Chicago Sun-Times' Scores

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For 8,158 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: 6,087 out of 8158
  2. Mixed: 1,243 out of 8158
  3. Negative: 828 out of 8158
8158 movie reviews
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  1. Abandon
    A moody, effective thriller for about 80 percent of the way, and then our hands close on air. If you walk out before the ending, you'll think it's better than it is.
  2. Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald
    While the performances are solid and we do get a few touching moments, the film sinks under the weight of too many intersecting storylines and too many loud and fiery and surprisingly mediocre action sequences.
  3. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
    There is clear definition between closer and further elements. I've seen a lot of 3-D recently, and in terms of technical quality, this is the best.
  4. Shrink
    Kevin Spacey brings another of his cynical, bitter characters to life -- very smart, and fresh out of hope -- but the movie doesn't give him much of anywhere to take it.
  5. The Fountain
    When a film telling three stories and spanning thousands of years has a running time of 96 minutes, scenes must have been cut out. There will someday be a Director’s Cut of this movie, and that’s the cut I want to see.
  6. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
    Whatever happened to the delight and, if you'll excuse the term, the magic in the "Harry Potter" series? As the characters grow up, the stories grow, too, leaving the innocence behind and confusing us with plots so labyrinthine that it takes a Ph.D from Hogwarts to figure them out.
  7. The Gumball Rally
    The Gumball Rally is an easily forgettable entertainment, but at least it has a certain amount of class. "Cannonball" was straight exploitation.
  8. Torque
    The first three minutes convince us we're are looking at a commercial before the feature begins. Then we realize the whole movie will look like this.
  9. When You Finish Saving the World
    Eisenberg is a fine writer and shows clear promise as a visual storyteller, but it becomes a chore to spend even an 88-minute movie with his increasingly off-putting characters. We know they’re not supposed to be likable, but they should be more interesting.
  10. Harrison's Flowers
    The movie exhibits the usual indifference to the issues involved. Although it was written and directed by Elie Chouraqui, a Frenchman, it is comfortably xenophobic. Most Americans have never understood the differences among Croats, Serbs and Bosnians, and this film is no help.
  11. The Butterfly Effect
    There's so much flashing forward and backward, so many spins of fate, so many chapters in the journals, that after awhile I felt that I, as well as time, was being jerked around.
  12. Anyone But You
    It leans HARD into the romantic comedy tropes, to the point that you might find yourself giving into the silliness and the over-the-top embracing of so many clichés. It’s like you’re getting bombarded with rom-com snowballs for the entire movie.
  13. The Crazies
    A perfectly competent genre film in a genre that has exhausted its interest for me, the Zombie Film.
  14. Jingle All the Way
    I liked a lot of the movie, which is genial and has a lot of energy, but I was sort of depressed by its relentlessly materialistic view of Christmas, and by the choice to go with action and (mild) violence over dialogue and plot.
  15. No Man's Land
    Conor Allyn’s No Man’s Land is filled with noble ideas about the value of listening to and learning from the “other side” in the immigration crisis, but as it becomes increasingly heavy-handed, we feel as if we’re sitting in on a lecture.
  16. Balls of Fury
    The first movie combining Ping-Pong and kung-fu and co-starring Maggie Q. How many could there be?
  17. Beatriz at Dinner
    Beatriz at Dinner is entertaining enough as farce — but over the course of a feature-length film, the characters actually become more one-dimensional and less believable.
  18. No God, No Master
    No God, No Master has an authentic period feel. But Green is focused on so many historical figures and potential storylines that the film feels rushed and, at times, confusing.
  19. Daughters of Darkness
    A fairly stylish adult vampire movie, and Delphine Seyrig (last seen wandering about a resort hotel in Last Year at Marienbad) is a most satisfactory vampire.
  20. Kaboom
    The movie has been cast, designed, clothed, scored and edited to the bleeding edge of hip, but it hasn't exactly been written.
  21. Blow
    Take away the drugs, and this is the story of a boring life in wholesale.
  22. Snowman's Land
    I can see what Thomson is getting at and even sort of appreciate it at times; the movie isn't boring, but it meanders and loses track of plot threads. Any feelings we have for the characters is muted because they all richly deserve to die at one another's hands.
  23. The Stepfather
    The Stepfather has one wonderful element: Terry O'Quinn's performance.
  24. From the Rough
    Yes, it’s another sports movie about underdogs reaching for the stars and winning, but what makes it unique is Starks’ interesting story and the fact that it’s about golf.
  25. Father of the Bride Part II
    Father of the Bride Part II is not a great movie and not even as good as its 1991 inspiration. But it is warm and fuzzy, and has some good laughs and a lot of sweetness.
  26. How Stella Got Her Groove Back
    How Stella Got Her Groove Back tries its best to turn a paperback romance into a relationship worth making a movie about, but fails.
  27. The Silent Twins
    For all its stylistic flourishes, “The Silent Twins” winds up a relatively superficial entry in the genre of mental health biopics.
  28. The Way Back
    There is an irony here. The film exhibits an admirable determination to do justice to a real story, but the story's not real.
  29. Double Jeopardy
    Not a successful thriller, but with some nice dramatic scenes along with the dumb mystery and contrived conclusion.
  30. So I Married an Axe Murderer
    So I Married an Axe Murderer is a mediocre movie with a good one trapped inside, wildly signaling to be set free. The good movie involves a droll and eccentric Scottish-American family whose household embraces more of the trappings of Scottishness than your average Glasgow souvenir shop. The bad movie is about a young man's romance with a woman he comes to suspect is an ax murderer.
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