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. Love Wedding Repeat
    The film’s desire to lampoon its rom-com cake and eat it too leaves it on an uncomfortable middle ground; a third act shift toward emotional earnestness doesn’t land, because the main players possess no depth.
  2. Tigertail
    Where the film stands out from other dramas of its type is in its poignant exploration of the little-discussed emotional consequences of single-mindedly pursuing the American dream.
  3. Sea Fever
    It’s well-acted and reasonably intelligent, but also derivative enough to compare unfavorably to plenty of stone-cold classics.
  4. The Other Lamb
    Set in some indeterminate time and place rarely betrayed by modern technology or dress, The Other Lamb mostly operates in the realm of allegory.
  5. Coffee & Kareem
    Bad plotting would be relegated to the realm of incidental if Coffee & Kareem were funnier—isn’t that always the way? Unfortunately, the movie spends a lot of time handing Helms underlined jokes, which he proceeds to underline again with his why-did-I-just-say-that delivery.
  6. Nona: If They Soak Me, I'll Burn Them
    Donoso does put an effort into maintaining visual interest throughout this micro-budgeted character study, alternating between professionally shot, full-frame tableaux and intimate, grainy camcorder footage, accentuated with light touches of Brakhage-style experimental montage. However, it remains an undeniable—and inconvenient—fact that the most interesting aspects of If They Soak Me are all offscreen.
  7. Slay the Dragon
    Slaying The Dragon is meant as an urgent call to action ahead of this year’s elections, and it is here that it really falters.
  8. The Wild Goose Lake
    What it all adds up to has some of the unevenness of a nightmare, the belly sweat and oscillating fans of muggy summer heat mixed up with unrealities.
  9. Bacurau
    As a statement on American entitlement and the intersection between capitalism and colonial terror, it’s a frying pan to the back of the skull: clunky but powerful.
  10. Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution
    Fitting for a film backed by the groovy sounds of the Grateful Dead and Bob Dylan, the biggest myth Crip Camp is out to bust is that disabled people aren’t sexual beings.
  11. Vivarium
    If you can look past the gallingly obvious and derivative metaphor, Vivarium has its moments of effective "Twilight Zone" creepiness.
  12. Resistance
    Resistance is like a maudlin Robin Williams vehicle inorganically fused with a by-the-numbers wartime thriller. In place of showbiz clichés, there are tacky WWII-movie tropes.
  13. Banana Split
    The problem with Banana Split isn’t the surface phoniness or lazy comedy but the fact that the movie doesn’t offer any insight into its ostensible subjects—among them break-ups, female friendship, and teenage jealousy
  14. Never Rarely Sometimes Always
    Hittman isn’t really a polemicist. She expresses her empathy and political conscience through a refined version of what’s become her signature style, zeroing in on details of place and behavior, both magnified by the reliably involving scenario of two kids from the sticks navigating the hustle, bustle, and bright lights of the city. And moments of startling, unaffected tenderness peak through the grimness of the circumstances.
  15. I Still Believe
    In attempting to tell the story of this young woman’s death — not her life, no time for that either — I Still Believe cheapens it.
  16. Bloodshot
    The real issue, though, isn’t that Bloodshot would fail an IQ test. It’s that its dumb fun isn’t executed with panache, smart or otherwise.
  17. The Hunt
    A movie that jumps on buzzwords like “canceled” like a hungry dog on a juicy steak, but never coalesces into a coherent statement about, well, anything.
  18. Lost Girls
    What’s both intriguing and frustrating about the screen version, however, is the way that it flirts with a much thornier and potentially richer possibility, only to ultimately back away from that idea in favor of a straightforward plea for justice.
  19. Big Time Adolescence
    A debauched but heartfelt coming-of-age story about impressionable teenage boys and the imperfect male role models who influence them. Davidson’s most important skill is his ability to share the spotlight and create real chemistry with his co-stars.
  20. Swallow
    Although it’s a reductive statement, calling Swallow a high-class version of "My Strange Addiction" isn’t entirely inaccurate.
  21. Spenser Confidential
    While the partnership between Wahlberg and actor-turned-director Peter Berg has produced a few duds since the success of Lone Survivor, none have been as generically mediocre. At the very least, one can appreciate it for being environmentally friendly.
  22. The Banker
    Just as it reduces Garrett’s character to a few tenacious traits, the film, in presenting his inspiring story, loses perspective on the broader picture.
  23. First Cow
    Just don’t mistake the lightness of step for a softness of philosophy. There’s a political dimension to all of Reichardt’s films, which almost invariably follow characters muscled to the margins of society.
  24. The Way Back
    Between the known metatext and Affleck’s bone-deep commitment, this moving central performance largely purges the film of its high potential for the maudlin.
  25. The Burnt Orange Heresy
    In short, this is fundamentally a movie of surface pleasures, placing gorgeous actors in an equally stunning location and letting them parry with sharp words and lithe, angular bodies.
  26. Extra Ordinary
    Some jokes may dissipate quickly, but its unusual warmth lingers in the air like a friendly ghost.
  27. Saint Frances
    Saint Frances goes down easy. It’s refreshingly small and intimate, and is specific on the lives of very particular women without overreaching to look more politically salient or strike zeitgeist concerns. Bridget’s personal growth is understated, and so, for the most part, are the pleasures of Saint Frances.
  28. Greed
    Greed fails because it’s overstuffed with subplots and organized via a maddening time-hopping structure.
  29. Burden
    Overly simplistic piece of Southern poverty porn, which asks questions it’s not really prepared to answer and proceeds from a set of dubious assumptions that undermine whatever nuance it does possess.
  30. The Whistlers
    Playing with genre cryptograms of gangster villas, opera-loving killers, and glamorously lit cigarette smoke, the film never takes itself too seriously, even if its characters never seem to smile.
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