The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 10,456 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: 5,593 out of 10456
  2. Mixed: 3,748 out of 10456
  3. Negative: 1,115 out of 10456
10456 movie reviews
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  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  4. Shuffle
    It’s 81 damning minutes of tight filmmaking, great storytelling, and riveting investigation.
  5. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
    It’s a neat surprise that DaCosta extracts more dark humor from the series than Boyle himself.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. 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.
  9. 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.
  10. Primate
    Primate makes a characteristically concise case for Roberts as a genre stylist to keep watching.
  11. 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.
  12. 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.
  13. We Bury the Dead
    For those looking to delve into more philosophical horror, We Bury The Dead is a thoughtful trek into the unknown.
  14. 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.
  15. Anaconda
    Anaconda may be getting the benefit of the doubt here because of how few studio comedies make it to theaters. In another era, it might easily have gotten lost in a wave of post-modern updates that included The Brady Bunch and Starsky & Hutch. Its plot offers few surprises, but its simple foundations and character motivations give Rudd and Black so much room to play that it’s an amiable time.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Cover-Up
    At a time like this, Cover-Up is a vital reminder that demanding a better world is possible, straight from the people who have done the critical work required to confront America’s darkest forces.
  17. The SpongeBob Movie: Search for Squarepants
    The fourth theatrical feature film in the SpongeBob SquarePants oeuvre—The SpongeBob Movie: Search For SquarePants—doesn’t give audiences a memorable outing, much less a best day ever. It’s a big downgrade, and a huge disappointment for long-time fans of the subversive and unapologetically silly character.
  18. The Housemaid
    Paul Feig has always seemed a little uncomfortable with exploitation, but he makes some progress with this thriller.
  19. Avatar: Fire and Ash
    Fire And Ash is terrific entertainment that occasionally gives the impression of well-appointed vamping; it’s almost enough to wonder if all the meticulous writer’s-room blueprinting of two-to-four Avatar sequels might have done as much harm as good. Viewers who just long for more time in Pandora are in luck: Cameron may not see a way out himself.
  20. Resurrection
    Divided yet compounding as the totality of Resurrection unfolds, our sharpened senses catch onto the details of Bi’s work, our awareness heightened around how many ways we can engage with the film in front of us, and movies in general.
  21. Atropia
    Without a tangible connection to the material—most notably to Iraq and its people—Gates’ viewpoint feels unguided, doomed to be influenced by the same pervasive prejudices that Atropia ostensibly attempts to combat.
  22. Ella McCay
    It all adds up to a movie that isn’t screwy enough to be a screwball comedy nor deep enough to be a dramedy.
  23. Dust Bunny
    Toning down the blood-drenched viscera of Hannibal while channeling the morbid yet whimsical stylings of Pushing Daisies, Fuller’s inaugural film effort is completely in tune with his previous narrative interests, though this time filtered through the gaze of a precocious child.
  24. Silent Night, Deadly Night
    The film is even less than the sum of its genre trappings.
  25. 100 Nights of Hero
    If 100 Nights Of Hero is a critique of the misogynistic societies that cultivated these fairy tales, it is also an intentional embrace of the mythologies—however misguided they may seem—that have prompted women of all walks of life to test the limits of what they can get away with.
  26. The Chronology of Water
    Stewart applies an admirably experimental vision to her adaptation, but she can’t translate whatever power she may have found in Yuknavitch’s text to the screen.
  27. Five Nights at Freddy's 2
    Its entire third act is just expectation for a third movie that hopefully never comes. It is a bare minimum branding experiment, a dumb thing designed to be recognized with the hope that enjoyment will simply follow.
  28. La Grazia
    La Grazia salutes simple, humble decency, and writer-director Paolo Sorrentino follows the example of his protagonist, largely avoiding the usual array of visual flourishes that have marked his previous collaborations with Servillo. The result is a decidedly reflective film that’s among the director’s most affecting.
  29. Oh. What. Fun.
    Beyond its desperate gestures towards better movies and its countless regifted plot points, Oh. What. Fun. does end up looking a lot like a familiar Christmas fixture: a garbage bag full of torn wrapping paper.
  30. Marty Supreme
    The miracle of Chalamet’s performance is that as brazen, indecent, and dishonest as Marty is, he makes a temporarily convincing case for himself as a thwarted athlete, rather than a crook with an athletic fixation.
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