The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 10,410 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 2.7 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: 5,569 out of 10410
  2. Mixed: 3,735 out of 10410
  3. Negative: 1,106 out of 10410
10410 movie reviews
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  1. The Estate
    The execution is where it’s lacking: the wit, the timing, the headlong comic drive, and the ability to make us laugh at actions and dialogue that, in any other context, would be rude or distasteful.
  2. Next Exit
    In the end, one’s assessment and enjoyment of Next Exit rests less in its treatment of the more conjectural elements of its story, and more in its sensitive and sympathetic rendering of decidedly Earthbound, day-to-day messiness. Maybe the exit isn’t what we should be looking for, in other words.
  3. Weird: The Al Yankovic Story
    Boasts a high enough hit-to-miss ratio in its gags to succeed as a comic biopic but can’t help milking the gags that hit until their freshness evaporates.
  4. Salvatore: Shoemaker of Dreams
    Guadagnino’s documentary is very much like walking through an immersive and interactive museum designed to make one feel nostalgic for a bygone era of art and craft. It’s magical stuff.
  5. The Wonder
    Thanks to a typically mesmerizing leading turn from Florence Pugh, it’s a film that can hold up a mirror to believers and nonbelievers alike as the best stories of faith do.
  6. I'm Totally Fine
    It’s a movie that purports to root itself in grief, but instead wraps itself in such a cloak of wispy, noncommittal vagueness that virtually everything about it dissipates on contact.
  7. Causeway
    Other than the pair of outstanding lead performances, there really isn’t much cause to watch it.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Enola Holmes 2
    The true joy of both Enola Holmes films is in the actors’ performances and the humanity they bring to the characters.
  9. Nocebo
    The “mystery” elements simply aren’t mysterious. Yet without them, the sparse moments of gore and icky bugs aren’t quite enough to pad things out.
  10. Prey for the Devil
    The most frustrating thing about Prey For The Devil is that there seems to be a good movie somewhere in this patchwork of themes and pastiches.
  11. Run Sweetheart Run
    Keeping audiences at a distance—watching and empathizing with Cherie, but never building suspense regarding her survival—Run Sweetheart Run loses its breath long before Cherie’s story arrives at its ludicrous conclusion.
  12. Armageddon Time
    It asks more questions than it answers, and doesn’t let anybody off the hook. It’s also a great movie for anyone who grew up in New York City area in 1980, with the right needle drops and art direction. This is James Gray’s eighth feature and, in the end, his simplest. It may also be his best.
  13. Call Jane
    Call Jane is a feminist work told with straight-arrow purpose. It assumes that the slightest melodrama would devalue the sacrifices these women made and the community they created. If that’s a miscalculation, the movie is still effective and enlightening—and a worthy companion to 2022’s The Janes, an excellent nonfiction documentary on this remarkable cooperative.
  14. All Quiet on the Western Front
    This is a film about the boys who don’t come home, and its story proves both deeply affecting—and surprisingly timeless.
  15. Wendell & Wild
    Selick and Peele operate a bit at cross purposes in Wendell & Wild. The genius visualist wants to haunt our dreams. The socially engaged provocateur wants to haunt our troubled collective realities. Whatever doesn’t quite mesh in their collaboration is easier to forgive when feasting upon such extraordinary sights.
  16. The Banshees of Inisherin
    Writer-director Martin McDonagh’s soulful masterpiece offers a a windswept elegy on a camaraderie that has reached its inexplicable expiration, as well as melancholic rumination on mortality.
  17. Ticket to Paradise
    It’s as if everyone made this movie about the joy of being on vacation—while also taking one.
  18. My Policeman
    Instead of a classic tragic romance, it ends up being a turgid, airless concoction. Styles’ fans might find something to admire since they’ll get to gaze at their idol. But the rest of us should avoid looking.
  19. Raymond & Ray
    While Raymond And Ray registers nicely as a relaxed, compassionate character study, there’s no denying that one of the two central characters being studied hugely outshines the other.
  20. The School for Good and Evil
    Fans of Chainani’s books may relish seeing his inventiveness and heartfelt storytelling on a (green) screen. If only Feig had the latitude to prioritize his actors, rather than his VFX team, as those storytellers.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Black Adam
    There’s a good movie, at times, a really good movie, hiding out in all the soulless clutter of Black Adam’s plot. Unfortunately, all the considerable talents here struggle to deliver it.
  22. The Good Nurse
    Feeling like a well-balanced cross between an investigative procedural like Spotlight and ’90s-era chillers like The Hand That Rocks The Cradle where a seemingly harmless helper disguises their sinister self, the filmmakers have created a strong throwback thriller.
  23. Aftersun
    Despite Wells’ confidence as a filmmaker, Aftersun still succumbs to the predictable traps of films about childhood memories. Every small incident is presented as a big momentous event. That may be true from a child’s perspective, yet it still makes this narrative feel more formulaic than organic. Consequently, few of these beats feel revelatory to the audience, even when they are affecting.
  24. Stars at Noon
    An occasionally seductive but muddled examination of a complex physical and emotional relationship.
  25. The Curse of Bridge Hollow
    Watching it feels like attending a Halloween party and never striking up a conversation with anyone; you can only look at the decorations for so long before getting bored.
  26. Halloween Ends
    Halloween Ends is almost passable as a nondescript sequel—a little blood pumped into the carcass of an indefatigable slab of intellectual property. But for somebody who has fought and lost and survived for so many years, it’s less vital a finale than Laurie Strode deserves.
  27. Rosaline
    Dever is as excellent as ever as the acerbic, quick-witted, jilted ex. She coaxes the hilariousness and heartbreak out of each scene with ease and authenticity.
  28. Till
    Wherever Chukwu places her camera, Deadwyler’s face makes us understand not just what Mamie is going through but rather the reality of what this country does to its Black citizens. It’s a performance of quiet strength and loud emotion, though Deadwyler is never loud or histrionic. She just simmers with profound pain.
  29. Decision to Leave
    The South Korean director, working at the top of his game, drops tantalizing clues that are best analyzed in multiple viewings which, it can be reported from first-hand experience, will be very helpful.
  30. Spirit Halloween: The Movie
    It’s just so embarrassingly thin. The few chuckles are all the more depressing when you realize that this could have been a winner with a clever screenwriter and a competent director.
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