The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 10,435 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: 5,578 out of 10435
  2. Mixed: 3,745 out of 10435
  3. Negative: 1,112 out of 10435
10435 movie reviews
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  1. Bilal: A New Breed of Hero
    By reducing teachings to vague platitudes and inspirational truisms, Bilal robs its religious story of any sense of grace, leaving only those components of early Islamic history generally not considered off-limits for visual interpretation—that is, a lot of early medieval warfare and violence.
  2. Thoroughbreds
    Thoroughbreds...has been made with diabolical craft and intelligence, the kind that marks Finley as a major new American talent. But it’s no empty exercise, no mere calling card. The style all comes in service of the central relationship and the superb performances that bring it to bewitching life.
  3. The Insult
    Regardless of its high aims, most of what The Insult offers—unlikely last-minute reveals, argumentative lawyers, stone-faced judges—is the stuff of a diverting, junky courtroom drama.
  4. 24 Frames
    It’s at once inspiring and heartbreaking to see a master with nothing left to prove still pushing the envelope in the final years of his life. He had plenty left to give us.
  5. A Futile and Stupid Gesture
    While pretty consistently amusing, the film still suffers from a chronic case of Wikipediitis, recreating Kenney’s bullet-point moments as substitution for original wit or drama.
  6. Maze Runner: The Death Cure
    The runty little brother of "The Hunger Games" has gotten surprisingly proficient in that area of well-produced sci-fi junk where a lot of the dialogue consists of variations on, “Go, go, go!”
  7. Have a Nice Day
    Liu is clearly inspired by live-action filmmakers (the Coen brothers and the Japanese actor-director Takeshi Kitano are acknowledged influences), but his casual side trips into the fantastic—say, an extended daydream sequence that’s part parody of Cultural Revolution propaganda, part karaoke video—can only work in drawing.
  8. Please Stand By
    It’s hard to be persuasive, though, when your protagonist comes across as a collection of quirky tics rather than a credible human being.
  9. A Ciambra
    The result is busy, murky, and remote. It doesn’t have the leftie political clarity of Ken Loach, the purposeful intensity of the Dardenne brothers, or even the character development of Ramin Bahrani’s early features.
  10. Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot
    The uplifting nature of this true story naturally triggers Van Sant’s pesky sentimentality, with scenes that recall the hug-it-out, therapeutic catharsis of Good Will Hunting. But this is still the writer-director’s most formally interesting, emotionally involving movie in a decade, however little that may really be saying.
  11. The Final Year
    The documentary follows — and frequently lionizes — three Obama officials throughout 2016, and frequently feels like it was intended as a well-deserved victory lap.
  12. Mom and Dad
    If it doesn’t entirely exploit the potency of its metaphor, there’s still a certain grim fun in seeing Taylor give “family feud” an outrageous new meaning.
  13. Den of Thieves
    It’s derivative and drowning in stagnant machismo, but stark enough to work.
  14. Small Town Crime
    An amiable crime dramedy from a more under-the-radar pair of filmmaking brothers, Ian and Eshom Nelms.
  15. 12 Strong
    Surprisingly stolid and barren for a Bruckheimer production, 12 Strong skates by on the virtues of an old-fashioned programmer: technical competence, an above-average cast, and well-written dialogue, the latter courtesy of screenwriters Ted Tally (The Silence Of The Lambs) and Peter Craig (Blood Father).
  16. Forever My Girl
    The movie isn’t as off-the-charts shameless as Sparks, but it lacks the Russian roulette death-guessing game to occupy viewers who get bored.
  17. Mary and The Witch's Flower
    It’s a movie with no greater ambition than to charm and occasionally delight. Mission accomplished.
  18. Dim the Fluorescents
    Fluorescents’ showy camera moves and full-jazz-hands theater-kid dorkiness are a tonic against the excessively muted naturalism that has come to define indie style.
  19. Proud Mary
    She’s (Henson) a compelling leading woman, all in all. Too bad she’s stuck in such an incompetently directed mess of a movie.
  20. Inside
    While it’s been orchestrated with some skill and even intelligence, a question still pokes at the viewer, like rusty scissors jabbing at soft flesh: What’s the point of a less extreme version of a film whose whole raison d’être was extremity?
  21. The Polka King
    Above all else, this movie is so well-cast that the laugh line makes perfect sense coming from Black.
  22. The Commuter
    The Commuter’s script may not be an exercise in fool-proof logic (the actual plot makes almost no sense in retrospect), but its politics are consistent — a rare quality for a contemporary thriller.
  23. Lover for a Day
    If Garrel’s recent films (which also include In The Shadow Of Women and Frontier Of Dawn) play like variations on a theme, this one at least varies more than usual.
  24. Paddington 2
    Though the formulaic treasure-hunting plot sometimes gets out of hand, it doesn’t muddle the intended message.
  25. Before I Wake
    Before I Wake has its imperfections and moments of narrative lag, but its thoughtful touches and attention to character load Cody’s abilities and the threat of the Canker Man with a dramatic weight that often outbalances the generically spooky imagery.
  26. Insidious: The Last Key
    A clumsy and internally confused sequel to Insidious: Chapter 3 (which was, uh, a prequel to the first film) that offers strictly mechanical jolts.
  27. In Between
    In Between suffers when cross-cutting among its three similar yet disparate storylines, and is strongest during moments that see righteous anger get complicated by human nature.
  28. Happy End
    Happy End is far from the best Michael Haneke movie. But it just might be the most Michael Haneke movie — a kind of grueling greatest-hits collection from the reigning scold of European art cinema.
  29. Bright
    Bright gestures vaguely at an allegory about police brutality and race, which may have been more impactful in the original script. It’s hard to tell. For his part, Landis has largely disowned the final product, which buries some glimmers of interesting ideas under a thick layer of adolescent tough-guy posturing.
  30. Father Figures
    Its scenes aren’t really long or improv-heavy enough to qualify as rambling, but they’re often slow enough to qualify as excruciating.
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