The A.V. Club's Scores

Select another publication »
For 10,409 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: 5,568 out of 10409
  2. Mixed: 3,735 out of 10409
  3. Negative: 1,106 out of 10409
10409 movie reviews
view
per page
  1. Wuthering Heights
    Overlong and undersexed, Fennell’s version of Wuthering Heights betrays her audience of edgelords and perverts. Even stranger, those who have fostered a distaste for the filmmaker’s sensibility will similarly find themselves disappointed. It’s one thing to make art that can be read as indulgent, ill-conceived, and tasteless—it’s another to turn around and make something that’s just boring in comparison.
  2. GOAT
    The actual sports stuff feels a little sweatier, with too much clamor for each animal teammate to really pop. But Goat still leaps over the worst pitfalls of big-studio kid-centric animation. Where it counts, the movie knows just enough ball.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    The Best Summer
    There’s an undeniable warmth and nostalgia here, but unless you were on those tour buses—or attended one of those shows—you can’t quite connect with The Best Summer like you want to. It’s like looking at someone else’s scrapbook or home movies. This very well could’ve been “the best summer.” It just wasn’t yours or mine, and that’s okay. We appreciate Davis giving us a peek at this cool moment in her life.
  4. Relationship Goals
    As a bit of forgettable, low-stakes Valentine’s Day viewing for the religious set, one could do worse. But those who only date their rom-coms “intentionally” could definitely do better.
  5. Solo Mio
    While Solo Mio feels familiar, it doesn’t feel generic—and that’s a balancing act as impressive as James’ late-career pivot.
  6. Iron Lung
    As a performer, Fischbach’s frantic performance can sometimes be distractingly monotonous, but as a filmmaker, he has an impressive eye not only for compositional details, but also for how his images cut and flow together.
  7. Pillion
    Pillion is a film about self-knowledge, and about asserting one’s needs and boundaries without shame.
  8. The Moment
    The Moment doesn’t meet the gold standard of self-pitying emptiness set by The Weeknd’s Hurry Up Tomorrow, but it does share with that movie the sense that the gorgeous surface is performing a kind of vamping at the behest of a music-video-thin story.
  9. The Love That Remains
    The resulting drama might have been exasperating for its surface passivity if Pálmason’s faith in his actors and other regular collaborators, as well as his knack for composition (he’s also the movie’s cinematographer), didn’t pay off so regularly and so viscerally.
  10. Shelter
    The pulp and action are sold by Statham with the resigned competence of a factory worker clocking in for a shift, and Breathnach’s over-eager performance is balanced out by her expressive face. They’re a decent team to watch go through the motions, running through underworld contacts and old pals who owe one last favor.
  11. Send Help
    As much as some of the imagery feels like Raimi playing the hits, Send Help also suggests a later-career shift for the filmmaker, one where his comic-book throwbacks run into (or over?) contemporary obstacles without losing their go-for-broke loopiness. It can get messy. Good for him.
  12. The Wrecking Crew
    The Wrecking Crew casts about between genres like driftwood caught by the tide; for two hours, the script cycles between family trauma drama, goofy Hawaiian noir, meathead romp, and wham-bang slugfest. The indecision at least showcases some consistency, though, in that each approach is equally dissatisfying.
  13. Return to Silent Hill
    Somewhere between a reboot and a remake, Return To Silent Hill is the worst film of the franchise so far, and a reminder that you can’t go home again—even if your home is the haunted hamlet of Silent Hill.
  14. Mother of Flies
    The result is occult horror as potent as the snake venom in one of Selveig’s dreadful “cures.”
    • tbd Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Cosmic Princess Kaguya!
    Cosmic Princess Kaguya! is blessed with talent—manifesting as impressive animation and a lovely rapport between its leads—but its rocky landing denies it a chance at true stardom.
  16. Mercy
    Mercy takes a more bombastic approach with more speculative technology, only to chicken out of using that bombast to do anything other than jostle the audience through a series of contrived absurdities. If this is the future of crime thrillers, everyone needs their screentime severely curtailed.
  17. A Private Life
    A Private Life offers plenty of fizzy pleasures alongside somber reflections on the passage of time and the regrets you have to live with.
  18. The Rip
    Despite the story bloat, Carnahan spins a tight web for the first two-thirds of his movie.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    All You Need Is Kill
    Judged both in a vacuum and against its source material, All You Need Is Kill is a rare retelling that finds its own tenor.
  20. Shuffle
    It’s 81 damning minutes of tight filmmaking, great storytelling, and riveting investigation.
  21. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
    It’s a neat surprise that DaCosta extracts more dark humor from the series than Boyle himself.
  22. People We Meet on Vacation
    As low-stakes viewing about two blandly likable people, People We Meet On Vacation at least looks better than the cheapest level of streaming rom-coms, and fans of the book will probably find something to like. Ironically, however, its place on Netflix means it’ll miss out on its truest calling as a film you half-watch on a plane.
  23. Young Mothers
    Even in the more shallow form of Young Mothers, the Dardennes’ work emphasizes that there is little that’s more cinematic than complicated people surviving difficult circumstances.
  24. Magellan
    Diaz makes a mockery of Magellan in his depiction of the revered globetrotter, his take on the Age Of Discovery damning to say the least.
  25. Dead Man's Wire
    This is Van Sant’s Dog Day Afternoon moment. Judged solely by Skarsgård’s scenes, Dead Man’s Wire makes for an insightful and tense portrait of its subject. But judged by the limits of its perspective, the film is narrow to the story’s detriment.
  26. Primate
    Primate makes a characteristically concise case for Roberts as a genre stylist to keep watching.
  27. The Plague
    Aside from these shallow moments of over-explanation and a kinetic ending that lifts whole cloth from the aforementioned Beau Travail, this exciting debut boasts some honest and cutting commentary around these angry, confused little boys.
  28. The Testament of Ann Lee
    The frenzied, lustful energy of the film’s first half makes it one of the most thrilling cinematic experiences of the year and, though the slower, more mannered second half struggles to recapture that same sense of propulsion, there’s a purpose to that too.
  29. We Bury the Dead
    For those looking to delve into more philosophical horror, We Bury The Dead is a thoughtful trek into the unknown.
  30. Song Sung Blue
    Like a Diamond song, Song Sung Blue is a little corny and a touch overly familiar. But when it finds its wavelength, the good times never seemed so good.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »