamaged by the move.
  16. The Wings of the Dove
    The Wings Of The Dove is thought-provoking in a full and lasting sense; it'll stay with you long after its dubious final scene.
  17. John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum
    Though Parabellum delivers at least a couple of action scenes that rank with the best of the series...there’s a certain fatigue to its two biggest set pieces, both of which pit Wick and his allies against unending waves of faceless henchmen. Wick is unstoppable. Do the movies know where to stop?
  18. The Raid: Redemption
    Gareth Evans' Indonesian martial-arts throwback The Raid: Redemption has a look and feel that resembles the best of '80s cult action movies: half John Carpenter, half John Woo.
  19. Sonatine
    Like the character he plays, Kitano directs the film in a style that alternates between tenderness and brutality, making it a relentlessly tense suspense film one minute and a gentle character study the next. Either half would make Sonatine worth seeing. But taken together as the story of a man who regains his soul but whose face remains permeated with the knowledge of its inevitable loss, it becomes an artful gangster film, Yakuza poetry, and essential viewing.
  20. The Cave of the Yellow Dog
    Writer-director Davaa allows the drama to emerge organically out of the characters, the beautifully captured setting, and the conflict between the past and the present.
  21. Sorry Angel
    The film has some lovely beats, and good chemistry between its leads.
  22. Karl Marx City
    Karl Marx City is at heart a psychological family drama—the story of a tightly knit household that outlived an oppressive society, only to find itself faced with a doubt about the past that amounts to an existential quandary.
  23. Blazing Saddles
    No comic trope, however musty or studded with whiskers, is off limits, including bad puns, physical shtick, pie fights, goofy names and accents, song-and-dance numbers, Jewish Indians, or just having a bunch of cowpokes farting around the campfire. Some of the jokes drop like lead, but the film's anarchic spirit carries a lot of excitement, because Brooks' anything-goes philosophy means that no comedic possibilities go unconsidered.
  24. Sunset Song
    Stultifying in spots, the period drama Sunset Song marks an unexpected misstep for Terence Davies, the eccentric filmmaker whose movies evoke limbo states of memory and repressed feeling using a very British vocabulary of drab spaces.
  25. The Memory of a Killer
    Initially, the film comes off as a poor man's "Memento," but it gradually becomes apparent that it's only really interested in its protagonist's Alzheimer's as a cheap plot point to be manipulated or discarded as the filmmakers see fit.
  26. Supernova
    Macqueen approaches the messy reality of letting go with measured sorrow, unrestrained tenderness, and even moments of joy.
  27. Dust Bunny
    Toning down the blood-drenched viscera of Hannibal while channeling the morbid yet whimsical stylings of Pushing Daisies, Fuller’s inaugural film effort is completely in tune with his previous narrative interests, though this time filtered through the gaze of a precocious child.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Beyond the Lights
    This is feel-good populist entertainment at heart.
  29. The Matrix
    The Wachowskis do it so playfully well, keeping The Matrix's potentially confusing plot intelligible, intelligent, and suspenseful, that it doesn't matter.
  30. Lucy and Desi
    Anyone looking for a clear, concise explanation of how these two unlikely impresarios dominated American pop culture in the mid-20th century will find it here, supported by copious archival material and heartfelt testimony from the couple’s family, friends, and fans.
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