The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 10,409 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: 5,568 out of 10409
  2. Mixed: 3,735 out of 10409
  3. Negative: 1,106 out of 10409
10409 movie reviews
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  1. Play Dirty
    A potentially interesting-if-imperfect mash-up of contrasting sensibilities (Stark vs. Black) turns out to be just another one of the curiously fake-looking blockbusters that emerge every now and then from streaming’s abyssal money pit and immediately disappear from the public consciousness.
  2. If I Had Legs I'd Kick You
    Byrne excels at evoking pain and exhaustion, but also selfish ambivalence, and the kind of frazzled mother character she played in the Insidious franchise is put to far better use by Bronstein.
  3. Dead of Winter
    Much like its locale, Dead Of Winter is a sparse but engrossing thriller, one that excels because of the nuanced work of its cast and Kirk’s focus on Barb’s grief amid the chaos.
  4. Steve
    Though Steve is a capable conduit for the myriad familiar dramas of juvenile delinquent storytelling, there’s just not enough time in the day (or the film’s wishy-washy 24-hours-in-hell structure) to give anything the attention it deserves.
  5. After the Hunt
    After The Hunt does eventually add up to something greater than its flood of but-what-about details.
  6. V/H/S/Halloween
    It’s the playful entries in V/H/S/Halloween that hit like a sugar rush. This edition is hardly nightmare-inducing, but it’s still as broadly enjoyable as a crisp October night.
  7. A House of Dynamite
    Despite some white-knuckle moments, Dynamite slackens with each runthrough of its perma-climactic 15 minutes. In the world of global catastrophes, Bigelow increasingly resembles an unwitting tourist, just like the rest of us.
  8. Eleanor the Great
    This tonally tricky comedy-drama tackles aging, loss, the Holocaust, Jewishness, and the difficulty of determining the truth in a fake-news world. But Johansson’s well-meaning film couldn’t be more aggravating, and its biggest problem is its insistence that we find Eleanor so damn endearing, no matter what.
  9. Deathstalker
    With Deathstalker, Kostanski attempts to bring his loose, gleeful style to the sword and sorcery genre, and mostly succeeds, giving us another midnight movie essential.
  10. All of You
    As with so many great onscreen romances, it’s not that All Of You is doing something that’s never been done before, just that it’s doing it really well, with a great pair of actors at its center.
  11. Predators
    In forcing a viewer’s roiling, complex feelings inward, Predators is also asking audiences to sit with cruelty, and ponder how contributive, even in a small way, they might have been—as well as just how deep their own personal reservoir of compassion might be.
  12. Swiped
    James is a compelling leading presence for the saga, capturing both Whitney’s youthful effervescence and the gripping fear that begins to take over her life. That the film can depict the emotional abuse Whitney experiences while still keeping an eye on the misogyny she herself perpetuates is an impressive tightrope. And James’ charisma helps carry the story through its occasional script stumble or on-the-nose moment.
  13. Him
    As the final moments of Him unfold, there’s an attempt to drastically course-correct. . . But it’s a desperate Hail Mary after a poorly played game, without a hope of bailing out the team behind it.
  14. The Lost Bus
    Without that grandeur—that Hollywood-sheen take on storybook resilience—the film’s uneven application of sad-sack strife might extinguish McConaughey’s guiding performance. But Greengrass’ throwback disaster-movie efforts, plus a healthy fury induced by our harmful ecological footprint, keeps feeding this fire.
  15. One Battle After Another
    DiCaprio is so terrific, and Infiniti such a charismatic find, that viewers may find themselves wishing the cast, both principal and supporting (which also includes Regina Hall and Alana Haim), had room in this 162-minute movie to bounce off of each other with a little more frequency.
  16. A Big Bold Beautiful Journey
    Is A Big Bold Beautiful Journey a piece of wannabe creativity with a yawning hollowness at its center, or an A-list romance with some welcome aesthetic sensitivity? Like the outcome of a first date, it will ultimately be determined by chemistry.
  17. The Secret Agent
    By delicately weaving the veracity of archive, the reverie induced by celluloid, and the inevitability of corruption into its narrative, The Secret Agent becomes a career-spanning treatise that cozily situates itself amid the staggering cinematic epics that Mendonça pays respect to.
  18. Sacrifice
    Void of righteousness, indignation, or even straight-up nihilism, Sacrifice won’t cause even the most malleable of worldviews to waver.
  19. The Long Walk
    Despite the stamping of hundreds of feet, The Long Walk smolders with the blunt power of a burned flag.
  20. It Was Just an Accident
    By narrativizing the collective mistreatment of political dissidents—both those he personally forged bonds with and the countless others persecuted by the Iranian state—the fearless filmmaker crafts his most radical condemnation of the forces that have long attempted to silence him.
  21. Frankenstein
    Del Toro’s love for the grotesque and the abject is sincere and passionate, and there are scenes in Frankenstein that play like thesis statements for the director’s entire career.
  22. Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie
    Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie is so affable, so good-natured, so modest—just so gosh-darned charming—that it’s difficult not to crack at least a little bit of a smile while watching it.
  23. Our Land (Nuestra Tierra)
    Part procedural, part granular portrait of an increasingly silenced demographic, Nuestra Tierra asserts the global scale of Indigenous persecution from its opening shot.
  24. No Other Choice
    No Other Choice ends up a laudable mixed bag, a lot of morbid fun with committed performances and beautiful composition that meanders long enough that its rage peters out.
  25. Erupcja
    Pete Ohs’ best film yet.
  26. Twinless
    As its characters make bad choices, some foolish, some perverse, and some truly Machiavellian, Twinless sticks with the absurd emotional catastrophe that follows. That dedication to the mess it’s made is often captivating, even when the film’s intentional line-blurring between comedy, romance, and gaslighting thriller never reaches the heights of its twin-centric sources of inspiration, like Brian De Palma.
  27. The Conjuring: Last Rites
    The Conjuring: Last Rites solidifies The Conjuring franchise as the Fast & Furious of horror movies: A conservative, Christian, family-oriented, spin-off and sequel-laden series of adventures that lose the plot and reinvest in the audience’s affection for its familiar beats and cornball leads.
  28. The Baltimorons
    The greatest success of The Baltimorons, aside from how effortlessly funny it is, lies in its focused thematic weight, wrapped up in its setting.
  29. The Roses
    The leads are magnets, whether they’re surgically picking each other apart with the cruelty of Caligula or steaming up a seductive romance. Their remarkable rapport makes The Roses essential viewing, a must-watch rom-com.
  30. The Toxic Avenger
    The Toxic Avenger is an imperfect but no less vital lifeblood transfusion for the cheapo horror-comedy: a cartoon-carnage splash-a-thon, and an eco-conscious call to clean out the profiteers poisoning us and our planet.
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