The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 10,419 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: 5,574 out of 10419
  2. Mixed: 3,737 out of 10419
  3. Negative: 1,108 out of 10419
10419 movie reviews
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  1. The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi
    Like Ang Lee's "Hulk," it's a fusion of arthouse and multiplex instincts, and though it seems unlikely to satisfy anyone, it's just as unlikely that anyone who sees it will forget it soon.
  2. Ju-on: The Grudge
    Both too obvious and needlessly complicated, Ju-On juggles several non-chronological chapters based on different characters, ensuring that none of the corpses-to-be make much of an impression.
  3. The Bourne Supremacy
    Goes through its airport-thriller paces with dazzling kinetics and style.
  4. Zhou Yu de huo che
    An empty lake, drained of any tangible substance and refilled with wispy, pseudo-poetic metaphor.
  5. A Cinderella Story
    A Cinderella Story banks far too heavily on its audience's affection for Duff, who's dreadful in a terrible role.
  6. Maria Full of Grace
    Grim but never gratuitous.
  7. Touch of Pink
    A tepid variation on the rash of cartoonishly drawn Indian-Anglo culture-clash comedies afflicting both sides of the Atlantic.
  8. I, Robot
    A cluttered, awkward blockbuster that's just smart enough to get itself into trouble.
  9. Let's Get Frank
    Everly tries to patch together a profile out of borrowed news clips and shoddy videography. In the process, Frank's charisma and force never emerge.
  10. The Door in the Floor
    Bridges turns in another remarkable performance, and he's well-matched by Foster.
  11. Metallica: Some Kind of Monster
    It's a measure of the film's brilliance that it strips away the trappings of superstardom and allows audiences to see these men as flawed human beings first, musicians second, and rock gods a distant third.
  12. The Inheritance
    An initially engaging but ultimately wearying combination of naturalistic acting, cinéma vérité camerawork, and broadly melodramatic plotting.
  13. Sleepover
    That points to the problem at Sleepover's heart: It buys into the caste system it ostensibly flouts.
  14. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
    In McKay, Ferrell has found an unusually simpatico collaborator for the type of humor that's made him a comedy force: outsized, unexpectedly sweet, and unrelenting.
  15. Riding Giants
    It's a film hopelessly in thrall to the thrill of big-wave surfing, and for all its rambling shapelessness, it conveys that excitement in an infectious, conspiratorial manner.
  16. King Arthur
    Conceptually compelling, but the interest ends there, in part because the humans get squeezed to the margins in favor of pseudo-history and clashing battleaxes.
  17. America's Heart and Soul
    Represents apple-pie mythmaking at its most insidiously thoughtless.
  18. The Clearing
    It never adds up to much. There's a fair amount of fine acting (with that cast, how could there not be?), but it's in the service of a story that bubbles without ever boiling.
  19. Before Sunset
    In the spirit of the original, Linklater closes with one of the best endings of its kind since George Romero's "Martin."
  20. De-Lovely
    If Porter's songs are so timeless, why does the movie sound like something that might have played on VH1 five years ago?
  21. Spider-Man 2
    The filmmakers smartly counter heavy drama with goofy comedy, mining a rich vein of humor in the juxtaposition of the mundane and the superheroic. Maguire and Molina excel at opposite ends of the moral spectrum, but the film is stolen once again by J.K. Simmons.
  22. The Notebook
    Opening shots tend to say a lot about a movie, but they say everything about The Notebook, a glossy adaptation of Nicholas Sparks' four-hanky sudser.
  23. Kaena: The Prophecy
    With so many plot hooks and so many story demands, it's incomprehensible that Kaena spends so much time on meaningless action.
  24. Time of the Wolf
    At its best, the film sustains the heightened tension of great science fiction, dropping in on a frightening new world that's just this side of familiar.
  25. Two Brothers
    The tiger footage in Two Brothers would make for a solid nature documentary, but because the animals are shoehorned into a narrative, they've been anthropomorphized to death.
  26. White Chicks
    Stupidity has worked for the Wayans brothers in the past, but White Chicks will likely test the patience of even their most loyal fans.
  27. Fahrenheit 9/11
    As much as the jurors at this year's Cannes Film Festival insisted that the Palme D'Or was awarded to the best film in competition, it was a sign of the times that they chose to honor Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, marking a clear and decisive victory for ideology over aesthetics.
  28. Saints and Sinners
    While Saints And Sinners will strike some as a refreshingly even-toned social study, it's also a documentary heavy on talking heads and low on real drama. It's beautifully shot and deeply felt, but, for the most part, hearing a description of the film is as good as watching it.
  29. The Hunting of the President
    What a shame that The Hunting Of The President feels like part of the problem.
  30. Facing Windows
    Girotti has no magical powers, but his dementia has a way of coming and going at just the right time to move the story and themes wherever director Ferzan Ozpetek and co-writer Gianni Romoli want them to go.
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