The A.V. Club's Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
  1. Candyman
    The Candyman of 2021 represents more than he did three decades ago—indeed, more than a 91-minute movie can adequately explore. But there are worse crimes for a movie to commit than having too many ideas.
  2. No Man of God
    Sealey, whose formal touch often flirts with cliché (lots of circling around Hagmaier and Bundy, with one man’s face temporarily obscured by the back of the other’s head), pointedly reminds us of Bundy’s many victims, even though none of them are shown.
  3. Together
    Only in fits and starts does Together capture the electricity of live performance.
  4. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
    Shang-Chi’s hero is on a journey to become himself, but the movie is lost inside of the machine.
  5. Sweet Girl
    As hellaciously predictable and preposterous as Sweet Girl is, it could win over viewers nursing their own grudge against Big Pharma. Mainly, though, this is a vehicle for its star, that brawny softie Momoa.
  6. The Protégé
    Beyond considerable physical presence, Q brings touches of subtlety to a stock character; by the time she makes her eventual, inevitable reference to wanting to get out of the game, there’s a genuine weariness that feels earned enough to bypass the cliché.
  7. Cryptozoo
    Cryptozoo isn’t a total whiff. It’s a thoughtful and well-intended project, made by some talented people. And just for its visual splendor alone, it’s bound to find some devoted fans.
  8. The Night House
    The latest film from The Ritual’s David Bruckner seems to have forgotten that it’s supposed to be a horror movie first and a metaphor second.
  9. Reminiscence
    The pleasures are of a borrowed nature, the stuff of third-, fourth-, maybe fifth-generation noir homage, just gussied up in sci-fi formal wear: all archetypes spouting purple verbiage while navigating a twisty missing-person mystery that pulls together, in the classic private-dick tradition, seemingly unrelated cases.
  10. Flag Day
    Thankfully, Flag Day isn’t another disaster, though neither is it anywhere near the vicinity of Penn’s best work.
  11. The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf
    It’s fun to see this world, with all of its inhuman monsters and monstrous humans, from a different point of view, even if it isn’t quite as refreshing or engaging as Geralt’s.
  12. Demonic
    While Blomkamp does have one impressive CGI trick up his sleeve, he totally drops the ball on the narrative end of things.
  13. Don't Breathe 2
    The increasingly ornate violence (much of it taking place in a newer if no less creaky location) fuels an effective thrill machine, and if that machine can’t match the unexpected sweetness of the T-800’s relationship with John Connor, well, maybe that’s for the best.
  14. Ema
    Under the weight of Larraín’s visual style, the emptiness at the center of Ema’s character nearly collapses the film, before a gobsmacking ending reveals her true motivations.
  15. Respect
    Franklin’s real life was obviously rife with drama worthy of the big screen, but Wilson and TV-trained director Liesl Tommy take a comprehensive, arrhythmic approach that treats major life events like soapy episodes or grist for the pop-psych mill.
  16. CODA
    The climactic emotional beats are telegraphed almost from the beginning, but they still hit hard, effectively leaving viewers who can suspend their disbelief feeling uplifted and dewy-eyed.
  17. The Kissing Booth 3
    With its extended montages of road trips, summer bucket lists, flash mobs, water park shenanigans, and elaborate go-kart races, The Kissing Booth 3 doesn’t so much resemble a narrative film as an extended wrap party for the cast. The whole thing has the vibe of an Adam Sandler paid vacation flick, only with barely even the attempt at comedy.
  18. Homeroom
    While Homeroom is far more contained in length and scope than a Frederick Wiseman opus, the way editors Rebecca Adorno and Kristina Motwani construct a narrative from a seemingly free-flowing assembly produces a similarly immersive viewing experience, as if one was wandering the school shrouded in an invisibility cloak.
  19. PAW Patrol: The Movie
    As a babysitter, the movie’s not much different than a brief marathon of episodes. As a family bonding experience, it may qualify for adults as a mild form of psychological torture, presenting storylines that feel ready to wrap up at the 15-minute mark and then must continue on for another hour.
  20. Swan Song
    Swan Song can be clumsy and sentimental at times, but that’s sometimes the cost of earnestness.
  21. John and the Hole
    John And The Hole comes on like a spooky portrait of budding teenage sociopathy, but it resists diagnostic shortcuts.
  22. Free Guy
    For all its casual mayhem, Free Guy turns out to be a rather cuddly crowdpleaser, a high-concept blockbuster trifle with bubblegum ice cream clogging its circuits.
  23. Beckett
    The Beckett character is sparsely written, and the sometimes bland performance Washington delivers doesn’t fill in many characterization gaps; it’s a problem that affects the pacing, too.
  24. Annette
    The film’s tension between sincerity and falsity is nonstop palpable; virtually every scene threatens to collapse and implode due to the gravitational weight of its heightened reality. The correct answer to any such mighty swing for the fences is: Yes, you may start.
  25. Enemies of the State
    Over time, its perspective subtly mutates, even as its methodology remains exactly the same.
  26. The Last Mercenary
    The quality of the fight sequences, the main criterion by which we judge a Van Damme picture, tops out at competency; only a showdown incorporating a whipped wet towel recalls the inventive creativity of his strongest work.
  27. Fauna
    Fauna has some smart things to say about how the drug trade and its attendant stereotypes have changed the Mexican popular imagination. You just have to pay attention to follow the film’s many idiosyncratic twists and turns.
  28. Sabaya
    As a journalistic depiction of the rescue operations as they happen, Sabaya brims with heart-pounding tension and immediacy. But given the access obtained and Hirori’s connection to the people and the land where this grim chapter in modern history is unfolding, the superficial handling of pivotal aspects of the story is disappointing.
  29. Stillwater
    It’s the first time McCarthy has made such prickly use of his talent for summoning audience sympathy, allowing Bill’s regrets about his parental shortcomings to resonate through his every decision.
  30. The Suicide Squad
    Now that superhero movies have gone from disreputable entertainment for children to global events ushered in with awed reverence, it was time for someone to come along and pop the balloon. Pulpy and outrageous, irreverent and ultraviolent, The Suicide Squad does so with a smile.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »