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. Mr. Untouchable
    If Barnes ultimately emerges as a heartless, duplicitous villain, he's nevertheless got the devil's slippery, seductive charm.
  2. Jar City
    Eventually, some mysteries become clear, but Kormákur's attempts to be crafty are too often clumsy, and the movie's unmotivated time leaps are close to a cheat.
  3. The First Saturday in May
    "May" uses the quirks and well-worn traditions of horse racing as a vehicle to quietly explore idiosyncrasies of the human condition.
  4. Mad Detective
    Fleeting confusion and bizarre literalization aside, though, Mad Detective is an effective mystery story, with an oddball hero--like TV's Monk, but far crazier--and some moments of visceral violence that raise the stakes.
  5. Sixty Six
    The movie's climax is enough to provoke genuine tears, and not just from fans of the West Germany squad.
  6. The Girl Cut in Two
    Chabrol develops the inevitable confrontation between the two men like a car wreck in slow motion, and getting there takes a little more work than it should; the film takes the form of a thriller, but it doesn't have the pace of one.
  7. The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela
    Queen Raquela's plotty elements don't always work: The acting in the story-driving scenes sometimes comes off as amateurish, and the circumstances that send Rios halfway around the world seem contrived. But de Fleur gets an astonishingly good performance from Stefan C. Schaefer.
  8. Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story
    Boogie Man doesn't delve too deep into its subject's private life, beyond some cheap psychology positing his brother's horrible early death as the root of his winner-takes-all philosophy. But then, Atwater's work was his life.
  9. Dung che sai duk
    Yet for all Ashes' frustrations, it's still a gorgeous piece of filmmaking.
  10. The Universe of Keith Haring
    Universe deals extensively with Haring's personal life--his open homosexuality, his regular visits with his family, etc.--but it doesn't penetrate too far below the surface.
  11. Must Read After My Death
    The relentless negativity in Must Read After My Death can become overwhelming at times, but it's undeniably mesmerizing.
  12. Unmistaken Child
    Baratz’s apparent willingness to accept everything at face value papers over some of the more troubling aspects of Tenzin’s mission, but Unmistaken Child allows the mysteries of the process to be preserved without judgment.
  13. Flame and Citron
    One of the most expensive Danish movies ever made, and at times, it's glossy to a fault.
  14. 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.
  15. The Maid
    Even at its most upbeat, The Maid is something of a tragedy.
  16. Lourdes
    Lourdes starts from the unexpected position of believing miracles are possible, but it doesn’t paper over the religious and practical problems they raise--for the blessed and bereft alike.
  17. The Art of the Steal
    A damning example of justice bending toward those who can most afford to buy it.
  18. Neil Young Trunk Show
    Demme’s excitement for Young and his music is evident throughout, and the songs fit comfortably in the unvarnished setting.
  19. Warlords
    The Warlords relies too much on combat movie clichés and corny sentiment, weighted down by speeches about heroism and hypocrisy.
  20. Women Without Men
    The movie moves fluidly back and forth between these women's stories, as well as between reality and a kind of dream-state, as all four find their way into a walled orchard where they share fellowship and temporary refuge from the demands of men.
  21. Best Worst Movie
    Though it's a ramshackle piece of filmmaking, Best Worst Movie is an honest one, too, staying open to awkward, humbling moments while still making a solid case for the film's immortal badness.
  22. Iron Man 2
    The primary challenge for all blockbuster franchises is to be big yet fleet. Iron Man is as good as model as any, thanks largely to Robert Downey Jr.’s flamboyantly narcissistic Tony Stark and filmmakers that valued pacing and character as much as superhero hardware.
  23. Mother and Child
    Garcia shoots Mother And Child with minimal flare, an approach that keeps the focus squarely on the cast, whose moving work helps pave over some of the narrative’s lumpier patches.
  24. The Expendables
    Delivers pretty much exactly what its audience wants and expects: big, dumb, campy fun so deliriously, comically macho, it's remarkable that no one in the cast died of testosterone poisoning.
  25. Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo
    More essay than documentary—and by no means a monster movie--Jessica Oreck’s Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo takes a closer look at the Japanese obsession with insect-collecting, and considers it as a partial explanation of the country’s national character.
  26. Solitary Man
    The second movie nestled within Solitary Man--the one that doesn’t show up often enough--is about a man of rare eloquence and honesty, sharing his views on salesmanship and sex with anyone who’ll listen.
  27. The Last Exorcism
    Aided by strong performances from Bell and Fabian, Stamm deftly plays with the boundary of fact and fiction, though his game might have worked better with a little more grounding in verisimilitude.
  28. Father of My Children
    It’s refreshing not to be led along or handled by a filmmaker, but given the almost-novelistic structure of The Father Of My Children--which juggles half a dozen or so major characters and follows their reaction to a crisis in obsessive detail--the movie could stand to be a little more dynamic.
  29. Buried
    Buried is as much about dropped calls, getting sent to voicemail, and being openly lied to by our institutions as it about being buried alive by terrorists.
  30. Stonewall Uprising
    Davis and Heilbroner lean a bit too hard on the most outrageous forms of abuse in the pre-Stonewall era, as opposed to the everyday traumas of living in the closet, but Stonewall Uprising picks up momentum once it starts detailing the event itself, drawing on the vivid memories of the people who lived it.
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