Chicago Sun-Times' Scores

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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
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  1. The Hunt
    Vinterberg has created a modern horror story about a man’s descent into a Kafkaesque nightmare.
  2. Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
    The Boss is a poet with an axe, and sometimes an axe to grind — but whether he’s lamenting a tragedy or embracing the best of life, his works seem singularly American, through and through.
  3. Hoosiers
    In the way it combines sports with human nature, it reminded me of another wonderful Indiana sports movie, "Breaking Away." It's a movie that is all heart.
  4. A Touch of Sin
    A Touch of Sin is humanist critique of the country’s turn to capitalism.
  5. The Beguiled
    The 1971 version of The Beguiled was blunt and overheated and a little bit nuts. The 2017 edition is more sophisticated and nuanced — but it’s still a little bit nuts.
  6. Shanghai Noon
    If you see only one martial arts Western this year (and there is probably an excellent chance of that), this is the one.
  7. Carnal Knowledge
    Carnal Knowledge is clearly Mike Nichols' best film. It sets out to tell us certain things about these few characters and their sexual crucifixions, and it succeeds.
  8. Philomena
    Director Steven Frears deserves special mention. A lesser filmmaker could so easily have turned this project into mushy, sentimental junk. The tear-jerking moments here are heartfelt and real. It’s the kind of filmmaking we see too little of today.
  9. Get Low
    All of this is just plain enjoyable. I liked it, but please don't make me say it's deeply moving or redemptive and uplifting. It's a genre piece for character actors is what it is, and that's an honorable thing for it to be.
  10. Blue Collar
    It is an angry, radical movie about the vise that traps workers between big industry and big labor. It's also an enormously entertaining movie; it earns its comparison with On the Waterfront. And it's an extraordinary directing debut for Paul Schrader, whose credits include Taxi Driver and Rolling Thunder.
  11. Changing the Game
    Director Michael Barnett’s “Changing the Game” is an expertly crafted, empathetic, journalistically sound documentary following three strong, bright, likable and admirably accessible and forthcoming transgender teen athletes.
  12. The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
    In an era when hundreds of lives are casually destroyed in action movies, here is an entire film in which one life is honored, and one death is avenged.
    • 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
  14. Detroit
    Arriving in theaters almost exactly 50 years since the Detroit riots of late July 1967, Kathryn Bigelow’s Detroit is a searing, pulse-pounding, shocking and deeply effective dramatic interpretation of events in and around the Algiers Motel.
  15. 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.
  16. Logan
    For all its moodiness and melancholy, Logan is also a rip-roaring action film — and it’s wickedly funny at times as well.
  17. Stephanie Daley
    Some cases should never come to trial, because no verdict would be adequate. You are likely to be discussing this film long into the night.
  18. Water
    The best elements of Water involve the young girl and the experiences seen through her eyes. I would have been content if the entire film had been her story.
  19. The Rape of Europa
    A startling documentary.
  20. Italian for Beginners
    The film only wants to amuse. It's a reminder that Dogma films need not involve pathetic characters tormented by the misuse of their genitalia, but can simply want to have a little fun.
  21. Monsoon Wedding
    One of those joyous films that leaps over national boundaries and celebrates universal human nature.
  22. Bukowski: Born into This
    How much was legend, how much was pose, how much was real? I think it was all real, and the documentary suggests as much.
  23. Louder Than a Bomb
    Siskel and Jacobs focus on the performances, which are inspiring and electrifying.
  24. The Plot Against Harry
    This time capsule from 1970 feels, in 1990, like a jolt of fresh air.
  25. The Big Easy
    The Big Easy is one of the richest American films of the year. It also happens to be a great thriller.
  26. The Wife
    The Wife is visually arresting, but Runge wisely opts for a straightforward approach overall, giving center stage to the dialogue and the actors.
  27. Bedazzled
    In films of this sort, too often the camera records the fun instead of joining in it. However, that is certainly not the case in this magnificently photographed, intelligent, very funny film.
  28. How to Train Your Dragon 2
    Not only does this second movie match the charm, wit, animation skill and intelligent storytelling of the original, I think it even exceeds it.
  29. 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.
  30. Career Girls
    What is the use of a film like this? It inspires reflection... Mike Leigh's films realize that for most people, most days, life consists of the routine of earning a living, broken by fleeting thoughts of where our efforts will someday take us--financially, romantically, spiritually or even geographically. We never arrive in most of those places, but the mental images are what keep us trying.
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