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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    • 52 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Devil's Own
    What makes it worth the price of admission is the energetic performance Ford pulls off in the cookie-cutter role of big-city cop.
  2. Cats Don't Dance
    So many feature cartoons of this era operate under formula constraints; the animation of Cats Don’t Dance often feels exuberantly free.
  3. Liar Liar
    For those who like Carrey and are waiting for a film they can honestly say they enjoyed through and through, this ain't it.
  4. Maborosi
    The 33-year-old Koreeda, who began his career in documentary, has a gift for observing life as it's lived, accumulating simple, seemingly banal scenes into an unforgettable reflection on the frustration and helplessness of trying to explain the ineffable.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Daytrippers
    Comic-ensemble performance at its darkest.
  6. Hard Eight
    One of the best films of the year.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Smilla's Sense of Snow
    The matter-of-fact way in which the story is presented serves as a constant reminder of how implausible the whole thing is. Add to this the single expression Ormond and Byrne are allowed throughout the film, and you're left with one more weak, confusing, ignorable movie that embarrasses its source.
  8. Lost Highway
    A slow, ponderous, ultimately unsuccessful exercise in cerebral nihilism.
  9. Rosewood
    Deliberately paced at the outset, the film slowly establishes a sense of hatred that makes the violent explosion of the film's second half as plausible and inevitable as the laws of physics.
  10. Fools Rush In
    The best that can be said is that neither Matthew Perry nor Salma Hayek embarrass themselves, but they're both appealing enough that the same could probably be said if they were starring in a commercial for a hair-replacement system.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Absolute Power
    A murky, often confusing story riddled with half-hearted performances, erratic characters, and too many cliched lines and situations.
  12. Touch
    Touch never quite catches the satiric fire its subject seems to warrant. It's pleasant, disarming, and likable, but never quite miraculous.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Dante's Peak
    As boring as the special effects are, they far outshine the stultifying plot.
  14. SubUrbia
    This adaptation of Eric Bogosian's 1994 play-- which revolves around several post-high-school drifters hanging around a convenience store while awaiting the return of their rock-star classmate -- doesn't hold up to Linklater's previous work, and the problem is Bogosian's script.
  15. Hotel de Love
    It's glossy, dumb fun that is diverting enough but forgotten 20 minutes after it's over.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Fierce Creatures
    Cute lemurs and a couple jabs at corporate a--holery can't save Fierce Creatures from its manic malaise.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Prefontaine
    But at best, the movie has an air of immediacy, freeing it from the ossified myth-making that plagues many true-life biopics.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Metro
    It never aspires to be high art—even the title is meaningless—but Metro is too lazily assembled, and too stingy with the jokes, to even live up to its modest ambitions.
  19. The Relic
    The monster effects, as designed by Stan Winston, are stunners, but after Twister, it should be obvious that it's not the quality of the effects that matter so much as the quality of the film in which they appear.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Evita
    Its political insights are half-hearted at best, and as entertainment it fails to excite. The songs sound mostly like glam-rock relics.
  21. Michael
    John Travolta should realize that people appreciate him, maybe more than ever, but that he should start making movies people won't feel ashamed for having seen if he wants to avoid co-starring with a talking lemur in the future.
  22. Thieves
    At two and a half hours, it's a bit too long, but it's probably the most emotionally authentic film noir since The Grifters.
  23. Scream
    Finely crafted, tense, scary thriller from start to finish.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Beavis and Butt-Head Do America
    Adds up to another prefab youth-culture event and a mediocre movie.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    My Fellow Americans
    The execution is decidedly wobbly, with too many telegraphed, poorly paced jokes, too much Grumpy Old Men-style insult humor, and too many schmaltzy scenes. But Garner and Jack Lemmon have enough charisma, and there are enough solid laughs, to mostly overcome My Fellow Americans' embarrassing moments and improbable ending.
  26. Marvin's Room
    Nonetheless, Marvin's Room is not only sharply written and well-acted, but it's also the rare sort of film that takes an honest and uncompromising look at death and dying.
  27. Bastard Out of Carolina
    Anjelica Huston's directorial debut employs an impressive cast, and at times showcases a promising sense of style. But Bastard Out Of Carolina seems hollow at its center, due largely to the fact that Anne Meredith's screenplay doesn't make very good use of its source material.
  28. Citizen Ruth
    A deft, three-dimensional performance from Dern, playing an almost entirely unlikable character, aids incalculably in exposing what happens when political factions lose touch with the realities of the issues for which they claim to provide answers.
  29. Whisper of the Heart
    Studio Ghibli productions have always been adept at making the fantastic seem real, but with Whisper Of The Heart, Kondo and Miyazaki focus so intensely on the everyday that they make the real seem fantastic.
  30. Daylight
    The assembly line of adrenaline-pumping obstacles makes the two-hour runtime fly by, though director Rob Cohen (DragonHeart, The Fast And The Furious, xXx) still manages to highlight a handful of quieter moments.
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