For 511 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 63% higher than the average critic
  • 1% same as the average critic
  • 36% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 0.3 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Gene Siskel's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 65
Highest review score: 100 A Clockwork Orange
Lowest review score: 0 UHF
Score distribution:
511 movie reviews
    • 72 Metascore
    • 88 Gene Siskel
    Prince is an exciting entertainer, an equal opportunity employer-especially when it comes to talented women-and his act is a physical tour de force. It's the next best thing to attending one of his concerts and sitting near the stage. [20 Nov 1987, p.A]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 68 Metascore
    • 88 Gene Siskel
    An upbeat, thoroughly entertaining street film about an entertainment revolution in the depressed South Bronx, featuring break dancing, graffiti art and record mixing. A black and Puerto Rican version of Saturday Night Fever. [08 June 1984, p.12]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 60 Metascore
    • 88 Gene Siskel
    OK, it's a formula picture, but the ingredients are lively and combined with style by director Beeban Kidron.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 88 Gene Siskel
    Griffith gives the fullest performance of her career; Weaver, the most likable, even though she's the villain of the piece. Michael Nichols directs his best film in years. [23 Dec 1988, Friday, p.A]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 64 Metascore
    • 88 Gene Siskel
    Greenaway is a unique filmmaker in that he layers images upon one another in a single frame and doesn't require dialogue to make his films arresting. [18 Jul 1997]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 83 Metascore
    • 88 Gene Siskel
    Even more enjoyable than the original. [19 June 1981]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 64 Metascore
    • 88 Gene Siskel
    It's a tribute to the quality of writing, direction and photography in this film that we willingly go along with the story.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 88 Gene Siskel
    The film is mostly light and funny, but it also has a wistful ending that lingers in the mind. Both lead actors are sensational. [21 Oct 1988, p.A]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 64 Metascore
    • 88 Gene Siskel
    A charming, adult-oriented saga of the famous cartoon character that comes alive only when Popeye finds his baby, Swee'pea. [19 Dec 1980, p.10]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 72 Metascore
    • 88 Gene Siskel
    A three-hour delight… The movie generates much of its power by being so life-affirming at a time when people feel nervous about the future. [9 Nov 1990, Friday, p.C]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 73 Metascore
    • 88 Gene Siskel
    It's an old lesson, but one well told with fresh faces in Mask.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 88 Gene Siskel
    Another important, risk-taking film from Spike Lee.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 88 Gene Siskel
    Mad Dog and Glory was directed by John McNaughton, who wisely lets many scenes run to the point of being uncomfortable, just like his characters are with each other. Everything about this movie seems fresh. [5 Mar 1993, p.C]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 81 Metascore
    • 88 Gene Siskel
    The songs are joyful, and the plant is a foul-mouthed wonder when it begins to talk. Director Frank Oz deserves credit for staging a musical in classic form, creating nothing less than one of the year's most entertaining films. [19 Dec 1986, p.A]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 66 Metascore
    • 88 Gene Siskel
    Most biopics mistakenly try to take us from cradle to grave and end up skimming the surface. The wisdom of Cobb is that writer-director Ron Shelton (Bull Durham) knows that the close study of a single day can decode a human life.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 88 Gene Siskel
    This middle portion of the picture becomes dangerously preachy, but just before we and Max are bored, director Miller returns Max to his roots, a screaming chase sequence through a desertlike Australian landscape.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 88 Gene Siskel
    An engaging yarn about a wealthy kid who learns to fight his way out of trouble in a rough Chicago public school. He also learns not to believe in labels placed on people. [19 Dec 1980, p.10]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 66 Metascore
    • 88 Gene Siskel
    Clint Eastwood's most entertaining film in years, a whimsical fable about a Wild West showman with a dream of turning his rag-tag employees into one big happy family. Great country music mixed with Eastwood's natural charm. [11 July 1980, p.8]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 84 Metascore
    • 88 Gene Siskel
    Australian Judy Davis, one of our finest actresses, gives a brilliant comic performance as a bitter spurned woman venting her spleen on a hapless blind date. Sydney Pollack proves surprisingly effective in a brutal scene where he abuses a bimbo. Husbands and Wives dosen't break new ground in arguing that not breaking up is hard to do; it simply raises the debate with a mix of fine writing and tragic real-life parallels. [18 Sept 1992, p.C]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 69 Metascore
    • 88 Gene Siskel
    It's the funniest new movie on town. [July 22, 1983]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 86 Metascore
    • 88 Gene Siskel
    The Murder of Fred Hampton is a remarkable film in many ways. It keeps alive an incident which has become a symbol of repression to a lot of people.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 88 Gene Siskel
    The Breakfast Clu" is a breath of cinematic fresh air, taking on a very real adolescent problem and offering, in a dramatic way, a possible solution. The film is at its very best when the brainy kid wonders out loud toward the end of the film whether any of his new-found friends will still be his friends come Monday morning. It's a very real question, such being the impulse to conform in high school. A simple "hello" between a jock and a wimp in a crowd is a big risk for both of them. [15 Feb 1985, p.A]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 77 Metascore
    • 88 Gene Siskel
    One minute into Saturday Night Fever you know this picture is onto something, that it knows what it's talking about. [15 Oct 1999, Siskel Years, p.6]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 55 Metascore
    • 88 Gene Siskel
    Bold and totally off-the-wall comedy.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 88 Gene Siskel
    William L. Petersen (''To Live and Die in L.A.”) gives another mesmerizing, seeming nonperformance as the brilliant agent on the trail of a serial killer who has murdered families in the South. [29 Aug 1986]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 81 Metascore
    • 88 Gene Siskel
    Fresh is Boyz N the Hood meets Searching for Bobby Fischer. Key to the success of the film is the solemn performance by young Sean Nelson. We stare at him in much the same way as we gazed upon that little girl in the red coat in Schindler's List, a human face walking through a tragedy.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 88 Gene Siskel
    Compared with the most recent Disney animated features, "Space Jam" is, at times, a hoot, especially when it has fun with Michael's less-than-stellar baseball career and the way his fellow players were starstruck. [15 Nov 1996, p.A]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 71 Metascore
    • 88 Gene Siskel
    Ghostbusters is a hoot. It's Murray's picture, and in a triumph of mind over matter, he blows away the film's boring special effects with his one-liners. Spotting a lusty, totally transformed, fire-breathing Slgourney Weaver, whose body has been overtaken by a spirit, Murray walks past her saying, "That's a new look for you, isn't it?" Thank you, Bill. And don't get outta here, you knucklehead. We like you in this kind of movie.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 88 Gene Siskel
    Credit for the triumph of this picture must go to West German director Uli Edel, who works on a canvas as large as Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in America. [11 May 1990, p.C]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 91 Metascore
    • 88 Gene Siskel
    Don't see Halloween in an empty theater on a weekday afternoon. See it on a weekend night in a packed house. Halloween is a film to be enjoyed with a boisterous crowd; it's an "audience picture," a film designed to get specific reactions from an audience at specific moments. With Halloween, the most often desired reaction is screaming. It's a beautifully made thriller -- more shocking than bloody -- that will have you screaming with regularity. Halloween was directed by John Carpenter, 30, a natural filmmaker and a name worth remembering. [22 Nov 1978]
    • Chicago Tribune

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