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 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. 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...
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