The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 10,411 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: 5,570 out of 10411
  2. Mixed: 3,735 out of 10411
  3. Negative: 1,106 out of 10411
10411 movie reviews
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  1. The White Ribbon
    Haneke’s latest is essentially an inquiry into the roots of a certain kind of evil.
  2. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
    4 Months unfolds like one of those street-level Dardenne brothers movies (Rosetta, L'Enfant).
  3. Ponyo
    It’s essentially a stroll through a fantastically detailed pastel world, in which the plot is little more than an excuse for Miyazaki to dive into a world teeming with colorful (and sometimes prehistoric) life.
  4. There Will Be Blood
    Anderson's uncompromising masterpiece will continue to resonate as a harrowing cautionary warning to a country with oil pumping through its veins, clouding its judgment and coarsening its soul.
  5. The Dark Knight
    The film's capes and cowls suggest one genre, but it's a metropolis-sized tragedy at heart.
  6. No Country for Old Men
    The ultimate vision here is of a hard world in which civilization is the aberration, and the things we fear are always waiting for an excuse to make life normal again.
  7. The Departed
    When a director of Scorsese's caliber is working at the top of his game, it's a reminder of why we go to the movies in the first place.
  8. Coraline
    The results are nothing short of magical.
  9. WALL-E
    It's Pixar's most daring experiment to date, but it still fits neatly into the studio's pantheon: Made with as much focus on heart as on visual quality, it's a sheer joy.
  10. Children of Men
    It's a heartbreaking, bullet-strewn valentine to what keeps us human.
  11. Rachel Getting Married
    It may be painful at times, but Rachel Getting Married sure is one heck of a party.
  12. Once
    In its own subdued, mellow way, Once is just about perfect.
  13. Knocked Up
    No one writes for ensembles better than Apatow, and his players are all skilled at giving his work a loose, improvisational feel.
  14. Funny Games
    The audience is indicted for its bloodlust. There's perversity in paying admission to get harshly scolded, and Funny Games is not for the squeamish, but this may be one time to step up and take the licking you deserve.
  15. Zodiac
    Zodiac is the rare serial-killer movie in which the psychosis stems as much from the pursuers (and the filmmaker) as the pursued.
  16. Taxi Driver
    Scorsese's seductive, dreamlike imagery and Schrader's voiceover narration draw the audience into Bickle's head and reveal the world through his eyes, which see only ugliness and filth.
  17. Batman Begins
    A rousing, reverent, often brilliant re-creation of a seminal comics character, Batman Begins proves Batman is at home in the 21st century as he was in the 20th.
  18. The Promise
    For Kaige, The Promise can't exactly be called a return to form--it's more a return to "Hero" and "House Of Flying Daggers" director Zhang Yimou's form. Either way, it's still glorious.
  19. Neil Young: Heart of Gold
    It's hard to film icons like Young as anything BUT icons, but Demme's film gets past the legend, zooming in on Young's aged, heroic face and finding an artist as human as the rest of us.
  20. L'Enfant (The Child)
    L'Enfant is intended as a pointed critique of pop culture's celebration of arrested adolescence. The title could refer to Renier's baby, Renier himself, or even the gang of schoolboy robbers that he's gathered around himself.
  21. Days of Heaven
    It's Malick's particular genius to make viewers feel like they're seeing the world, with all its beauty and danger, for the first time. [28 Nov. 2007]
  22. The King
    The King's perception of religion is hardly friendly, but it's only one aspect of a terrific drama, one that ultimately admits that people can be as much of a terrifying mystery as their creator.
  23. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
    A peculiar and destabilizing tone that's far from the standard Hollywood oater, but entirely fitting for two larger-than-life characters fulfilling their roles in history.
  24. Lake of Fire
    If nothing else, the film puts the lie to the notion that an abortion could ever be frivolous or lightly considered. On that point, everyone in Lake Of Fire agrees, whether they acknowledge the other side or not.
  25. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
    Burton brings his signature visual style, and a pair of stock players for his stars, into this film adaptation, but he wisely follows Sondheim's lead, letting the music and spirit of the original piece show the way.
  26. Standard Operating Procedure
    With Standard Operating Procedure, the Iraq War finally has its Hearts And Minds.
  27. Silent Light
    At bottom, Silent Light is less about faith than matters of the heart, and in Reygadas' hands, the ache is bone-deep.
  28. The Sun
    The result is not to make the emperor sympathetic so much as it is to tug at the mask of despotic glory. In the end, he is only a man.
  29. Close-Up
    From the outset, the director lets us know that this won’t be some sensationalistic crime story. Close-Up is more about the power of images, and how what’s on the screen at any given moment can hold our attention completely, even if it has nothing to do with “the story.”
  30. The Night of the Hunter
    Hunter is the stuff of nightmares, but it’s the stuff of dreams, too, and it beckons you to follow it downstream.
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