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. Off the Map
    Off The Map feels peculiar and remote, strangled by an air of arty disengagement. The most vivid characters are the earth and the sky, and they both give stellar performances.
  2. Sheriff
    But without taking anything away from Frederick Wiseman, who remains a master, Sheriff is almost as good any documentary he's made.
  3. Be Cool
    Be Cool more often evokes the image of a screenwriter furiously trying draft after draft to accommodate all the stars. Accommodating the audience becomes a distant priority.
  4. The Jacket
    Still, the central mystery remains effective and compelling for most of the film, until it becomes clear that it's all image and no intent.
  5. The Pacifier
    Revealing hitherto unseen depths of stiffness, Diesel stumbles badly in the role.
  6. Dear Frankie
    On its own terms, Dear Frankie works much better than it really has any right to. Auerbach tells a small, contrived story, but gives it the weight of life.
  7. Face
    Well-intentioned but muddled, Face groans under the weight of its earnest ambition.
  8. Gunner Palace
    For the soldiers, it's about living to see the next day and living with the things they see, and Gunner Palace honors their perspective like no other Iraq documentary has to date.
  9. Intimate Stories
    Intimate Stories stays doggedly, purposefully minor, in part because director Carlos Sorin and screenwriter Pablo Solarz want to explore the casual interactions of people doing nothing.
  10. Walk on Water
    When it unexpectedly shifts back into its initial thriller mode, Walk On Water loses in human drama what it gains in tidiness, revealing itself as a film that carries more weight in its light scenes than its heavy moments can sustain.
  11. Whisky
    Mordantly funny deadpan comedy.
  12. The Best of Youth
    A big, family-style Italian dinner, catered to the broadest tastes, yet satisfying all the same.
  13. Crazy Legs Conti: Zen and the Art of Competitive Eating
    Within its limited scope, the film celebrates Conti's peculiar dreams and earnest intensity without dipping into condescension.
  14. Cursed
    Though Craven shows flashes of the old magic, Cursed eventually settles into rote, uninspired horror fare, hog-tied to the Williamson formula all the way to arbitrary finish. The film may be one of the best ever not screened in advance for critics, but that still doesn't put it in the finest company.
  15. Diary of a Mad Black Woman
    The whole three-ring circus winds up in a church for a redemptive finale, but by then, Diary has committed too many sins for even the most generous soul to offer salvation.
  16. Man of the House
    Jones' role, on the other hand, only requires him to look embarrassed at all times, which shouldn't have been too hard to pull off, considering the circumstances. Is that what they call "method" acting?
  17. Up and Down
    Sags into a dreary, humorless family melodrama.
  18. The Other Side of the Street
    Montenegro's performance is typically multifaceted, displaying keen wit and a thick streak of self-doubt.
  19. Turtles Can Fly
    Turtles Can Fly creates a haunting reminder that collateral damage can't always be measured in casualty rates, and that it goes on long after the news cameras have left the scene.
  20. Because of Winn-Dixie
    Some might even find the leisurely pace a nice break from the rapid-fire approach favored by most kids' entertainment.
  21. Constantine
    Reeves rigid delivery makes Constantine's occult backstory sound pretentious and silly, and converts Constantine himself into a repressed cipher. The film's biggest revision isn't in not making him blonde, or not making him British. It's in not making him human.
  22. Son of the Mask
    No doubt extensive market research shows that there's an audience out there for movies like Son Of The Mask, but it's too depressing to speculate who that might be.
  23. Alexandra's Project
    But de Heer's high-concept feminist tract loses some of its integrity over time, as it slowly devolves into a seedy, voyeuristic thriller that takes all too much pleasure in turning the screws.
  24. Nabbeun namja
    The film works best as a passionate tale of obsessive love, with two people brought together under harrowing circumstances.
  25. Downfall
    Downfall's overstuffed melodrama juggles countless subplots and a small army of characters who manage to make an impression in spite of limited screen time.
  26. Schultze Gets the Blues
    With dialogue as spare as its harsh landscapes, the film is so tonally dry that it makes Aki Kaurismäki look like the Farrelly brothers--it begins at a snail's pace before speeding up to a turtle's drowsy crawl.
  27. Her Majesty
    It's as if Gordon feared his film's none-too-subtle suggestion that kids should ask questions and decided to provide answers instead, tying up his story with a phony happy ending.
  28. Cinévardaphoto
    Someone as attuned as Varda to the quality of an image should know that a flat, disposable medium like video makes images harder to internalize.
  29. Ong Bak
    Makes up in action what it lacks in storytelling finesse.
  30. Bride & Prejudice
    Chadha doesn't seem at home with either Austen or Bollywood, and her ambitions far exceed her competence in the song-and-dance numbers, which are a clutter of stiff choreography and silly original lyrics.
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