Chicago Reader's Scores

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For 6,312 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 42% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 56% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 4.9 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 60
Highest review score: 100 I Stand Alone
Lowest review score: 0 Old Dogs
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2,983 out of 6312
  2. Mixed: 2,456 out of 6312
  3. Negative: 873 out of 6312
6312 movie reviews
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  1. Repulsion (re-release)
    Roman Polanski's first film in English (1965, 105 min.) is still his scariest and most disturbing--not only for its evocations of sexual panic, but also because his masterful employment of sound puts the audience's imagination to work in numerous ways...As narrative this works only part of the time, and as case study it may occasionally seem too pat, but as subjective nightmare it's a stunning piece of filmmaking.
  2. Police, Adjective
    The climax, in which the detective's commanding officer gives him a dictionary and subjects him to a sort of linguistic browbeating, is a marvel of dead air and unspoken oppression.
  3. Control
    Darkly funny and metaphorically potent.
  4. Pellet
    This is quick and unpredictable storytelling, its dialogue simple but tough. Alberto Jimenez is excellent as the conscience-stricken father, whose duty to respect the law tests his relationship with his own son, and both kids, Juan Jose Ballesta and Pablo Galan, give passionate, committed performances.
  5. Black Cat, White Cat
    There's something almost wearying as well as exhilarating about the perpetual brilliance of Bosnian-born filmmaker Emir Kusturica.
  6. Something Wild
    Jonathan Demme's picaresque joyride across the American landscape is still arguably the best thing he's ever done.
  7. Full Frontal
    Catherine Keener is wonderfully weird as a vicious vice president of human relations, and Nicky Katt is brilliant as an actor playing Hitler in a stage play.
  8. Corpse Bride
    This may be light family entertainment, but it's also a pleasingly perverse celebration of Victorian morbidity.
  9. Madadayo
    Has the expressionistic simplicity of Kurosawa's other late films.
  10. Changing Times
    Volatile and sometimes daring performances by Catherine Deneuve, Gerard Depardieu, Gilbert Melki, Malik Zidi, and Lubna Azabal (as twins) contribute to the highly charged and novelistic experience.
  11. The Weather Underground
    Fascinating documentary.
  12. Arizona Dream
    It illustrates the truism that the biggest difference between European and American directors using America as a site for fantasies is that the Europeans are likelier to know what they're doing.
  13. Saving Grace
    Solid formula comedy.
  14. Ira & Abby
    Not only delightfully funny but unaffectedly romantic.
  15. White Hunter Black Heart
    It's a devastating portrait of self-deceiving obsession, and a notable improvement on Viertel's book in terms of economy and focus.
  16. Dear Frankie
    Subtle and graceful directorial debut.
  17. Shower
    Writers Liu Fen Dou and Cai Xiang Jun and director Zhang Yang move freely and gracefully between fantasy and reality in this sentimental film, which never becomes as trite or calculated as you might fear.
  18. Little Children
    The characters are drawn with such compassion their follies become our own and their desires seem as vast as the night sky.
  19. The Sixth Sense
    Eventually writer-director M. Night Shyamalan neutralizes Willis's star presence with impressive plotting that's a fine excuse for the powerful atmosphere.
  20. Up the Yangtze
    Trained in Sanford Meisner's acting techniques, the director wrests surprisingly emotional disclosures from his subjects.
  21. Freaky Friday
    The premise provides a fine showcase for the two appealing actresses, who appropriate each other's vocal and physical mannerisms with dead-on accuracy.
  22. Smoke Signals
    Its particularities are the best thing about it.
  23. Lawless Heart
    Tom Hollander gives a strong performance as the considerate and quietly grieving young man.
  24. Parenthood
    This movie has its share of laughs, but it's also Ron Howard's most personal film, and clearly his most ambitious--a multifaceted essay in fictional form about the diverse snares of child rearing.
  25. Honeydripper
    Danny Glover, as hard-rock reliable as Spencer Tracy in his prime, plays onetime pianist Tyrone "Pine Top" Purvis.
  26. Alexandra
    On its deepest level it considers not a particular war but the complex feelings between mothers and the young men they send out into the world to kill or be killed.
  27. Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles
    But if you can get swept up in the story, the movie is imaginative and compelling.
  28. The Royal Tenenbaums
    Far and away the funniest comedy in town.
  29. 28 Weeks Later
    This sequel to the apocalyptic splatter flick "28 Days Later" . . . (2002) is still well equipped to rip your face off.
  30. Cold Mountain
    Kidman and Zellweger are uncommonly good, and I especially liked the timely treatment of war as universally brutalizing: even the outcomes of battles are ignored, as are the motives behind the conflict.
  31. Notorious
    Engrossing biopic, throbbing with style and attitude.
  32. Bunny Lake Is Missing
    As in The Human Factor, Preminger approaches the mystery of human irrationality and emotion through logic and detachment; the effect is stingingly poignant.
  33. The Constant Gardener
    Fernando Meirelles stresses old-fashioned storytelling and takes full advantage of his cast, including Danny Huston.
  34. Old School
    Starts out silly, gets sillier by the minute, and frequently had me and most of the people around me in stitches.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Japanese Story
    The first half involves some dully familiar cross-cultural comedy, as the two grate on each other's nerves. But the descending action veers into unexpected emotional territory, deftly handled by screenwriter Alison Tilson.
  36. The Postman Always Rings Twice
    This 1946 film is a key work of the postwar period, dripping with demented romanticism and the venom of disillusionment. Tay Garnett directed, finding the pull of obsession in every tracking shot.
  37. The Beautiful Country
    The script, by newcomer Sabina Murray, is occasionally cloying as the naive hero falls for a bitter prostitute (Bai Ling), but its epic tale of two cultures tragically entwined is anchored by deep and elemental emotions.
  38. The Invisible Man
    James Whale's 1933 film plays more like a British folk comedy than a horror movie; it's full of the same deft character twists that made his Bride of Frankenstein a classic.
  39. Princess Mononoke
    The film's storytelling and heartfelt pantheism are both impressive.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Noi the Albino
    Kari combines Kaurismaki's deadpan minimalism and Truffaut's sensitivity toward adolescent yearning with a hefty dose of gallows humor, and tops it all off with an apocalyptic ending.
  41. North Country
    Charlize Theron, in nonglam mode, dominates this powerful drama about sexual harassment at a Minnesota iron ore mine in the early 90s.
  42. Jump Tomorrow
    Transcendently kitschy, trippingly funny fairy tale, which has a surprising amount of psychological insight and a dance number to die for.
  43. The Road Warrior
    It's a highly stylized, roaringly dynamic action film that shuns plot and characterization in favor of a crazy iconographical melange—it's like the work of a western punk trucker de Sade...The climactic chase, with its deft variation of tempo and point of view, is a minor masterpiece.
  44. The Sweet Hereafter
    The power and reach of this undertaking are formidable.
  45. Blow Out
    This 1981 release is one of Brian De Palma's more interesting and better-made thrillers, though it's even more abjectly derivative than his Hitchcock imitations (borrowing mightily this time from Antonioni's Blowup, as the title suggests).
  46. He Got Game
    As usual, Lee tries many kinds of stylistic effects and uses wall-to-wall music (by Aaron Copland and Public Enemy); what’s different this time is how personally driven the story feels.
  47. Revolution #9
    Just about everyone in this sharp, passionate feature is chillingly good.
  48. Promises
    Timely and informative.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Moonrise Kingdom
    As usual, Anderson's densely imagined mise-en-scene contains many allusions to movies, music, and literature (Benjamin Britten's orchestral work being a key touchstone); what's different this time is that most of the cultural references grow naturally from the characterization.
  50. Presumed Innocent
    A top-notch courtroom drama that will keep you guessing if you haven't read the book; even if you have, it is still a very well crafted story.
  51. The China Syndrome
    For director James Bridges, the film looks like a hack job, particularly after the personal anguish of 9/30/55, but it's a very good hack job: strong, simple, and perfectly paced, until the last reel flounders in a bit of overkill.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Great Expectations
    The graveyard scene is still a shocker, the details are still astonishingly well assembled, and the performances are wonderful.
  53. The Curse of the Jade Scorpion
    One thing I especially like about it, apart from the flavorsome 40s decor in color, is that it's silly in much the same way that many small 40s comedies were.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mister Roberts
    The film is still hilarious, though time has dimmed the luster of Lemmon's hamming in favor of James Cagney's superbly psychotic commanding officer.
  55. The Kentucky Fried Movie
    A well above average sketch film from 1977, highlighted by a lengthy, hilariously deadpan kung fu parody, A Fistful of Yen.
  56. Open Water
    Superlative chiller.
  57. Heat
    There's nothing really new...but it has craft, pacing, and an overall sense of proportion, three pretty rare classic virtues nowadays.
  58. Fierce Creatures
    Combining the gentle with the vulgar as only the English can, this lively comedy is bursting with character and energy.
  59. To Be and to Have
    For better and for worse, this is seductive storytelling as well as investigative journalism, and I wasn't always sure which mode I was in.
  60. Mondovino
    This cagey and compelling 2004 documentary looks at the world of wine, but it's actually a nuanced, provocative piece of journalism about globalization and its discontents.
  61. Tape
    None of the characters emerges as very sympathetic.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Gay Divorcee
    Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were first teamed in Flying Down to Rio, but this 1934 feature was their first effort together as stars—and it worked beautifully, with great Cole Porter songs like "Night and Day," and Con Conrad and Herb Magidson's "The Continental."
  63. The Weather Man
    Written by Steve Conrad, this is the smartest script director Gore Verbinski has ever had, and he makes the most of it, aided by a strong cast.
  64. Bug
    Steppenwolf alumnus Tracy Letts adapted his play into this fearsome horror movie, directed with single-minded claustrophobia by William Friedkin.
  65. Le Cercle Rouge (1970)
    Key action points are edited with finesse, but the denouement, with its dutiful hail of gunfire, is heartless and mechanical.
  66. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
    Yet some of the laughs come too easy and linger too long; for the film's message to have maximum impact, the laughter has to stick in your throat.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Being Julia
    Witty, satisfying, and a terrific showcase for the radiant Bening.
  68. Truly Madly Deeply
    If the relatively prosaic Minghella, making his movie debut, lacks the suggestive poetic sensibility of Lewton, he does a fine job in capturing the contemporary everyday textures of London life, and coaxes a strong performance out of Stevenson, a longtime collaborator. Full of richly realized secondary characters and witty oddball details, this is a beguiling film in more ways than one.
  69. The Sacrifice
    As with Nostalghia, Tarkovsky’s previous work of exile, it’s possible to balk at the filmmaker’s pretensions and antiquated sexual politics and yet be overwhelmed by his mastery and originality, as well as the conviction of his sincerity.
  70. The Life of Jesus
    Despite its title, Bruno Dumont's extraordinary first feature is not about Christ, at least not on any literal level. The Life of Jesus may not be about religion, but like the films of Bresson, it is about redemption.
  71. The Godfather: Part III
    A provocative and stirring climax to the Corleone saga, as well as an autonomous work that sometimes shows Coppola at his near best.
  72. Lake of Fire
    You may not leave the theater having switched sides, but you'll probably respect the other side more, and that in itself would be a victory for human life.
  73. Late August, Early September
    What we don’t know about these characters–and what we don’t see in certain scenes–is often as interesting and as important as what we know and see, and Assayas’s sense of how relationships evolve between people over time is conveyed with a rich and vivid novelistic density.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Richard III
    Laurence Olivier's classic rendition (1956) of Shakespeare's total villain contains one of his most engaging performances and reveals some of his best spatial manipulation of action.
  75. Bully
    The tone -- a combination of earnestness and gallows humor -- is strangely appropriate.
  76. Les convoyeurs attendent
    An extraordinarily subtle, witty, and nuanced work.
  77. Blazing Saddles
    One of the funniest awful movies ever made.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Cuba feliz
    The film is music from beginning to end, and nearly every note of it is magical.
  79. Dragnet Girl
    One of the most striking of Ozu’s American-style silents.
  80. The Wrestler
    He looks like a truck ran over him, but at 52 he's still ripped enough to get away with the role; in the end the movie is about Rourke's indomitability more than the character's.
  81. Winter Solstice
    Beautifully unemphatic small-town drama.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    A Time for Drunken Horses
    More grim and less sentimental than other Iranian films featuring plucky children, this strikingly photographed work stresses the harshness of daily life in Iranian Kurdistan.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Last Orders
    I was hooked from the start.
  84. Tears of the Sun
    By turns morally compelling and racially paternalistic, this provocative drama may be the first halfway truthful war movie to hit multiplexes since "Three Kings."
  85. Valentino: The Last Emperor
    Part celebrity dish, part business journalism, this illuminating 2008 documentary about the legendary Italian designer Valentino Garavani spans the tumultuous final two years of his decades-long reign as one of the most successful innovators in the fashion industry.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Last Detail
    A tough-talking, sparely directed effort by Hal Ashby, with an immaculate performance by Jack Nicholson as the arrogant and salty (but feeling) sailor who tries to stay in charge of the odyssey, and almost doesn't.
  87. Unleashed
    Pierre Morel's diving, spiraling camera keeps pace with Yuen Wo-ping's rapid-fire fight choreography, all smartly directed by Louis Leterrier.
  88. The Boys of Baraka
    Sensitive, intelligent, enlightening, and sometimes surprising.
  89. Maria Full of Grace
    The depiction of her risky voyage and what happens afterward is highly suspenseful and entirely believable.
  90. Beautiful People
    Dizdar inventively examines bigotry, combining daring humor and hyperbole, dark realism and shining idealism.
  91. That Thing You Do!
    Though Hanks keeps the satirical and critical aspects of this look at show biz fairly light, there's a lot of conviction and savvy behind the steadiness of his gaze, and his economy in evoking the flavor of the period at the beginning of the picture is priceless.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Pauline and Paulette
    Might easily have been mawkish; instead it has a light comic edge and a dignity built on the fine characterization of Pauline.
  93. 16 Blocks
    Def and Willis are both good, but Donner's lethal weapon here is Morse, a chronically overlooked character actor whose combined tenderness and ruthlessness make him the most fascinating heavy since Robert Ryan.
  94. After the Thin Man
    The most elegant title for a sequel in film history belongs, happily, to one of the most elegant sequels.
  95. Iron Monkey
    Scenes of ingenious slapstick violence.
  96. Postcards from the Edge
    Among the pleasures to be found here are some amusing sidelong glances at how movies get made and the singing talent of Streep as well as MacLaine. There's not much depth here, but Nichols does a fine job with the surface effects, and the wisecracks keep coming.
  97. Djomeh
    Hassan Yektapanah's first film attests to the deceptive simplicity of Iranian cinema, transforming the most minimal of props, scenes, and stories into a complex journey of discovery.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Turtles Can Fly
    There's no denying his (Ghobadi's) talent for suspense or his ability to get riveting performances from nonprofessionals.
  99. Quills
    Ridiculous enough to be hilarious, but this didn't prevent me from thoroughly enjoying Philip Kaufman's silly romp.
  100. Beyond the Clouds
    This is why movies were invented.
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