Michael Phillips

Select another critic »
Chicago Tribune
For 2,578 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 56% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 42% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 1 point higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Michael Phillips' Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 67
Highest review score: 100 The Third Man
Lowest review score: 0 Did You Hear About the Morgans?
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,779 out of 2578
  2. Mixed: 510 out of 2578
  3. Negative: 289 out of 2578
2578 movie reviews
view
per page
    • 82 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Phillips
    Sound of Metal
    The movie’s a little sketchy and underwritten, and it feels sometimes as if scenes have been pared away or cut altogether to concentrate on Ahmed. But Ahmed really is terrific. Director Marder has a knack for both observing and igniting human behavior, through character. And supervising sound editor Nicolas Baker’s work astounds, period.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Phillips
    The Last Black Man in San Francisco
    The musical score by Emile Mosseri of the band The Dig, is very fine stuff, supple and surprising in its blend of classical, jazz and pop strains. It adds to the otherworldly quality established and sustained so well by Talbot, and by the actors.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Phillips
    Isle of Dogs
    What’s frustrating about this worthwhile movie is pretty simple: All Anderson needed to do, really, was to let more of the characters, dog and human, female and male, have a say in how the story gets told.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 63 Michael Phillips
    The Hunting Party
    The title of The Hunting Party doesn’t evoke much in particular. “War Correspondents Gone WILD!” would be more like it if the film itself--messy, but fairly stimulating--had more of the scamp in its soul.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Phillips
    Mysteries of Lisbon
    It's a lot. But if you're at all inclined, it's just right.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Phillips
    Certain Women
    They're lifelike, I suppose, in that you believe and become invested in what happens to everyone. But they're poetic, too, in that Reichardt and her first-rate ensemble find intersections of the mundane and the mysterious all around this broad, blustery landscape.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Phillips
    Love Is Strange
    Do not expect dynamic filmmaking from Love Is Strange. It's about other things, and Lithgow and Molina are splendid, their eyes full of wisdom and experience.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Phillips
    In Jackson Heights
    Wiseman's film allows everyone their say, so that In Jackson Heights becomes one of the truest images of gentrification and its costs on film.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Phillips
    Madeline's Madeline
    The ideas aren’t exactly new here, and one need only look at the entire career of Chicago filmmaker Joe Swanberg (a producer here) to realize the difficulty of shaping living, breathing, vital art out of gormless improv techniques. Here, clearly, the actors have been well and truly guided along the way, and Howard is a serious find.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Phillips
    Requiem
    An exorcism movie for the rest of us, the gripping German drama Requiem contains not a single special effect. It doesn't need one. It has terrific actors fully invested in a casual-seeming, docudramatic brand of storytelling, notably Sandra Hueller.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Phillips
    Secret Mall Apartment
    It’s consistently, thoughtfully engaging. And, yes, often very funny in its open-hearted embrace of the DIY spirit, legal or otherwise.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Phillips
    Captain Phillips
    It is, however, just about perfect in its wrenching emotion, expressed by an actor clearly up to the challenge of acting in a Paul Greengrass docudrama — which is to say, acting with as little capital-A Acting as possible.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Phillips
    A Hero
    It boasts the filmmaker’s usual high level of unassuming craft; a superb cast; and a couple of limitations, though not flaws, worth noting.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Phillips
    The Northman
    It’s a hearty stew of influences and rewards and, yes, some gristle.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Phillips
    Snitch
    It's an entertaining picture — pulp, coming from a place of righteous indignation.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Phillips
    Blancanieves
    Best of all: the musical score by Alfonso de Vilallonga. It's terrific — witty, symphonically lush and shrewdly informed by flamenco strains throughout.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 100 Michael Phillips
    Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
    The wondrous cinematography is by Gokhan Tiryaki. It is not an easy picture. Not many masterpieces are.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Phillips
    The Maid
    Tone is everything here. While likely influenced by Chilean absurdists of another era, such as playwright Egon Wolff, in The Maid Silva treads an ultra-fine line between caricature and character, leaning toward the latter without weighing down an essentially featherweight creation.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Phillips
    Sicario
    Sicario doesn't fall apart in its second half, exactly, but it does settle for less than it should.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Phillips
    Stranded: I've Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains
    Remarkable documentary filmmaking, unflinching and full of unlikely grace.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Phillips
    Another Year
    For all the warmth emanating from the film's core, thanks to Broadbent and Sheen, I don't know if Leigh has ever made a crueler picture.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Phillips
    Blade Runner 2049
    Every effect, each little detail in the “Blade Runner” sequel’s formidable arsenal, creates the texture of a wondrously hideous near future, full of holographic accessories, slave-labor replicants and, as one character puts it, products and services of “the fabulous new.”
    • 81 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Phillips
    Eden
    The Coens' film is a wisenheimer, a mordant black comedy. Eden is utterly different, more muted and humane in tone. It won't be enough for some audiences.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Phillips
    Wadjda
    In the scenes between mother and daughter in their apartment, the world outside no longer judging every action, new worlds open up. And therein lies the cinema's role in our lives: It reveals what is concealed to others.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Phillips
    13th
    It's a crazy amount of ground to cover, but only rarely does 13th sacrifice clarity for cinematic energy.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Phillips
    Pacific Rim: Uprising
    Pacific Rim: Uprising may be not be much, but in the spirit of the film itself, let’s be realistic. It’s better than any of the “Transformers” movies, and shorter.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Phillips
    Arrival
    Shot under gray skies and in artful shadows by cinematographer Bradford Young, scored to wickedly disorienting music by Oscar-nominated "Sicario" composer Johann Johannsson, Arrival will cast a spell on some while merely discombobulating others. Right there, I'd say that indicates it's worth seeing.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Phillips
    Juno
    Ellen Page is key to its success, as much as Cody, or director Jason Reitman.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Phillips
    Weapons
    Some of Cregger’s swings between straight-up horror, missing children mystery and deliriously gory comedy may lead to mass audience whiplash. But it’s pretty gripping, fiercely well-acted and — paradoxically, given its devotion to pitch-black cold creeps — one of the bright lights of a generally disappointing movie summer.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Phillips
    Blue Valentine
    It's Williams you never question, who makes every detail and close-up and impulse natural. She's spectacularly good.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »