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. Manifesto
    Each of Blanchett’s characters exists in a complete environment, and Rosefeldt’s camera is keen to reveal the gags and treasures contained within each.
  2. Strictly Ballroom
    Luhrmann works aggressively for laughs early in the picture, playing up the gaudiness and piggishness of the old-guard dancers in camera angles as extreme and unflattering as a mid-'80s David Lee Roth video.
  3. Surfwise
    How can a freethinking father mandate his ideals without violating them? Pray covers it all, and movingly so.
  4. Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis
    If modern art-lovers want to understand what the Jack Smith experience was like, Jordan's documentary may be their best chance.
  5. Step Into Liquid
    The astonishing visual poetry of Step Into Liquid's best surfing footage nearly compensates for the mindless boosterism of Brown's constant narration and the often comically banal observations of the film's largely homogeneous master surfers.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Mulan
    Though Disney's animation department does deserve credit for shaking up its formula and delving into relatively mature drama, the movie is flawed in numerous aggravating ways.
  7. Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story
    This is a fascinating, underreported piece of recent world history, but Patty Kim and Chris Sheridan's documentary Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story doesn't do it full justice.
  8. Despicable Me
    Until the "creep + orphans = happy family" formula starts demanding abrupt, unconvincing character mutations, Despicable Me is a giddy joy.
  9. The Silence
    From moment to moment, The Silence can feel a bit pokey, as it divides its attention among a host of characters and never builds up much urgency about the fate of the second victim, whose body hasn’t been found.
  10. Donald Cried
    The film’s gradual shift from broad yuk-fest toward something closer to indie drama (while still striving to be funny) isn’t wholly successful; it’s difficult to achieve the catharsis of, say, Kelly Reichardt’s "Old Joy" when you start out like "Napoleon Dynamite." But at least Avedisian tried.
  11. The Incredible Jessica James
    To be fair, it’s difficult not to be outshone by Jessica Williams, whose star has been continually on the rise since her debut on The Daily Show in 2012. It’s interesting, then, that this irrepressible personality would have her first starring film role project be as low-key as The Incredible Jessica James, especially since it seems to have been written just for her.
  12. VFW
    Soaked in neon and coated with a thick layer of 16mm film grain, it’s a visceral throwback to the gritty action fare that lined video store shelves in the early ’80s as grindhouses gave way to the VHS boom—coincidentally, also the era that made VFW’s core cast famous.
  13. The Year of the Everlasting Storm
    There are no outright disasters and two superlative shorts, one of which may well turn out to be this year’s single greatest cinematic achievement. Even if the rest are mostly forgettable, that batting average still qualifies as success in this notoriously erratic mini-genre.
  14. Eileen
    Oldroyd has crafted a strange and mysterious thriller with Eileen. It’s not entirely satisfying, however it’s also never less than imaginatively conceived and utterly beguiling.
  15. The Shrouds
    Cassel and Kruger shine, but the rest of the performances feel either staid or over-the-top. Some of the story comes across as pretentious, and some of the pacing is disjointed and inelegant.
  16. Great World of Sound
    Great World Of Sound is painfully specific about the music-scouting grind.
  17. The Kill Team
    War is hell, in other words, and punishing these soldiers—and Winfield in particular—for doing what they were taught to do is wrong.
  18. The Double Hour
    Pretty to look at, making good use of the scenery in and around Turin; if nothing else, the runaway plot keeps the movie unpredictable.
  19. 12
    Rarely has the voyeuristic appeal of sitting on a jury been so cleverly expressed.
  20. The Invisible Man
    Moss also strengthens the notion that this is a monster movie unusually interested in looking past the toxic-male machinations of its famous character and toward the lasting horrors left in his wake. In other words, the stuff that previous movies, and real life, have sometimes tried to turn invisible.
  21. The Batman
    Still, the film sustains its seductive atmosphere—its hushed pop-noir cool—even as the story fizzles into a string of reveals and a curiously perfunctory climax.
  22. The Ice Storm
    A harsh (though slightly toned down from Moody's book), deeply moving, emotionally rich and intelligent film about the difficulty of rebelling against social restrictions--and the inescapable consequences of such attempts when they do succeed--The Ice Storm should not be missed.
  23. Arctic
    If the bare-minimum characterizations at first feel like a refreshing alternative to the most modern survival film (think everything from 127 Hours to The Shallows), they eventually betray a movie that maybe—just maybe—doesn’t have a lot of ideas about where to go past the first act. Like its protagonist, it trudges toward an unknown destination out of obligation.
  24. Real Genius
    Martha Coolidge's bright, whimsical Real Genius can credit part of its substantial and richly deserved cult following to the fact that nothing has changed: Raunchy, lowbrow teen comedies are forever in vogue, and SDI is still an impossible, money-sucking political mirage.
  25. Undefeated
    It's common for coaches to take roles as father figures on a high-school and college level, but Undefeated gets into how that dynamic works on both ends, as Courtney seeks to salve the pain of his family history.
  26. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
    Save for the thrilling opening sequence, there's not much to remember about the film beyond Staunton (Vera Drake), who masks her bottomless malevolence behind a pasted-on patrician smile.
  27. Fed Up
    Like most mediocre documentaries these days, Fed Up alternates between regurgitated facts (often presented in snazzy animated interludes), talking-head interviews, and a “human angle” involving a few regular folks who are struggling with the problem in question.
  28. Smashed
    In spite of the out-of-place pregnancy subplot, Smashed is a film of pummeling intensity and bruised emotions.
  29. Paradise Now
    While "War Within" takes a deeper, more personal look at its protagonist, Paradise Now is a more ambitious film that better contextualizes its central characters and their politics.
  30. What Doesn't Kill You
    Goodman doesn't allow even a hint of postmodernism or self-consciousness to creep into What Doesn't Kill You, and though the movie's various heists and shootouts are gripping, they aren't especially kinetic or stylish.
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