Austin Chronicle's Scores

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For 8,783 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 41% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 57% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 6.8 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 58
Highest review score: 100 The Searchers
Lowest review score: 0 Gummo
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4,778 out of 8783
  2. Mixed: 2,558 out of 8783
  3. Negative: 1,447 out of 8783
8783 movie reviews
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  1. Midnight Cowboy
    This multi-Oscar-winner nails its characters, time period, and locale so perfectly that it becomes even more compelling as time goes by. Fueled by two riveting character studies and its exposure of New York City's seamy underbelly, the movie screams “contemporary” and “eternal” at once...It's one of those rare movies that comes together just about perfectly, so check out this theatrical release while you can.
  2. Dear White People
    The cast is game and Siemen’s trenchant observations are the mark of a filmmaker with something to say – an increasing rarity in this day and age.
  3. Broken Flowers
    Broken Flowers is as elliptical as the haunting jazz music by Mulatu Astatke that permeates the soundtrack.
  4. Loving
    Though it’s impossible to know exactly how these two people felt in coping with this untenable situation – they only wanted to get married and raise a family, nothing else – Nichols gives you a damn good idea, even when it slightly wears your patience.
  5. The Christophers
    Much of the fun of The Christophers – and it is very fun – is in anticipating the hitches, then startling when they snag left rather than right. The delight is in watching Coel and McKellen play off each other.
  6. Silence
    Silence is Scorsese’s mode of sharing the Holy Communion. To that, every cinephile will say, “Amen.”
    • 79 Metascore
    • 89 Critic Score
    I've Loved You So Long
    But let's be honest: Any actress can do melancholy; it takes a special talent to recognize that there's a certain luxuriousness, a certain joy, to be found in longtime self-hatred.
  8. Hitchcock/Truffaut
    The material begs for a much longer consideration than the film’s trim 79 minutes, but it’s still a must-watch for serious film fans.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 78 Critic Score
    Science Fair
    It’s fine; it works. The future is bright.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 78 Critic Score
    The Order of Myths
    "They have their Mardi Gras; we have ours," the explanation goes on both sides, but everyone seems to realize it's just a rationalization aimed at covering over Mobile's docile perpetuation of segregation.
  11. Hotel by the River
    The director is notorious for not having a working script, writing the day’s scenes the morning of, and improvising at any given moment. The internet tells me that this film was shot in two weeks, and while Hong’s off-the-cuff style seems restless at times, it coagulates like a small scab that never quite stops itching.
  12. Flags of Our Fathers
    Maybe we won't fully understand Eastwood's film until we see the second part of this project, "Letters From Iwo Jima," his companion film seen from the Japanese viewpoint expected in 2007. On its own, however, Flags of Our Fathers merely flags.
  13. Reprise
    Post-viewing, I was still coasting on the giddy high of kinetic cinema, only to have the astonishing callousness of its conclusion slowly settle in. It's a better film for it – one only wishes that Reprise on a whole had been of the same mind: a little less cool, a little more cruel. That's where the really good stuff is.
  14. Feels Good Man
    Beyond putting the focus back on the artist and his art, what makes Jones’ documentary important is that it actually takes on internet culture in a serious fashion.
  15. The Winslow Boy
    Mamet's dialogue is still on the mark, rapid-fire, and as cutting as an antique straight razor.
  16. What Time Is It Over There?
    Is nothing if not foreign, but not in the sense of national demarcations of language and custom. It speaks a different cinematic language, one that tosses off the usual rules of camerawork and narrative structure.
  17. Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio
    Like all del Toro films, this Pinocchio thrives on a storytelling imagination that thinks outside the box.
  18. La Llorona
    Beyond the title, the elegant, calm, and unnerving La Llorona has nothing in common with the bland big budget namesake. If it has real cinematic kin, it's the much harsher and more grotesque "A Serbian Film," or the darkly comedic "Cold Sweat" - even (and especially in the trial sequences) Costa-Gavras' "Music Box."
  19. Before Sunrise
    Watching and listening to these two is a charming experience; their conversation has the ring of veracity, and rarely does the viewer's interest stray.
  20. Look at Me
    Look at Me marks the character's shift from being the object of attention to the subject of her own dreams.
  21. Dune: Part Two
    Dune: Part Two is both horrifying and romantic, presenting a far, far future that is recognizable because people never change. While the war may be portrayed as a jaw-dropping spectacle, the answers to all those political and moral questions may leave the audience deeply uncomfortable. Herbert would be proud.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 89 Critic Score
    Lone Star
    The range of characters here is daringly broad, but Sayles is able to touch on the humanity of each (with considerable help from a gifted and eminently watchable cast), and the details of the region -- the heat, the beautiful but often unforgiving landscape, and especially the pride of the residents -- are vivid and true.
  23. Drive
    I can't remember the last time I felt so seduced by a film.
  24. Film About a Father Who
    Sachs’ downward spiral into her father’s personal life has been in the works for roughly 26 years, with footage collected from 1984 to 2019. By using a mixture of 8mm film to pristine digital, her experimental documentary feels worn, an eclectic mixture of home videos that blends in with the film’s familial nature.
  25. The Fighter
    Virtually flawless performances and directorial execution render The Fighter one of the most thrilling movies of 2010.
  26. Jodorowsky's Dune
    As a documentary on the origins and backstory of the unfilmed film, Jodorowsky’s Dune is unsurpassable. More than that, however, it also allows audiences a rare glimpse inside the furiously creative mind of Jodorowsky, who still, at 84, is a wonderfully mad genius of the moving image.
  27. The Five Obstructions
    Riveting, and frankly it's great fun to see Leth best the smirky von Trier five times running.
  28. Beasts of No Nation
    The atrocities against children begin to acquire an unwelcome redundancy in their relentlessness and threaten to inure the viewer.
  29. Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood
    It may feel somewhat slight when it’s all said and done, but Apollo is packed with Linklater’s unique voice and breezy attitude that makes you feel right at home.
  30. Gandhi
    An epic biopic, over three hours in length, Gandhi captures the spirit of the man and his struggles.
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