The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 10,456 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: 5,593 out of 10456
  2. Mixed: 3,748 out of 10456
  3. Negative: 1,115 out of 10456
10456 movie reviews
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  1. Unstoppable
    It’s commendable to avoid further clichés with regard to the portrayal of physical difference in film, but Unstoppable fails to pin down what exactly should take their place.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Back in Action
    Despite reuniting them, Back In Action has nothing new to give its movie stars. It’s not enough that they’re “back” in more of the same material seen in Charlie’s Angels, Knight And Day, or White House Down. They deserve material that considers all that has come before and builds upon it.
  3. Wolf Man
    Wolf Man rarely bares its teeth, opting instead for tail-tucked melancholy. Relatively absent of jumpy gotchas or relieving humor—though there is a slightly tongue-in-cheek moment involving a doggy door—the film relies on injecting its Gothic origins with a dose of modern dread. Dangers lurk outside the home, but could just as easily infiltrate it. The march of death could hasten its pace for anyone at any time, rendering those around them impotent.
  4. Grand Theft Hamlet
    A making-of film fueled, like the Let’s Plays and livestreams it’s in conversation with, by the chaos of a plan gone wrong, Grand Theft Hamlet is equal parts charming and cheesy—both due to its experimental setting.
  5. I'm Still Here
    Heartrending yet never maudlin, I’m Still Here is a humanist drama that, in shining a light on insidious injustice, becomes a balm to warn and warm its audiences in equal measure.
  6. Den of Thieves 2: Pantera
    While the guys are enormous, Den Of Thieves 2: Pantera is lighter than the first movie. Cranking his personality to make Big Nick more morally palatable, Gudegast emphasizes the likability of his motley crew throughout, not the moral gray areas of law enforcement.
  7. Santosh
    In its most compelling stretches, Santosh operates as a kind of subverted procedural in which every aspect of the investigation is, at best, an informality of dubious legal standing.
  8. Don't Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever
    If Don’t Die had a bit more of the discipline its subject imposes on his own days, those feelings might linger longer.
  9. From Ground Zero
    With little in way of organization, From Ground Zero can oscillate frustratingly between styles, artistic ambition, and production quality.
  10. The Fire Inside
    In an era where the mid-budget movie has mostly disappeared, The Fire Inside’s modest, thoughtful reworking of the sports drama formula can feel refreshing.
  11. Mufasa: The Lion King
    One could even make the argument that Jenkins has made a fundamentally better film than Favreau while working with inferior, less elemental material. But that doesn’t change the fact that Mufasa is, ultimately, compromised by its studio formulas in terms of both story and style.
  12. Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
    Just as warm-hearted, bouncy, goofy, and unassumingly sharp as ever, the film makes the case that no matter how close Wallace and his out-of-time village get to our digitized reality, long-suffering Gromit will be there to provide grounding glares—and remind us to take a moment to pet your dog.
  13. Sonic the Hedgehog 3
    Sonic The Hedgehog 3 lets its animated heroes shine. There’s less “live” in this impressively blended live-action movie, which is not a detriment.
  14. Carry-On
    There’s never a true early-check-out moment of the sort that arrives with such numbing frequency in so many bigger-scale blockbusters; the movie locks in and moves.
  15. The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim
    The Lord Of The Rings: The War Of The Rohirrim is a slight Middle-earth adventure that’s fleet-footed but inconsequential.
  16. The Last Showgirl
    It’s Pamela Anderson’s deceptively fragile performance that shoulders The Last Showgirl, her breathy, girlish rasp the perfect match for Shelly’s fluttery chatterbox personality. She is captivating, fully dissolved in the character, and it’s evident the extent to which Anderson is injecting her performance with her own complicated feelings towards aging, success, and spectatorship.
  17. Kraven the Hunter
    Kraven The Hunter gets closer than any of its predecessors to understanding the silly, entertaining freedom of shedding continuity. Then again, maybe it’s best that this misbegotten series quits while it’s just-barely ahead.
  18. A Complete Unknown
    A Complete Unknown is an honest film that wants to get close to an enigma, maybe even unlock his mystery a little. After the film, Dylan might not be any less of an unknown, but it’s the film’s breathtaking pursuit that counts.
  19. Get Away
    While the performances are rooted in comedic tact, the film’s thematic interests are completely scattershot, leading to an overwhelmingly uneven tone.
  20. Y2K
    Y2K should mark the beginning of Kyle Mooney’s film auteurism, but his funnier instincts and command of human vulnerability have been replaced by weak jokes, weak characters, and a weak storyline.
  21. That Christmas
    Schmaltz-heavy and wishlist-thin, That Christmas offers very little and doesn’t even have the self-awareness to include the receipt.
  22. The End
    The melancholy absurdity—dragged out over two-and-a-half hours—doesn’t revel in its ironic condemnation. It’s a long sigh, an off-key parody song performed before humanity’s curtain call.
  23. Nosferatu
    There are moments of genuine horror and genuine artfulness in Nosferatu, neither of which would have been possible if the writer-director had approached the project with tongue in cheek. But at two hours and 12 minutes, it’s a solemn death march towards an inevitable conclusion—which fits the theme, but strains the limits of audience engagement.
  24. The Seed of the Sacred Fig
    Eschewing the formal flare of his previous work, Rasoulof finds something more immediate here, a drama that burns like a political thriller and sears like a documentary.
  25. Dear Santa
    If Christmas movies can’t be good, they can usually at least be pleasant distractions. Dear Santa is neither. It’s a regrettable film, one that wasn’t ever worth the wordplay that started it.
  26. Moana 2
    It makes less sense for this story, haphazard and lost, to follow one of Disney’s better films of the last 20 years. There’s almost an affecting message, where teamwork on a small scale results in greater togetherness on a large scale.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Spellbound
    The​​ disparate elements of a self-serious, straightforward plot and maximalist creature design keep Spellbound feeling kiddywampus, teetering between cloyingly obvious sincerity and confusing complexity.
  28. The Piano Lesson
    In The Piano Lesson, the ghosts are as tangible as they’ve ever been, and the film barely containing them is as weathered and tense as any family in need of a séance.
  29. Wicked
    Wicked makes the old Wizard Of Oz look even more like a vivid original, while the newer movie unfolding in front of us looks like a faded memory.
  30. Flow
    Though initially revolving around the attention to detail that takes center stage when creating a world of silent naturalism, the script from Zilbalodis and Matīss Kaža sometimes overpowers the incredible showcase of light, color, and movement with out-of-place cartoonishness.
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