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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    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Shadow Dancer
    If there’s a political edge to this story, it’s in the understanding — implicit from early on — that this is a situation with no satisfying solution; eventually, someone is going to have to die. To that end, director James Marsh, best known for his documentaries "Man On Wire" and "Project Nim," crafts an atmosphere of tenuous dread.
  2. Syndromes and a Century
    These moments, enjoyable and arcane, may not add up to a masterpiece. But they're uniquely Weerasethakul's.
  3. Horton Hears a Who!
    Just because the live-action Seusses have dialed down expectations doesn't mean that Horton shouldn't aspire to more than time-wasting mediocrity. There are precious childhoods at stake here.
  4. The Wonder
    Thanks to a typically mesmerizing leading turn from Florence Pugh, it’s a film that can hold up a mirror to believers and nonbelievers alike as the best stories of faith do.
  5. Emma.
    Anchoring it all is horror darling Anya Taylor-Joy, who makes for a particularly icy Emma.
  6. The Nomi Song
    Without coming out and saying it, The Nomi Song creates the sense that its subject might simply have been a few hundred years ahead of his time.
  7. Collapse
    There are many layers to the man and the movie, and it’s hard not to leave the theater shaken.
  8. Divan
    Divan overcomes its stylistic clichés only because Gluck's story is rich, and because it comes to a knockout finish.
  9. Next Stop Wonderland
    What's good about Next Stop Wonderland -- and nearly good enough to warrant recommendation -- has nothing to do with Anderson's sloppy, disjointed filmmaking, and everything to do with Hope Davis' far more disciplined and appealing lead performance.
  10. Macbeth
    We’re talking maximum sound and fury, and while no movie that stars Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard could signify nothing, this one doesn’t signify a whole lot.
  11. Bobby Sands: 66 Days
    The emotional reserve of 66 Days can make the film feel a little dry at times, given that it’s about something as visceral as a man starving himself to death. But Byrne does a fine job of juggling a lot of information.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Warrior
    For all its titular bravado, Warrior never lets the audience forget the economic and spiritual desperation driving its two main characters, who bleed for the screaming arena crowd in exchange for their shots at redemption, and offer a rare glimpse of soul in a type of film that usually isn't obliged to provide one.
  13. Far from the Madding Crowd
    To be fair, Far From The Madding Crowd isn’t the kind of novel that lends itself to adaptation; it was originally published as a monthly serial, and still reads that way.
  14. Sleepwalk with Me
    As charming as it is winningly modest, but it's so incredibly slight a stiff wind would knock it into a different hemisphere.
  15. Pleasantville
    To concentrate on the minor faults of a fable as beautiful and unusual as Pleasantville would be missing the point.
  16. Tales from the Gimli Hospital
    The filmmaker self-consciously borrows from dozens of sources, including radio dramas, Our Gang shorts, hygiene films, school plays, stag pictures, Universal horror, ethnographic documentaries, and the indie weirdness of John Waters and David Lynch.
  17. The Perfect Candidate
    There’s a dramatic neatness here more indicative of a parable or fairy tale than an intimate family drama. Add in a swelling, sports-movie score and The Perfect Candidate would sit comfortably on the shelf along other feel-good underdog stories. (Think Rudy, but with municipal elections and lots of oud.) Yet Al-Mansour and her able cast supply a richer texture than such a description might suggest.
  18. Separate Lies
    This material could easily have devolved into soap opera or romantic melodrama, but Wilkinson and Watson's superb, subtle performances lend it tremendous depth and gravity.
  19. No One Knows About Persian Cats
    The movie comes to life whenever Hamed Behdad appears.
  20. Where the Wild Things Are
    Spike Jonze has recently said in interviews that his chief goal ...was to try to capture the feeling of being 9. By that measure--by just about any measure, really--he succeeded wildly.
  21. Kékszakállú
    Solnicki has admitted in interviews that he more or less made the movie up as he went along, not knowing quite what he was after, and it shows. But he has a remarkable eye and boundless curiosity, and those two qualities are enough to sustain a brief yet restlessly inventive exploration like this one.
  22. Little Fish
    The lackluster Little Fish banks on the automatic pathos of its subject matter, unaware that such delicate material actually requires greater skill and finesse to pull off, now more than ever. Rather than imbuing this unintended commentary with a cathartic charge, its proximity to reality accentuates the air of inauthenticity.
  23. Run & Jump
    Forte’s strength in playing awkward characters works to his advantage.
  24. Animals
    It never pushes far enough into that territory to distinguish its beautiful losers from the many addiction-movie characters that precede them.
  25. Ingrid Goes West
    The biggest selling point of Ingrid Goes West is its screenplay, which is full of deadpan comic flourishes.
  26. RBG
    Breathlessly superficial, school-presentation-ish documentary.
  27. Roman de gare
    Roman De Gare's neatest trick is Pinon's performance, which draws out a hitherto unseen leading-man allure.
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