The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 9,309 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 Anatomy of a Murder
Lowest review score: 0 A Life Less Ordinary
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4,905 out of 9309
  2. Mixed: 3,397 out of 9309
  3. Negative: 1,007 out of 9309
9309 movie reviews
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  1. Emergency
    It’s easy to imagine Williams taking this story and crafting either a boisterously funny, obstacle-filled mad dash to the hospital or an indignant, op-ed baiting thesis on post-George Floyd America. Instead, he turns down the heat and blends the two, creating a buddy comedy of errors shot through with an ever-darkening undercurrent of racial commentary.
  2. Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers
    Rather than major fits of laughter, chuckles of acknowledgement pepper the audience’s viewing experience, at least for folks over the age of 25.
  3. Hold Your Fire
    Forbes’ film is a fine tribute to him, and a fascinating glimpse at a different, but not distant, past.
    • 32 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    Firestarter
    The best thing that can be said about this new iteration of Firestarter is that it at least gave us a new score by John Carpenter, Cody Carpenter, and Daniel A. Davies. The rest feels like a waste of a talented cast and crew that somehow, against all odds, makes the 1984 film seem like a staggering achievement in the realm of King adaptations.
  5. Senior Year
    Painfully simplistic in its execution, which frequently undervalues its clever set-up, and featuring unlikeable, poorly drawn characters, the movie works overtime to make the audience actively dislike it.
  6. Monstrous
    Unfortunately, it’s hard to imagine a more stillborn finished product, an exercise in tedium which checks the barest boxes of “completed movie” and possibly delivers unknown benefits for some of those executive producers, but otherwise offers nothing that might engage an audience.
  7. The Innocents
    Childhood is hard, and childhood grudges run harder. The Innocents pulls no punches in turning that fact into horror.
  8. Pleasure
    “Shocking” is a word that gets thrown around too frequently. But it’s all too fitting for Swedish director Ninja Thyberg’s Pleasure, a graphic, gripping, and unflinching drama charting the rocky rise of an ambitious newcomer to the adult film industry.
  9. Top Gun: Maverick
    Joe Kosinski (Tron: Legacy) matches his well-established architectural precision with suitably nostalgic but never pandering emotionality, while Cruise commands the screen in a performance that leverages his multimillion-dollar star wattage to brighten the entire film.
  10. On the Count of Three
    On The Count Of Three is not didactic, and thank goodness the filmmakers at least have the good sense to recognize that preachiness helps no one and solves nothing. But the film dumbs down a complex and taboo topic by placing blame squarely on bogeymen like bullies and abusers.
  11. Montana Story
    This is a deeply felt work anchored by two earthy performances that stay small-scaled no matter how melodramatic the slowly revealed secrets become.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 33 Critic Score
    Homebound
    A film that leans on withheld information to drive a mystery but lacks anything for viewers to latch onto emotionally.
  13. Men
    To put it in a way the kids do: Men is vibes.
  14. Operation Mincemeat
    It’s also shot through with a humanizing sense of uncertainty, moral complication, and even wistfulness about the manner in which this work weighs upon its practitioners, for an altogether rewarding experience even for those viewers who traditionally eschew wartime dramas.
  15. Happening
    The real reason Happening manages to be so persuasive is because it tells such a vivid, intimate and relatable story, whether as a viewer it has happened to you or someone in your life, or your biggest fear is that it will.
  16. The Twin
    Generally speaking, the best kinds of story surprises illuminate the material; the worst simply laugh at you for falling for red herrings. Much of what happens in The Twin bounces back and forth between those ends of the spectrum.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    The Ravine
    The Ravine spends more than an hour telegraphing that this is a story about the perplexing feelings that arise from a close friend’s dark and sudden turn. Then it swiftly brushes aside those layers in favor of a mystically clean explanation, and the result is narratively dull, emotionally ungratifying, and intellectually insulting.
  18. Vortex
    Vortex looks unsparingly at characters at the end of life, and finds their experiences as scary as any traditional horror tale.
  19. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
    The film feels like a collection of ideas that never add up.
  20. The Aviary
    Writer-directors Chris Cullari and Jennifer Raite give us two unreliable narrators to follow on a similar, intertwined path to personal, earth-shattering discovery in The Aviary—and the results make for a visually striking, sonically spooky, and deeply unnerving picture.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Hatching
    Hatching is an efficiently told fable, the moral of which is multilayered, making the ending a puzzling emotional experience that both begs for resolution and feels like a confident choice for a first time filmmaker.
  22. Memory
    It’d be nice to think that the forgettable nature of Memory was a deliberate irony. Then we could grant it bonus points for cleverness, rather than an average grade for just being bland.
  23. Firebird
    Prior and Zagorodnii have a fair amount of chemistry, although both are so Fashion Week gorgeous that it edges Firebird near soft-core territory.
  24. Anaïs in Love
    While this is hardly Exhibit A in any catalogue of feminist films, it is very much told through the young woman exploring romantic possibility, rather than spotlighting her.
  25. The Bad Guys
    Like the Despicable Me series, The Bad Guys may find ever-diminishing returns once the villain protagonists no longer qualify as despicable or bad. For now, at least, that mixed morality is not just part of the fun, but the primary selling point.
  26. 9 Bullets
    It’s a dud, yet one made semi-palatable thanks to a decent performance from leading lady Lena Headey, and of all things, a soulful ballad written by Diane Warren.
  27. The Duke
    If the film isn’t quite as complicated as one might sometimes wish it to be, that isn’t to say that this unassuming version of its decidedly strange true tale is anything other than agreeable on its own terms.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    The Cellar
    Like Cuthbert, The Cellar oozes with potential but isn’t given enough—or doesn’t do enough—with what’s there, creating a subdued experience for viewers.
  29. Chariot
    From the cast to its odd, intriguing locations, Sigal was successful in assembling many of the right ingredients. Unfortunately, they lack a chef who knows how to properly combine them, whether that’s to create a meaningful sense of cohesion or to truly create the kind of beautiful chaos that makes Lynch such a mesmerizing source of inspiration.
  30. Father Stu
    Distilled, it is a fairly well-sketched portrait of self-care — spiritual, yes, but also psychological and physical — and the outwardly rippling effects of healing that can flow from that single choice.
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