The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 10,435 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: 5,578 out of 10435
  2. Mixed: 3,745 out of 10435
  3. Negative: 1,112 out of 10435
10435 movie reviews
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  1. 2 or 3 Things I Know About Him
    Even though 2 Or 3 Things' central irony is blunt, Ludin's tone remains measured throughout, and never self-serving.
  2. The Hitcher
    Somehow, music-video veteran David Meyers fails to hurtle this project into the pantheon of great horror movies.
  3. The Italian
    Before reaching a bittersweet finale that doesn't ring as loudly as it should, The Italian starts to look too much like a neo-realist "Home Alone" sequel, as Spiridonov outwits his pursuers in one scene after another.
  4. Regular Lovers
    Regular Lovers isn't a folly-of-youth story that aches with emotion, like "Au Revoir," "Les Enfants" or "The Squid And The Whale." It's drier, and simpler.
  5. Alpha Dog
    All the bright colors Cassavetes splashes on the canvas don't make Alpha Dog art.
  6. Primeval
    If there were a shred of sincerity to its straight-faced exposé of African strife, the film would be easier to forgive, but since it's really just a cheap horror-thriller about an ancient predator, the austere tone does it no favors.
  7. Stomp the Yard
    Unfortunately, it misses the one cliché that might have been welcome: the predictably plotted flashy dance movie where the actual dance makes it all worthwhile.
  8. God Grew Tired of Us
    It's convincing as everything but a piece of good filmmaking.
  9. Tears of the Black Tiger
    The movie is never going to have broad appeal. Though Sasanatieng makes a few swings at real poignancy--which don't really connect--mostly this is the kind of relentlessly postmodern "fun" best served in small portions, and preferably on dessert plates.
  10. Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story
    This is a fascinating, underreported piece of recent world history, but Patty Kim and Chris Sheridan's documentary Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story doesn't do it full justice.
  11. Happily N'Ever After
    Even Eddie Murphy's endless hyper "Shrek" vamping is more entertaining.
  12. Freedom Writers
    Though the film seldom strays from formula, there's something strangely moving about Swank's conviction that, in spite of everything, people are really good at heart.
  13. Pan's Labyrinth
    After two hours of dazzlingly fantastical images and stomach-turning gore, del Toro winds around, and finds his story's center.
  14. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
    Perfume is ultimately an unmistakable failure, but there's a strange majesty to its epic overreaching. It can be faulted for many things, but not for lacking the courage of its convictions.
  15. Miss Potter
    "Potter" periodically brings Zellweger's charming drawings to life in elegantly animated sequences that are as delightful and lyrical as the rest of the film is stilted and clumsy.
  16. The Dead Girl
    As with her debut feature, "Blue Car," Moncrieff treats sensational material with a disarming matter-of-factness that ultimately makes a deeper impression.
  17. Factory Girl
    The film strays so far from verisimilitude that it feels more like a big celebrity dress-up party than history brought to life. The profoundly silly Internet favorite series "Yacht Rock" offered a more convincing take on pop-culture history and that was at least going for laughs.
  18. The Flying Scotsman
    There's real triumph to Obree's story, and real adversity, too, but the film contents itself with the pretend versions of both.
  19. Unconscious
    While the content is colorful and the actors seem up for the task, a flawed script and Oristrell's unemphatic direction let all the impact dribble away.
  20. Arthur and the Invisibles
    It's a film for kids who want to know what headaches feel like.
  21. Children of Men
    It's a heartbreaking, bullet-strewn valentine to what keeps us human.
  22. Black Christmas
    Seems to go out of its way to obliterate all the elements that made the original so special.
  23. The Good Shepherd
    De Niro made the right choice in making this a film of cold, gray Leiters rather than dynamic Bonds. But he never makes us feel the chill.
  24. Night at the Museum
    Stiller's continued efforts to court the broadest possible audience has taken the edge off his comedy. Whenever he shares screen time with Williams, it looks like the grim future he's mapping out for himself.
  25. We Are Marshall
    It's uplifting, but shallow.
  26. Venus
    O'Toole is frail and probably won't make many more movies. So Venus is pitched partly as a fond farewell to a beloved artist, and his whole beautiful generation.
  27. Curse of the Golden Flower
    Few filmmakers could produce so grand a spectacle, but Zhang used to be good for more than just eye candy.
  28. Letters from Iwo Jima
    It's hard to explain exactly why Clint Eastwood's Letters From Iwo Jima is so much better than its companion World War II film "Flags Of Our Fathers," except to say that Flags tries too hard to emphasize the ironies of selling a war, while Letters deals with the ins and outs of the war itself.
  29. The Painted Veil
    While the film remains intelligent and transporting, a gorgeous travelogue into another time and place, it nonetheless feels like it's going through the motions, applying period gloss to a story that needs to be more tactile.
  30. Rocky Balboa
    Watching Rocky Balboa go through the usual paces does trigger a few helpless waves of nostalgia, especially once Bill Conti's famed score kicks in and Stallone sticks it to a few sides of beef. But audiences needn't be responsible for helping an over-the-hill actor through his midlife crisis.
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