The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 10,412 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: 5,570 out of 10412
  2. Mixed: 3,735 out of 10412
  3. Negative: 1,107 out of 10412
10412 movie reviews
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  1. High Tension
    Though staged with technical skill and unflinching brutality, it's an awfully familiar-looking slaughter filled with moments on loan from other movies.
  2. The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3-D
    Sadly, the film's creaky, sometimes painful dialogue makes it all too easy to believe that it was genuinely co-written by a small child.
  3. Howl's Moving Castle
    Miyazaki's animated adaptation of Jones' book is a charming and thoroughly absorbing treat.
  4. Wild Side
    A sustained mood piece of disquieting intensity, but its almost unbearable air of morose ennui becomes hard to take even in small doses, let alone in a highly concentrated torrent of misery like this.
  5. 5x2
    Unlike "Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind," which holds the memories of a doomed affair as precious, there's nothing bittersweet about Ozon's failed romance, but its problems are equally true.
  6. Café Lumière
    Concerns feelings that can't be expressed, relationships that can't flower, and connections that are impossible to bridge.
  7. Chrystal
    If the people in Chrystal are intended to be authentic, why do none of them look like they've ever seen the inside of a Wal-Mart?
  8. Hellraiser: Deader
    Hellraiser: Deader starts off okay—But that’s just Stockholm syndrome.
  9. Cinderella Man
    Lacking a more specific sense of time and place, Cinderella Man leans heavily on the technically proficient Crowe to slip into Braddock's skin, but he can only do so much with a character who's ready to be mounted in bronze over Central Park.
  10. Lords of Dogtown
    It's no surprise that when it ultimately tries to pluck at the heartstrings, it rings hollow. The film lives and dies by speed.
  11. Rock School
    The kids are great, but when they graduate from Rock School, will the valedictorian be the next Jimmy Page, or the technically proficient lead guitarist of a Led Zeppelin cover band?
  12. Apres Vous (After You)
    It's sweet, but way too silly.
  13. Deep Blue
    Deep Blue is a thrilling film, but not a thoughtful one; it'd be right at home on an IMAX screen, or possibly as the pretty, polished, and vaguely empty Successories poster it closely resembles.
  14. Milwaukee, Minnesota
    The middling new Milwaukee, Minnesota, on the other hand, qualifies as 100 percent faux-noir. It recycles much from classic thrillers but has little to add.
  15. Caterina va in città
    Teghil is a winning lead.
  16. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
    By the film's halfway point, the subplots have all started to head in the most obvious directions imaginable, which is too bad, since they all have real potential. Ferrera's story of spending the summer as an out-of-place ethnic element in the milk-white suburbs stays interesting the longest, in large part thanks to her performance.
  17. The White Diamond
    Herzog also finds extraordinary beauty in what Dorrington is trying to accomplish: Like Jean-Jacques Rousseau in his boat, Dorrington wants to float around the natural world in a reverie, and when he finally does, he experiences a connection with Plage that's genuinely transcendent.
  18. Or
    For long stretches, Or is a dialogue-heavy kitchen-sink drama, but its naturalistic style and unselfconscious performances give it an intensity that only builds as it progresses.
  19. Invisible
    Invisible is undeniably compelling, as Bojanov visits and revisits these people over a period of years.
  20. The Longest Yard
    The 2005 version refashions the material into a dual vehicle for Chris Rock and Adam Sandler, "Saturday Night Live" alums who specialize in lazy, ramshackle comedies that are just okay enough to not completely suck.
  21. Madagascar
    The tenor can be shrill, but there's no time to get bored. And on top of that, most of the gags actually work.
  22. Bomb the System
    Has an exhilarating edge. It's only when they open their mouths that the movie gets into trouble.
  23. The Ninth Day
    It's important for the film to establish the concentration camp as a hell on earth from the start, but Schlöndorff has more in mind than creating another reminder of the inhumanity of fascism.
  24. A League of Ordinary Gentlemen
    Narrows as it goes, and Browne doesn't do enough with the idea of a corporate takeover of a grassroots recreational activity, but Weber's antics and his colleagues' reactions make for fine drama all on their own.
  25. The Fearless Freaks
    In the wonderful new rockumentary The Fearless Freaks, Flaming Lips fans describe the band's live performances in almost spiritual terms, and for once, their fervor seems wholly justified.
  26. Saving Face
    The umpteenth variation on second-generation American immigrants bucking the traditions of their first-generation elders.
  27. A Common Thread
    Ultimately heads into a standard mismatched-buddy drama that would nestle nicely into a Hallmark movie of the week.
  28. Genesis
    Genesis offers a feast for the senses, but before long, sensory overload sets in and the film becomes something of a chore. Who knew the universe could be this dull?
  29. Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist
    It may not have been what the producers had in mind, but they asked for a Paul Schrader movie, and that's exactly what he delivered.
  30. Stolen Childhoods
    Documentaries like Stolen Childhoods present an uncomfortable dilemma for anyone who cares how movies are made: They have virtually no aesthetic value, but compensate with unimpeachable social worth.
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