The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 9,423 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 Anatomy of a Murder
Lowest review score: 0 A Life Less Ordinary
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4,980 out of 9423
  2. Mixed: 3,419 out of 9423
  3. Negative: 1,024 out of 9423
9423 movie reviews
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  1. Hollywoodland
    Like Affleck's performance, Hollywoodland has its affecting moments. But generally it feels like an HBO original movie, where respectable but uninspired execution mars a fascinating subject and great cast.
  2. The Protector
    Delivers a steady stream of cheap B-movie thrills, plus two positive messages for young people: Be nice to animals, and when in doubt, always aim for the tendons.
    • 19 Metascore
    • 33 Critic Score
    The Covenant
    Okay, so it isn't challenging. There are worse things for a horror-thriller about supernatural high-schoolers to not be. Like not scary. Or not thrilling. Or not as entertaining as an episode of "Charmed."
  4. SherryBaby
    Theirs is a well-worn story that may not need to be told, but they do tell it well.
  5. Le petit lieutenant
    In the end, the film belongs to Baye, a veteran French actress who handles the part with toughness and vulnerability without overselling either facet of her character.
  6. Man Push Cart
    Quietly heartbreaking.
  7. Rolling Family
    Still, after an hour and a half of exquisite photography and mushy action, audiences may well ask the unspoken question that plays across the faces of the Rolling Family clan right before the closing credits. Was it worth it?
  8. Broken Bridges
    Country Music Television's answer to "Elizabethtown."
  9. Crank
    Its a stupid thrill for a while, but the high wears off, and the anything-goes approach gets headache-inducing.
  10. Crossover
    Crossover doesn't have the competence to make it exciting or the desire to explore what's really at stake for these players.
  11. The Wicker Man
    Turns a cultishly creepy classic into a dull and windy farce.
  12. Lassie
    Writer-director Charles Sturridge doesn't mess with the Lassie formula--he provides plenty of dog-porn shots of the collie bounding through scenery in slow motion--but the overqualified cast puts the film over the top.
  13. Looking for Kitty
    Burns has continued to cram one-dimensional characters into thinly plotted comedy-dramas, hoping to re-impress moviegoers with his aloof leading-man charm and faux-natural, trying-too-hard-to-be-funny dialogue.
  14. Mutual Appreciation
    Bujalski's brand of stylized dialogue sounds genuinely fly-on-the-wall.
  15. Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles
    Zhang Yimou is a master of intimate character pieces.
  16. This Film Is Not Yet Rated
    It thoroughly eviscerates the MPAA and makes a solid case that the culture has paid the price for its censorious practices. His (Dick's) attacks are the equivalent of shooting ducks in a barrel, but these ducks had it coming.
  17. Idiocracy
    There's a good chance that Judge's smartly lowbrow Idiocracy will be mistaken for what it's satirizing, but good satire always runs the risk -- of being misunderestimated.
  18. Beerfest
    Random silliness rules the day, but the gags are frequently surprising.
  19. Idlewild
    Idlewild boasts too much personality around the edges--especially in Terrence Howard and Macy Gray's scene-stealing turns--and not enough at its center. It's a vehicle for OutKast's music and personality in which the music and lead roles feel like afterthoughts.
  20. How to Eat Fried Worms
    There's no great art to Fried Worms' simple, family-friendly style and obvious clichés, but there's a refreshing lack of x-treme attitude, slapstick violence, and all the other things that make most kids' movies feel like they were generated by a marketing committee.
  21. Invincible
    Sure, the unlikely ascendance of 30-year-old Vince Papale from working-class suds-pumper to Philadelphia Eagles benchwarmer is a victory for the little guy, but it's still more of a personal victory, and that's what makes it touching.
  22. The Quiet
    The few effective scenes in The Quiet suggest that the film might have worked as a kinked-up Hitchcockian thriller rather than the drab, serious drama it turns out to be.
  23. The Dogwalker
    While there are moments throughout when the film looks primed to break out of the indie arthouse ghetto, it never quite pulls it off.
  24. Fratricide
    Shot with such grit that the lenses seem coated with grease, Fratricide offers a myopic impression of an unnamed German city, and that's probably the point, since so much of its territory and opportunities are sealed off from these immigrant characters.
  25. Princesas
    It's well-acted and strikingly shot, and its depiction of contemporary Spanish squalor is hard to forget, but it never quite reconciles its high-drama situations with its low-key approach. It whispers when it really wants to shout.
  26. When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts
    Spike Lee's documentary When The Levees Broke runs four hours, but Lee arguably says what he needs to say in the brilliant opening montage, which cuts together footage of New Orleans in the 20th century, including Mardi Gras parades, segregation marches, and flood after flood.
  27. Snakes on a Plane
    Not since Pet Rocks riveted the nation have so many gotten so excited over so little.
  28. Accepted
    The ideal viewer of Accepted probably won't have seen any college comedies before. Or any slobs-vs.-snobs movies like "Caddyshack." For those who have, it's kind of a snore.
  29. The Illusionist
    The results are reasonably clever and impeccably executed, but one of these days, Burger is going to have to pull more from his hat than just the rabbit.
    • 17 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    Material Girls
    The most shocking moment comes during the closing credits, when it's revealed that not one, not two, but three screenwriters were responsible for a plot that someone seems to have hastily slapped together after taking a walk around a Sephora outlet while listening to "Beat Of My Heart" on loop.
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