The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 10,411 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 2.6 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 10411
  2. Mixed: 3,735 out of 10411
  3. Negative: 1,106 out of 10411
10411 movie reviews
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  1. Circuit
    As slick and attractive as its cast. But the movie gets away from Shafer.
  2. Sade
    In keeping with his concept that the mind and the body are inseparable, Sade builds to an extraordinarily powerful centerpiece when the two come together, fusing fear and desire, pleasure and pain, innocence and enlightenment.
  3. Sex with Strangers
    The film is ostensibly about sex and swinging, but in depicting the complex boundaries of the sexual fringe, it ends up saying a lot about the joys and frustrations of maintaining any relationship.
  4. Dogtown and Z-Boys
    So much fun that its considerable worth as history and sociology seems almost incidental.
  5. Life or Something Like It
    A banal message movie.
  6. Jason X
    Feels like it was written as a fairly straight horror/sci-fi movie, then script-doctored by a comedy writer intent on satirizing the original script. As a result, the film's intentional and unintentional laughs mingle so freely that it becomes difficult to differentiate between the two.
  7. Rain
    Rain lays so much portent on every scene that it becomes ungenerous and morally forbidding, as if each bummed cigarette or leisurely cocktail will lead the family that much closer to oblivion. In this case, the punishment is far greater than the crime.
  8. The Salton Sea
    A grimy mess set among L.A.'s speed-abusing "tweakers," Salton has neither the substance to justify first-time feature director D.J. Caruso's pretentious flourishes, nor the skill to make those flourishes work on their own terms.
  9. Some Body
    At times approaches the flavor and shapelessness of real life.
  10. Facing the Music
    Uncompromising in her art, her teaching, and her professional relations, Boyd makes for a classic tough old bird of a character.
  11. My Big Fat Greek Wedding
    Stays unrelentingly pleasant, but affability is a poor substitute for laughs or chemistry.
  12. Murderous Maids
    Doesn't shy away from the social or psychological explanations of the Le Mans murders, but never comes down on one side or another.
  13. Murder by Numbers
    A moralizing thriller so listless that it plays out like a game of mouse and mouse.
  14. Girls Can't Swim
    "Adolesence can kill you," Birot has said in an interview. In a film that leaves the "you" intentionally vague, moment after moment she shows how.
  15. Enigma
    Achieves a dullness that defies its pedigree and its story's potential.
  16. The Scorpion King
    Prototypical summer-movie fare, designed to be consumed, enjoyed, and forgotten all at once.
  17. World Traveler
    A hopelessly stolid and distant evocation of Bob Rafelson's "Five Easy Pieces."
  18. Nine Queens
    Bielinsky's debut is a fine con picture, but at its best, it achieves even more, presenting the profession as a lifestyle with almost existential ramifications.
  19. Chelsea Walls
    Works equally poorly as a tourist brochure and as a drama.
  20. The Triumph of Love
    Shaw and Kingsley both create crisp, comic performances, but Sorvino remains a problem throughout. Her physical transformation falls short of the "Boys Don't Cry" standard, to put it mildly.
  21. Mule Skinner Blues
    Comes uncomfortably close to mocking these unlikely filmmakers, raising questions about its director's intentions and his respect for the subjects' humanity.
  22. The Cat's Meow
    Faithfully recreates a bygone era of larger-than-life filmmakers and stars.
  23. Human Nature
    Nature lacks a little of Malkovich's freshness, but that's just about all it lacks.
  24. Frailty
    When the twists arrive, they feel like much of the film: creepy and cliché-free, but still terribly wrong.
  25. The Other Side of Heaven
    Movies don't get much more wholesome and earnest than The Other Side Of Heaven, a handsomely mounted but empty-headed drama that attempts to do for fresh-faced Mormon missionaries what Top Gun did for cocky fighter pilots.
  26. Changing Lanes
    Out of that clever setup, Changing Lanes pulls both the promised taut suspense and a much deeper film: an ethics thriller.
  27. New Best Friend
    A lurid, unsavory mix of Reefer Madness hysteria, drive-in sleaze, and the queasy morality of '80s slasher film.
  28. The Sweetest Thing
    Diaz does what she can under adverse circumstances, but she doesn't come close to salvaging this ramshackle vehicle.
  29. Run Ronnie Run
    With its obligatory plot points, character arcs, and forced resolution, the narrative's demands tax Cross and Odenkirk's sensibility by limiting their freedom of movement. Yet even in its current bastardized form, the film still flickers with moments of great inspiration and vitality, providing isolated hints at the groundbreaking comedy that might have been.
  30. Karmen Gei
    The film offers plenty of powerful impressionism to make up for its lack of a coherent statement.
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