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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    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Le Havre
    The film is especially comforting if you love old movies, as Kaurismaki does: his deadpan humor and deliberately flattened images evoke silent comedy, as usual, and his rosy depiction of proletarian camaraderie recalls the 30s and 40s work of Marcel Carné (particularly Le Jour se Leve).
  2. The Cat's Meow
    If it speaks with a quieter voice than many of Bogdanovich's early pictures, what it has to say seems substantially more personal and thoughtful.
  3. Nowhere Boy
    The maternal triangle is pretty well handled too, giving a good sense of where Lennon came by all that exuberance and melancholy.
  4. Men in Black
    Don't expect any psychological depth here, but the cool wit and fun... are deftly maintained, and Sonnenfeld provides a bountiful supply of both fanciful beasties and ingenious visuals.
  5. I Shot Andy Warhol
    If you want to know what the Warhol scene was all about, this is even better than the documentaries.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    My Mother's Smile
    In his best film in years, Marco Bellocchio crafts a stringently moral tale that carries a hint of horror.
  7. Heavy
    The performances are strong (my favorite is Deborah Harry as an older waitress) and the sense of eroded as well as barely articulated lives is palpable.
  8. The Ice Harvest
    A funny but genuinely dark story.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Devil's Miner
    A powerful indictment of the horrendous treatment of children who toil in hellish Bolivian silver mines. The filmmakers are better at fashioning haunting images than offering hard-nosed analysis, yet they never sentimentalize their young protagonists' plight.
  10. The Good Thief
    Melville's seedy characters and engrossing friendships are well preserved, thanks largely to strategic redeployment of his crisp dialogue. As revamped caper films go, this offers considerably more texture than Steven Soderbergh's "Ocean's 11."
  11. 24 City
    Beautiful and challenging documentary.
  12. The School of Flesh
    Subtly profound love story.
  13. Like Crazy
    This indie drama starts off as a sexy little date movie, but once the lovers have been separated it grows steadily more complicated and mature.
  14. Manito
    Franky G.'s performance as the protective yet combustible older brother is as real as it gets.
  15. Big Man Japan
    Hysterically funny CGI fight sequences, which pit the chubby superhero against a series of creatures so bizarre they'd keep Hieronymus Bosch awake at night.
  16. After Life
    Though it comes across as labored in spots, it also yields a good many beautiful and suggestive moments, and an overall film experience of striking originality.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Robots
    The net effect of which is like a prolonged visit to an amusement park--kids will love it.
  18. Poltergeist
    Though the shocks are well conveyed, it's the sweetness that lingers, making this the first cute and cuddly entry in the genre.
  19. Is Anybody There?
    The sentimentality is held in check by Caine, who rises to the occasion with a bleak, angry performance.
  20. Frailty
    It's good old-fashioned rural gothic that would make Flannery O'Connor proud, with tricky switcheroos that keep shaking up our assumptions about what's going on.
  21. The Howling
    The film slides into its situation in a clever, fresh way, and the balance of wit and horror is well maintained throughout, though Sayles's decision to divide up the protagonist's chores among four main characters costs him something in the intensity of audience identification.
  22. Parents
    The script runs out of ideas long before he does, and the film doesn't build dramatically as much as it could. But it's an impressive debut, full of bizarre imagination and visual flair—a must for fans of offbeat horror films.
  23. Asylum
    David Mackenzie, who directed the remarkable Scottish drama "Young Adam" (2003), delivers another masterful, disturbing tale of illicit passion, erotic obsession, and sudden death set in the 1950s.
  24. Merci Pour Le Chocolat
    Unfortunately, a conclusion stuffed with so many improbabilities that it left me gaping in disbelief. Prior to that, this is pretty much fun.
  25. Inside Job
    "American Casino" and Michael Moore's "Capitalism: A Love Story" offered more striking images of the human wreckage, but Ferguson is more successful at nailing the perpetrators in New York and their gullible accomplices in Washington.
  26. Wild Strawberries
    There's a lot of allegorical baggage on board, but the film's virtues lie in its relative simplicity.
  27. Our Song
    One girl's melancholy (beautifully expressed by actress Kerry Washington) is a response to a fractured romance.
  28. Bringing Out the Dead
    A text that provokes thought more than directs it, which should fascinate new and repeat viewers for a long time.
  29. A Beautiful Mind
    Director Ron Howard's deftness in suggesting the subjective experience of Crowe's character, who's later diagnosed with schizophrenia, makes for inspirational narrative.
  30. All Over the Guy
    Surprisingly, this didactic and self-consciously clever romantic comedy isn't annoying -- it's refreshing, moving, and at times quite funny.
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