The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 10,419 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: 5,574 out of 10419
  2. Mixed: 3,737 out of 10419
  3. Negative: 1,108 out of 10419
10419 movie reviews
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  1. Drive Hard
    There was a time when the very presence of someone like John Cusack could enliven otherwise normal movies, and lift worthier ones onto a higher plane. But films like Drive Hard are too slapdash to even allow for coherent performances, let alone movie-saving heroics.
  2. Left Behind
    This Left Behind may be worse than the last Left Behind, but it’s much less boring, thanks in part to the commitment of its star, who plays the often ludicrous material with the straightest of faces. The Cage works in mysterious ways.
  3. Harmontown
    The documentary Harmontown falls over itself to balance his dark and light sides, with talking heads testifying both to his rare comedic voice and his impossible-to-deal-with irascibility.
  4. The Liberator
    It’s an equally fiery, magnetic star turn, but being trapped in a stolid, unimaginative, and simplistic example of the genre — a typical historical biopic, in other words — saps a surprising amount of its strength.
  5. The Good Lie
    It’s a sappy, but occasionally sensitive, coming-to-America story that hits all of the familiar beats. It has one very big problem, though, and she’s played by Reese Witherspoon.
  6. Annabelle
    As a blunt object, a machine built to put nerves on edge and fingers over eyes, Annabelle is still crudely (and cruelly) effective. Fear comes cheap.
  7. Gone Girl
    The movie’s most tantalizing mystery is the question of what’s really going on in their heads. It remains unanswered.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Nas: Time Is Illmatic
    One9 applies enough emotion and visual flourishes to steer clear of hacky Behind The Music territory.
  9. Men, Women & Children
    While many of the individual storylines are ludicrously melodramatic, building toward emotional meltdowns (and one suicide attempt), it’s the cumulative fear and loathing of everything digital that crosses the line into absurdity.
  10. Hellaware
    Even with a runtime just barely over an hour, the shock comedy of Hellaware grows a bit numbing after a while.
  11. Fishing Without Nets
    If nothing else, Fishing Without Nets looks good on a big screen, directed in the kind of slick, just-off-arthouse style that mandates every shot of a character walking be framed from behind.
  12. Advanced Style
    Although Advanced Style is little more than a string of small profiles that broadly cohere into anti-ageist propaganda, it’s nevertheless a cogent reminder that people are so often defined by the things they need that it’s easy to dismiss the things that they don’t.
  13. Good People
    Good People might have been better titled "Dumb People", or at least "People Who Have Never Seen A Movie In Their Entire Lives."
  14. My Old Lady
    Apparently struggling to please two very different audiences at once, Horovitz seems to have little control over the material, ultimately wrapping things up with a neat little bow that makes a mockery of the preceding ugliness.
  15. Lilting
    Khaou’s avoidance of visual fireworks and his attempt to barrel through his own script in such a workmanlike fashion has the side effect of letting his actors down.
  16. The Boxtrolls
    In an age when most cartoon companies have traded pens for pixels, the magicians at Laika continue to create fantastically elaborate universes out of pure elbow grease.
  17. The Two Faces of January
    January skirts by on its tastefulness and appreciation for the source material, however single-minded. It’s a movie of small pleasures: slow-burn suspense; period flavor, with an emphasis on the textures, clothes, and luggage; an effective score by Pedro Almodovar’s regular composer, Alberto Iglesias.
  18. The Equalizer
    It’s just more joyless junk, another title to bury at the bottom of Fuqua’s resume.
  19. Jimi: All Is by My Side
    It’s hard to hear what All Is By My Side is saying about anything, given how many scenes feature vaguely druggy overlapping dialogue, part of a fussy sound design that’s paired with intentionally choppy editing.
  20. Pride
    Manipulative but big-hearted, Pride is an ode to activism as a social equalizer, and a gushy illustration of the belief that hearts and minds can be changed, and that it’s impossible to truly battle oppression without opposing all forms of oppression. Why resist?
  21. Tracks
    Rendered in the over-polished, pre-packed prestige style of director John Curran (The Painted Veil, Stone), Davidson’s journey appears meaningless, little more than a succession of pretty vistas for the dirt-caked trekker to squint at while having flashbacks of her childhood.
  22. Hector and the Search for Happiness
    There’s more existential wisdom in five random, zombie-infested minutes of Shaun Of The Dead than in the full two hours of this feel-good folly.
  23. Atlas Shrugged III: Who Is John Galt?
    It’s a movie where everything, from the sets to the cast and crew, is an unconvincing, low-cost substitute for something else.
  24. Fort Bliss
    A movie like Fort Bliss seems designed to keep her (Monaghan) in fighting shape, in case bigger productions realize that she can do more than kiss a famous co-star.
  25. The Zero Theorem
    If only this imaginative environment were populated with a single compelling character or stimulating idea, rather than serving as busy distraction from the narrative tedium.
  26. Tusk
    Like most self-conscious attempts at a “midnight movie,” Tusk lacks the conviction that would make it anything more than an outré curiosity; it’s essentially a filmed dare, combined with fan service.
  27. This Is Where I Leave You
    This Is Where I Leave You demonstrates, a great cast is a terrible thing to waste.
  28. The Maze Runner
    If you’re going to treat your audience like a rat in a maze, it’s best to offer a tastier reward than the promise of more maze to come.
  29. A Walk Among the Tombstones
    Every year, so many artless, gormless, generically slick thrillers make their way into theaters that any time a genre director displays basic filmmaking smarts, the result ends up seeming like a retro novelty. Such is the case with writer-director Scott Frank’s murky potboiler A Walk Among The Tombstones.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    20,000 Days on Earth
    One thing that ties all his projects together is a grainy, cinematic quality, which is partly the reason why 20,000 Days On Earth works so beautifully.
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