Austin Chronicle's Scores

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For 8,778 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 6.7 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: 4,774 out of 8778
  2. Mixed: 2,557 out of 8778
  3. Negative: 1,447 out of 8778
8778 movie reviews
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  1. Richard Jewell
    It’s Hauser who keeps the movie from tilting over, even though Eastwood and Ray initially seem to patronize the character. The knuckleheaded scene-stealer from "I, Tonya" and "BlacKkKlansman" has the chance here to play a fuller, more rounded character for a change, and he’s unexpectedly up to the task. The performance is an eye-opener. With a little refinement and polish, we may have found our long-awaited Ignatius J. Reilly.
  2. Playmobil: The Movie
    This is a vastly inferior toy-to-film IP expansion, with duller songs, dumber jokes, and forgettable voice work.
  3. In Fabric
    A bizarre and imaginative thriller with a sexual and sociological twist.
  4. Fantastic Fungi
    It’s heady stuff, and Brie Larson’s gentle narration helps you navigate this quite complex topic.
  5. The Aeronauts
    Unfortunately, almost none of that astonishing true story makes it into The Aeronauts, a mangled retelling that cuts out Coxwell and replaces him with Amelia Wren (Jones), a gestalt character based on several women aerial explorers of the time.
  6. Mickey and the Bear
    Morrone is superb in the part, exuding a sort of saintly solitude while caught up in the midst of turmoil from within and without. Even at its most dire, Mickey and the Bear is tinged with an almost holy hope for all involved, a rare and remarkable feat to pull off so well for a first-time director indeed.
  7. Queen & Slim
    Queen & Slim artfully weaves together a lovers-on-the-lam crime story with very trenchant Black Lives Matter thematic content. It is a perfect movie for our times. It grabs you by the scruff during its flawless opening sequences and never lets go, despite some episodic contrivances that occasionally cause it to feel overplotted.
  8. Knives Out
    The movie’s wit and energy hold your interest, but they don’t spark the pleasure of the unexpected, the thrill you felt in "Laura," "The Last of Sheila," "Chinatown," "The Sixth Sense," or the 1974 adaptation of Christie’s "Murder on the Orient Express" (not Kenneth Branagh’s inept remake), movies whose big reveals surprise you in their elegant simplicity.
  9. Marriage Story
    Divorce severs this marriage like the dull blade of a knife cutting through the tiers of a wedding cake.
  10. 21 Bridges
    If you can describe something as a B-action movie and not mean it as a derogatory phrase, then this is probably the thriller for you.
  11. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
    A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood brings that essential essence of Fred Rogers to life. That sense of wonder, of kindness, and most importantly of letting kids – and adults – know that it's OK to have been hurt. Heller and Hanks remember that Rogers was not about being perfect, or pretending that bad things don't happen. It's about liking people just the way they are.
  12. Waves
    As if the dazzling performances and audaciously intertwined storylines weren’t enough, Waves is a visual stunner, too, thanks to director of photography Drew Daniels, whose restless, reckless camerawork paints a family tragedy in dizzying, near-psychedelic hues, mirroring the increasingly frenetic storyline.
  13. Honey Boy
    If Honey Boy was just the actor doing primal scream therapy at the camera for 93 minutes, we'd arguably be obligated to watch it. But that he delivers a captivating, haunting, and brutally honest exploration of a life we think we know.
  14. Frozen II
    What is notable is how the film gives children a framework, and the language, to process this act of violence, same as it does the pain of grief, the bitter rub of mortality. I don’t know if that sensitivity will translate to a gajillion more princess dresses sold, but as a teaching aid for kids – a tool for taking on more adult concerns – I found it surprisingly impactful.
  15. Better Days
    Moreover, dark as Better Days gets – and it is often an uneasy watch because of its delicately-handled themes – there's still a hopeful story about how honesty and courage and fix even the most broken systems.
  16. The Good Liar
    The Good Liar is a pleasantly playful thriller hiding a seriously shady history close to its benighted heart.
  17. American Dharma
    Anyone expecting truth from Bannon is on a fool's errand, and the floating criticism that there's no confessional here is missing the entire point.
  18. The Warrior Queen of Jhansi
    What's disappointing, especially considering Swati's background in dance, is how static the film feels, and how lumpen the story becomes.
  19. Scandalous: The Untold Story of the National Enquirer
    While Scandalous ultimately touches upon the tabloid’s plausible impact on the present-day state of affairs, it’s a killjoy way to begin a movie that’s so engagingly lively.
  20. The Report
    Although it’s no doubt intentional that Driver plays Jones as tireless and single-minded, the overall narrative of The Report might have been helped by more character-building.
  21. Frankie
    The ensemble cast is uniformly first-rate, but Sachs' moribund movie is a slog – all those scenes of Frankie’s friends and family wandering through the woods made my feet hurt.
  22. Ford v Ferrari
    It’s the rare movie that doesn’t trivialize a platonic male relationship with buddy film tropes.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Charlie's Angels
    Charlie’s Angels isn’t revolutionary by any means, but for today’s Gen Z, it’s a jumping-off point.
  24. Doctor Sleep
    He's (Flanagan) never trying to one-up Kubrick or King. Instead, he's trying to push past his own best work, and he may well have achieved that in one supernatural scene that is as shocking and captivating as the fall of the bent-neck lady. In honoring both Kubrick and King, Flanagan's greatest achievement is not being swallowed by the Overlook's shadow.
  25. Playing with Fire
    This mirthless comedy about a manly crew of smokejumpers helplessly babysitting a trio of rescued brats has more dead air in it than a radio broadcast hosted by a narcoleptic disc jockey.
  26. Midway
    Midway does a decent job of cramming in not only the eponymous three-day naval battle between the United States Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy but also treats the audience to a wealth of other, related Greatest Generation’s greatest hits.
  27. Last Christmas
    But you know what? It works. Director Paul Feig is not unfamiliar with traversing these waters of a slap and a tickle. He’ll give you the Christmas cheer and also the realities of life, and it’s helpful that Thompson and Kimmings have razor-sharp instincts when it comes to that short, sharp, shocked brand of British humor that we all love so well.
  28. Cyrano, My Love
    It's absolutely at its best as a predictable if pleasurable story of unlikely success. In those slight and joyous moments, this Cyrano is definitely something to touch the heart.
  29. Acceleration
    Bar a brief boost from his performance as Konstantin Kovar in "Arrow," nothing can save Dolph Lundgren from C-grade hell, digital squibs, and schlocky crime flicks like Acceleration.
  30. The Irishman
    Denying Scorsese's raw talent and experience as a filmmaker would be insanity – although the decision to digitally de-age his actors proves the technology is still spotty, and works best in long shots. But that the only major film made in America this year about unions dredges up Hoffa again, and the Italian American community is yet again made synonymous with organized crime, seems tone deaf and self-indulgent.
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