Austin Chronicle's Scores
- Movies
- Music
For 8,783 reviews, this publication has graded:
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41% higher than the average critic
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2% same as the average critic
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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: | The Searchers | |
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| Lowest review score: | Gummo |
Score distribution:
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Positive: 4,778 out of 8783
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Mixed: 2,558 out of 8783
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Negative: 1,447 out of 8783
8783
movie
reviews
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Reviewed by
Matthew Monagle
There is a confidence and a self-assuredness on display in Kent’s second feature that was only hinted at in her first. From her unflinching examination of the dual standards for gender and ethnicity to the film’s lush compositions, The Nightingale is a tough watch, but one well worth the ugly brush with sexual violence and trauma.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted Aug 7, 2019
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- Austin Chronicle
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Reviewed by
Marjorie Baumgarten
Weitz (About a Boy) is a sharp observer, and Tomlin and the rest of the cast are so superlative that any anxiety is quickly quelled. You’re happy to follow this movie over the river and through the woods.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted Sep 9, 2015
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Richard Whittaker
Both Koepp and Soderbergh are to blame for the underdelivery of a pivotal, plot-defining, single line of dialogue that should have been a strand woven throughout the film.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted Jan 23, 2025
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Josh Kupecki
A riveting piece of cinema, successfully utilizing all the things that screenwriters are supposed to avoid: voiceovers, direct address, unreliable narrators. It also looks gorgeous, thanks to cinematographer Nicolas Karakatsanis and production designer Jade Healy.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted Jan 5, 2018
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Marjorie Baumgarten
God Loves Uganda and recent events make it seem like the time is right for a 21st century raid on Entebbe.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted Feb 26, 2014
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Marjorie Baumgarten
The horror imagined by Évolution does not depend on the genre’s familiar tropes but instead its arousal of dread and fear, not unlike Guillermo del Toro in "The Devil’s Backbone," in which the peril is intuited rather than defined.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted Dec 7, 2016
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Richard Whittaker
Like any great funfair ride designer, it’s Barker’s grasp of pacing, of when to lull and when to launch, that makes Obsession such a terrifying blast.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted May 14, 2026
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Russell Smith
Fonda brings all of his childhood frustration and angst to the screen in one of the year's most unexpectedly brilliant acting performances.- Austin Chronicle
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Marjorie Baumgarten
Grindhouse raises the bar for a certain kind of movie lollapalooza (and also for the kind of filmmaker who is also a showman, along the lines of a William Castle or Cecil B. De Mille). It's this injection of playfulness and fun and attention to the entire movie-going gestalt that will probably become Grindhouse's lasting contribution to movie history rather than any on-the-screen content of the movie itself.- Austin Chronicle
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Richard Whittaker
At its best, there's an undoubted thrill and wonder to Pom Poko, like the massive parade of phantoms the tanuki conjure up as one of their harebrained schemes. Takahata's misfire at least provides some wonderful sparkles.- Austin Chronicle
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Reviewed by
Marc Savlov
It ends up being a smashingly good and goofball history of the non-world of Canadian history and flim-flammery, deeply committed to its own colonial crazy.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted Nov 20, 2020
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Marjorie Baumgarten
Celebrate Father's Day in grand movie style.- Austin Chronicle
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- Austin Chronicle
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Reviewed by
Kimberley Jones
We see the work, the figurative (and sometimes literal) sweat that went into crafting these characters. It’s capital-M Movie Acting, and I couldn’t love it more. It moved me.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted Dec 6, 2023
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Reviewed by
Marjorie Baumgarten
What's fascinating is the depth of humanity Cruise finds within the character of Jerry and also Cruise's generosity toward the other actors in the story -- a generosity that allows all the other performers to shine and create vivid and memorable characters.- Austin Chronicle
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Richard Whittaker
For two filmmakers best known for their comedic scripts like the Jump Street films and The Lego Movie, they know when to pull back on the humor and instead embrace the spectacle, and find their perfect proxy in Gosling.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted Mar 19, 2026
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Richard Whittaker
The comparisons to "Hereditary," Ari Aster's febrile masterpiece of familial dysfunction, are inevitable, and while James doesn't quite reach that film's perturbing depths she brings a different insight.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted Jul 7, 2020
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Reviewed by
Marjorie Baumgarten
Although the film is never fully convincing about this rock band’s overlooked potential – despite testimonials from the likes of Alice Cooper, Henry Rollins, Jello Biafra, and Elijah Wood – the story of Death sure adds an interesting and virtually unknown footnote to the annals of punk rock.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted Jun 26, 2013
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Marjorie Baumgarten
Director Nunez, whose previous films (Gal Young 'Un, A Flash of Green) are also set in Florida, has an ability to translate states of mind into their native environments and vice versa. In this instance, his regional realism combines with Judd's transfixing performance to create a movie that sticks to your ribs.- Austin Chronicle
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Marjorie Baumgarten
Chi-Raq constantly shifts tones from comedy to drama and back again, while most of its dialogue is delivered in rhyming couplets. The transitions can sometimes be bumpy, but never when Samuel L. Jackson pops up as nattily dressed and off-color one-man Greek chorus.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted Dec 2, 2015
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Richard Whittaker
Squibb’s charm, her gutsiness, and her sharp, subtle humor fill the movie with warmth and veracity.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted Jun 20, 2024
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Marc Savlov
Starving the Beast does an admirable job of making even the most arcane of arguments and abstruse alliances plain and clear.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted Sep 14, 2016
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Reviewed by
Alejandra Martinez
The all-out Love Lies Bleeding is a love story that won’t work for everyone. However, for those who can revel in the blood-soaked, complicated, sapphic delights that make up the backbone of the film, the saga of Lou and Jackie will be one for the ages.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted Mar 13, 2024
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Reviewed by
Josh Kupecki
With Calvary, John Michael McDonagh (who wrote and directed "The Guard" and is the brother of Martin “In Bruges” McDonagh) has crafted a darkly hilarious and deeply ruminative update on the passion play.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted Aug 13, 2014
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Reviewed by
Marc Savlov
The House I Live In is depressing stuff, but it sparks the fires of anger, and from that anger, possible action.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted Oct 24, 2012
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Jenny Nulf
Sometimes a documentary doesn’t have to change the world, but make you feel warm and that your passion for something is matched by another person.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted Sep 10, 2020
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Reviewed by
Marjorie Baumgarten
Hepburn brings Truman Capote's Holly Golightly to vivid life. [Review of re-release]- Austin Chronicle
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Reviewed by
Marjorie Baumgarten
Hustle is a great modern love story disguised as a neo-noir police procedural.- Austin Chronicle
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Reviewed by
Richard Whittaker
Where Shinkai remains peerless is in taking those big, magical, melodramatic swings and landing them with a gentle, compassionate touch.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted Apr 13, 2023
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