Chicago Sun-Times' Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Select another publication »
For 8,157 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 73% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 25% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 6.1 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 71
Highest review score: 100 Falling from Grace
Lowest review score: 0 Jupiter Ascending
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 6,086 out of 8157
  2. Mixed: 1,243 out of 8157
  3. Negative: 828 out of 8157
8157 movie reviews
view
per page
  1. Never Say Never Again
    What makes Never Say Never Again more fun than most of the Bonds is more complex than that. For one thing, there's more of a human element in the movie, and it comes from Klaus Maria Brandauer, as Largo. Brandauer is a wonderful actor, and he chooses not to play the villain as a cliché. Instead, he brings a certain poignancy and charm to Largo, and since Connery always has been a particularly human James Bond, the emotional stakes are more convincing this time.
  2. Ju Dou
    The film appealed to me for two reasons. First, because of its unabashed, lurid melodrama, in which the days are filled with scheming and the nights with passion and violence. Second, because of its visual beauty.
  3. Seven
    A dark, grisly, horrifying and intelligent thriller.
  4. The Girl Cut in Two
    The plot was probably inspired by an actual event, which I will not mention because you may be familiar with it. In any event, Chabrol's insidious style is more absorbing than the plot, as it should be.
  5. Changeling
    Jolie, Malkovich and Geoff Pierson, as a lawyer who takes Collins' case before the Police Board, are very good at what they do very well. The film's most riveting performance is by Jason Butler Harner as the murderous Gordon Northcott.
  6. A Hologram for the King
    Writer-director Tom Tykwer is clearly a fan of the source material, and he has done an admirable job of taking a melancholy, beautifully rendered piece of prose and catapulting it to visual life.
  7. Solitary Man
    Douglas plays Ben as charismatic, he plays him shameless, he plays him as brave, and very gradually, he learns to play him as himself. That's the only role left.
  8. Memories of Me
    The best moments in the movie involve tightly knit dialogue scenes between King and Crystal, who co-wrote the movie. Their timing has the almost effortless music of two professionals who have spent their lifetimes learning how to put the right spin on a word.
  9. Nine 1/2 Weeks
    A project of this sort depends crucially on the chemistry between its actors, and Kim Basinger and Mickey Rourke develop an erotic tension in this movie that is convincing, complicated and sensual.
  10. Pina
    I watched the film in a sort of reverie. The dancers seemed particularly absorbed. They had performed these dances many times before, but always with Pina Bausch present. Now they were on their own, in homage.
  11. I Love You, Man
    Above all, just plain funny. It's funny with some dumb physical humor, yes, and some gross-out jokes apparently necessary to all buddy movies, but also funny in observations, dialogue, physical behavior and Sydney Fife's observations as a people-watcher.
  12. Thieves Like Us
    Like so much of his work, Robert Altman’s Thieves Like Us has to be approached with a certain amount of imagination. Some movies are content to offer us escapist experiences and hope we’ll be satisfied. But you can’t sink back and simply absorb an Altman film; he’s as concerned with style as subject, and his preoccupation isn’t with story or character, but with how he’s showing us his tale.
  13. Free State of Jones
    This is no history lesson, but it’s mainstream Hollywood entertainment that respects the history and seems to invite discussion and debate.
  14. The Dish
    It placed second for the People's Choice Award at the 2000 Toronto Film Festival--after "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." That's about right.
  15. Trishna
    As a melodrama, Trishna builds a hypnotic force.
  16. Red Rocket
    Red Rocket is the latest blazingly original gem from director/co-writer Sean Baker, who in films such as Tangerine and The Florida Project has displayed an uncanny ability to carve out offbeat slices of life in the American subculture.
  17. Hamlet
    It's a strong, intelligent performance [by Gibson], filled with life, and it makes this into a surprisingly robust Hamlet.
  18. Brooklyn Castle
    Katie Dellamaggiore's inspiring documentary covers two years in the history of the school chess team, during which one team member, Rochelle Ballantyn, approaches her dream of becoming the first female African-American grandmaster in U.S history.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Like Someone in Love
    The film's craziest, most easily mocked character emerges as the one most fully alive. Old Kiarostami, master of paradoxes, is set in his ways, but his ways are never set.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    The Best Intentions
    Not only does The Best Intentions work, it works so well that its emotions are hard to shake off. Here's an epic that pulls no punches in depicting the crushing, unresolvable conflict that frequently defines marriage more than hugs and kisses. Here's that rare soap opera with more hard lather than soft suds. [14 Aug 1992, p.42]
    • Chicago Sun-Times
  21. Deconstructing Harry
    This is in many ways his most revealing film, his most painful, and if it also contains more than his usual quotient of big laughs, what was it the man said? "We laugh, that we may not cry."
  22. Punch 9 for Harold Washington
    We’re gifted with the powerful and comprehensive documentary, Punch 9 for Harold Washington, which serves as an invaluable reminder of that time in Chicago and American history for those of us who were around in the early 1980s, and a must-see piece of living history for younger generations.
  23. The Last Days of Disco
    If Scott Fitzgerald were to return to life, he would feel at home in a Whit Stillman movie. Stillman listens to how people talk, and knows what it reveals about them.
  24. The Squid and the Whale
    All I know is, it is better to be the whale than the squid. Whales inspire major novels.
  25. Before Night Falls
    There is a little something of the spoiled masochist about Arenas. One would not say he seeks misery, but he wears it like a badge of honor, and we can see his mistakes approaching before he does. This is not a weakness in the film but one of its intriguing strengths
  26. Yi Yi
    Only rarely is a film this observant and tender about the ups and downs of daily existence.
  27. Farewell, My Queen
    Benoit Jacquot's engrossing film tells a story we know well, seen from a point of view we may not have considered.
  28. Pain and Glory
    Almodovar’s stylized and meta slice of self-representation is as visually stunning as it is emotionally effective.
  29. Thirteen
    Who is this movie for? Not for most 13-year-olds, that's for sure. The R rating is richly deserved, no matter how much of a lark the poster promises. Maybe the film is simply for those who admire fine, focused acting and writing.
  30. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
    It involves some of the best use of 3-D I've seen in an animated feature. It also introduces a masterstroke that essentially allows the series to take place anywhere: There is this land beneath the surface of the earth, you see...
  31. Nine Lives
    A movie like this, with the appearance of new characters and situations, focuses us; we watch more intently, because it is important what happens.
  32. Steve Jobs
    As can be said of most Apple products, it’s a wonder to behold — despite a few irritating glitches.
  33. The Green Mile
    As Darabont directs it, it tells a story with beginning, middle, end, vivid characters, humor, outrage and emotional release. Dickensian.
  34. The Flat
    Is something being hidden? No. It's more that something doesn't want to be known.
  35. Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace
    An astonishing achievement in imaginative filmmaking.
  36. Atlantis: The Lost Empire
    Rousing in an old pulp science fiction sort of way, but the climactic scene transcends the rest, and stands by itself as one of the great animated action sequences.
  37. Leviathan
    The masterful script deals with telling words.
  38. How to Lose Friends & Alienate People
    Possibly the best movie that could be made about Toby Young that isn't rated NC-17.
  39. Please Give
    The movie is about imperfect characters in a difficult world, who mostly do the best they can under the circumstances, but not always. Do you realize what a revolutionary approach that is for a movie these days?
  40. We Have a Pope
    There are elements of comedy here, and some very low-key slapstick, but the film is respectful to the Catholic Church and the papacy and takes no cheap shots.
  41. A Late Quartet
    A Late Quartet does one of the most interesting things any film can do. It shows how skilled professionals work.
  42. La faute à Fidel!
    The film contains a surprising amount of understated humor. It is not a grim portrayal of a harsh upbringing, but an affectionate portrait of parents who will be able to change the world before they will be able to change their daughter.
  43. Predestination
    A meticulously crafted, sparse but beautifully photographed full-length feature film with strong work from a reliable veteran and a breakout performance from an actor you might not have heard of before.
  44. Che
    Benicio Del Toro, one of the film's producers, gives a heroic performance, not least because it's self-effacing.
  45. Shutter Island
    The film's primary effect is on the senses. Everything is brought together into a disturbing foreshadow of dreadful secrets.
  46. Monsieur Lazhar
    One of the qualities of Monsieur Lazhar is that it has no simple questions and simple answers. Its purpose is to present us with a situation, explore the people involved and show us a man who is dealing with his own deep hurts.
  47. Fever Pitch
    The movie has been directed by the Farrelly brothers...Here, they're sensitive and warm-hearted, never push too hard, empathize with the characters, allow Lindsey and Ben to become people we care about.
  48. The Circle
    The Circle is all the more depressing when we consider that Iran is relatively liberal compared to, say, Afghanistan under the Taliban.
  49. Raising Victor Vargas
    It's the kind of movie you know you can trust, and you give yourself over to affection for these characters who are so lovingly observed.
  50. The Gentlemen
    The Gentlemen never ceases to surprise and amuse.
  51. A Quiet Place Part II
    A Quiet Place Part II might not carry quite the same original wallop as the original (how could it?), but this is a meticulously crafted, spine-tingling, fantastically choreographed monster movie that expands the canvas, works as a stand-alone story and leaves us wanting more from this franchise.
  52. Boy
    A film like this would have little chance without the right casting, and James Rolleston is so right as Boy, it's difficult to imagine anyone else.
  53. Under solen
    Movies like this are not for everyone, but arrive like private messages for their own particular audiences.
  54. Dirty Pretty Things
    The strength of the thriller genre is that it provides stories with built-in energy and structure. The weakness is that thrillers often seem to follow foreseeable formulas. Frears and his writer, Steve Knight, use the power of the thriller and avoid the weaknesses in giving us, really, two movies for the price of one.
  55. Another Round
    The cast is outstanding, with Mikkelsen leading the way in a nomination-level performance as Martin. Another Round is filled with memorable sequences.
  56. Wake in Fright (1971)
    It's not dated. It is powerful, genuinely shocking and rather amazing.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    1,000 Times Good Night
    Binoche does an excellent job showing her character’s conflict, though it is not until later in the movie that we learn why she so eagerly runs into danger.
  58. Hellboy
    One of those rare movies that's not only based on a comic book, but also feels like a comic book. It's vibrating with energy, and you can sense the zeal and joy in its making.
  59. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
    Co-directors Joe and Anthony Russo and the team of screenwriters have fashioned a story with just the right balance of superhero fun, nods to the greater Marvel Universe and genuine dramatic tension.
  60. Spring Breakers
    A candy-colored fever dream is the most unforgettable movie of the year so far.
  61. Still Bill
    Still Bill is about a man who topped the charts, walked away from it all in 1985 and is pleased that he did.
  62. Lost Girls & Love Hotels
    This is one of the better intimate dramas of the year.
  63. Why Stop Now
    Why Stop Now takes large themes much manhandled as movie cliches, and treats them with care and respect. It likes the characters. So did I.
  64. Rain Man
    How can you make a movie about a man who cannot change, whose whole life is anchored and defended by routine? Few actors could get anywhere with this challenge, and fewer still could absorb and even entertain us with their performance, but Hoffman proves again that he almost seems to thrive on impossible acting challenges.
  65. School of Rock
    If quirky, independent, grown-up outsider filmmakers set out to make a family movie, this is the kind of movie they would make. And they did.
  66. Mulan
    Mulan is an impressive achievement, with a story and treatment ranking with "Beauty and the Beast" and "The Lion King."
  67. 2 Days in New York
    What impresses me more is that she (Delpy) has a lighthearted way about her and takes chances in comedies like this. It is hard enough to be good at all, but to be good in comedy speaks for your character.
  68. Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)
    Robbie turns in a much richer and funnier and layered performance as Harley this time around, thanks in large part to the stiletto-sharp screenplay by Christina Hodson.
  69. Twice in a Lifetime
    The movie does not have a conventional happy ending. Life will go on, and people will strive, and new routines will replace old ones. The movie has no villains and few heroes. But it has given us several remarkable scenes, especially two confrontations between Madigan and Hackman, one in a bar, the other at a wedding rehearsal, in which the movie shows how much children expect from their parents, and how little the parents often have to give.
  70. Run All Night
    Even though it feels as if we’ve seen this movie before, Run All Night is a stylish and kinetic thriller, with Neeson at his gritty, world-weary best, some of the coolest camera moves in recent memory and a Hall of Fame villain in the great Ed Harris.
  71. Bright Star
    What Campion does is seek visual beauty to match Keats' verbal beauty. There is a shot here of Fanny in a meadow of blue flowers that is so enthralling it beggars description.
  72. Collateral
    This is a rare thriller that's as much character study as sound and fury.
  73. One Life
    This is every inch the prestige Brit biopic, from the use of certain visuals as transitions to the lush and rousing music by Oscar-winning composer Volker Bertelmann aka Hauschka (“All Quiet on the Western Front”) to the sometimes heavy-handed messaging in the dialogue, but the story of the man who came to be known as “The British Oskar Schindler” is deserving of the reverent biography treatment, and who better than Anthony Hopkins to tell us that story?
  74. My Bodyguard
    There is a terrifying moment in adolescence when suddenly some of the kids are twice as big as the rest of the kids. It is terrifying for everybody: For the kids who are suddenly tall and gangling, and for the kids who are still small and are getting beat up all the time. My Bodyguard places that moment in a Chicago high school and gives us a kid who tries to think his way out of it.
  75. The Shootist
    The cast is excellent because it understands the material, and sympathizes with it: James Stewart, as the doctor, and Lauren Bacall, as the widow, play scenes with Wayne that absolutely make us forget we're watching a movie.
  76. Joe Gould's Secret
    There is anguish here that makes "American Beauty" pale by comparison.
  77. Linoleum
    Linoleum winds its way to an ending that will take some by storm, while others might have figured it out halfway through. Either way, it feels authentic, and earned, and it might just take your breath away.
  78. Trolls
    On all levels, Trolls delivers. It is nicely paced, the jokes are spot-on (and will work for both the kids and their parents) and, again, this is visually a very special piece of animated artistry.
  79. Horse Girl
    Brie’s performance is open and honest and disturbing and funny and lovely and resonant. The work is so good and so convincing that even when Sarah is spouting the craziest of her mad theories, there’s a small part of us that wonders if Sarah’s truth is the real truth. We certainly believe SHE believes.
  80. Hellboy II: The Golden Army
    Imagine the forges of hell crossed with the extraterrestrial saloon on Tatooine, and you have a notion of Guillermo del Toro's Hellboy II: The Golden Army.
  81. All Quiet on the Western Front
    Making great use of 21st century technology, this latest version is the most visually sweeping and impressive version yet, and it comes close to matching the original for its visceral, gut-punch effect.
  82. Thief
    It's one of those films where you feel the authority right away: This movie knows its characters, knows its story, and knows exactly how it wants to tell us about them.
  83. Boys on the Side
    This movie is not a collection of parts from other films. It's an original, and what it does best is show how strangers can become friends, and friends can become like family.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Upside Down
    This is one of the craziest films to come along in a while and I can confidently say that anyone who sees it will either hail it is some kind of crackpot masterpiece or dismiss it as one of the silliest damn things they've ever seen.
  85. Money Monster
    Thanks to a stylish directorial turn by Jodie Foster and the shining star power of George Clooney and Julia Roberts (as well as a first-rate supporting cast), Money Monster rises above an uneven script that veers from clever and insightful to heavy-handed and obvious — sometimes within the same scene.
  86. Rosewood
    But if the movie were simply the story of this event, it would be no more than a sad record. What makes it more is the way it shows how racism breeds and feeds, and is taught by father to son.
  87. Texasville
    The town seems to be as preoccupied as ever with its own personalities and memories, as if it were sitting for its portrait.
  88. Titus
    A brilliant and absurd film of "Titus Andronicus" that goes over the top, doubles back and goes over the top again.
  89. I Capture the Castle
    We like these people, which is important, and we are amused by them, which is helpful, but most of all we envy them, because they negotiate their romantic perplexities with such dash and style.
  90. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
    Despite jumping through the deliberately disorienting hoops of its story, Eternal Sunshine has an emotional center, and that's what makes it work.
  91. Prizzi's Honor
    This is the most bizarre comedy in many a month, a movie so dark, so cynical and so funny that perhaps only Jack Nicholson and Kathleen Turner could have kept straight faces during the love scenes. They do.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Upstream Color
    A romance, a thriller, and a science-fiction drama, Upstream Color tantalizes viewers with an open-ended narrative about overcoming personal loss.
  93. The Sum of All Fears
    Director Phil Alden Robinson and his writers, Paul Attanasio and Daniel Pyne, do a spellbinding job of cranking up the tension, they create a portrait of convincing realism, and then they add the other stuff because, well, if anybody ever makes a movie like this without the obligatory Hollywood softeners, audiences might flee the theater in despair.
  94. Chasing Amy
    While the surface of his film sparkles with sharp, ironic dialogue, deeper issues are forming, and Chasing Amy develops into a film of touching insights.
  95. The Shape of Water
    It’s certainly one of the most romantic and one of the most breathtakingly beautiful movies of the year.
  96. Life Is Beautiful
    Finds the right notes to negotiate its delicate subject matter.
  97. Pumpkin
    Is alive, and takes chances, and uses the wicked blade of satire in order to show up the complacent political correctness of other movies in its campus genre.
  98. Celeste and Jesse Forever
    I'm not surprised that Rashida Jones took the lead in writing this screenplay; the way things are going now, if an actress doesn't write a good role for herself, no one else is going to write one.
  99. Bird
    Bird wisely does not attempt to "explain" Parker's music by connecting experiences with musical discoveries. This is a film of music, not about it, and one of the most extraordinary things about it is that we are really, literally, hearing Parker on the soundtrack.
  100. Rumble Fish
    I thought Rumble Fish was offbeat, daring, and utterly original.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »