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. Tina
    Through a treasure trove of archival footage, interviews with former backup singers and songwriters and other associates of Tina’s, as well as a series of interviews filmed with Turner (who is now 81) at her Shangri-La-esque chateau in Zurich, Tina is must-see for longtime fans and, perhaps more important, millennials who might not grasp just how much of an influence Tina Turner has been on generations of performers — regardless of gender.
  2. Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street
    Mr. Henson left behind a body of work that continues to endure today, but a great deal of his legacy remains on Sesame Street, and this film tells us exactly how he and everyone else got there.
  3. Joe Versus the Volcano
    It is not an entirely successful movie, but it is new and fresh and not shy of taking chances. And the dialogue in it is actually worth listening to, because it is written with wit and romance.
  4. Waking Sleeping Beauty
    The most fascinating scenes in Waking Sleeping Beauty involve the infamous Disney work ethic. Friends of mine at the studio said the unofficial motto was, "If you didn't come in on Saturday, don't even bother to come in on Sunday."
  5. The Perfect Storm
    A well-crafted example of a film of pure sensation. I do not mind admitting I was enthralled.
  6. All the President's Men
    It provides the most observant study of working journalists we're ever likely to see in a feature film. And it succeeds brilliantly in suggesting the mixture of exhilaration, paranoia, self-doubt, and courage that permeated the Washington Post as its two young reporters went after a presidency.
  7. Barton Fink
    A black comedy in the tradition of David Lynch, Luis Bunuel and the Coens themselves...an assured piece of comic filmmaking.
  8. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
    A remarkable documentary by two Irish filmmakers that is playing in theaters on its way to HBO. It is remarkable because the filmmakers, Kim Bartley and Donnacha O'Briain, had access to virtually everything that happened within the palace during the entire episode.
  9. Tamara Drewe
    Tamara Drewe is one of those British comedies in which, one way or another, we envy all of the characters.
  10. The Dead Zone
    The Dead Zone does what only a good supernatural thriller can do: It makes us forget it is supernatural.
  11. Hearts in Atlantis
    Rarely does a movie make you feel so warm and so uneasy at the same time.
  12. Rogers Park
    Rogers Park is poetic and lovely and muscular and unforgiving at the same time, much like the area itself and the city as a whole.
  13. WALL-E
    Succeeds at being three things at once: an enthralling animated film, a visual wonderment and a decent science-fiction story.
  14. Bopha!
    It is a great performance by Danny Glover, the portrait of a proud man who discovers his pride was entrusted to the wrong things.
  15. Maggie's Plan
    It’s a fine brew, equal parts cynical and whimsical, dark and sunny. It’s fairly slight but nearly great.
  16. The Bridges of Madison County
    It is easy to analyze the mechanism, but more difficult to explain why this film is so deeply moving.
  17. Fly Away Home
    What I will remember is the photography, and the bliss (just this side of madness) with which the Jeff Daniels character invents his foolhardy schemes.
  18. The Survivor
    We believe every frame of this performance, whether Harry is an emaciated figure in the ring in the concentration camp, a formidable opponent as a pro fighter in America or an older man who seems to have found some measure of peace in his life, though the horrific memories will never die.
  19. Sleight
    In a film about a magician, the most impressive trick in Sleight is how director and co-writer J.D. Dillard is able to spin such a memorable and unique tale on a micro-budget.
  20. French Postcards
    It was produced, written and directed by Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, who also wrote American Graffiti, and it has the same sharp memory for those specific moments when young people suspect they are doing certain things for the last times in their lives. So it is bittersweet, of course -- bittersweet, that indispensable street you travel through adolescence on.
  21. Weiner
    The cameras simply follow Weiner’s every move, which includes disastrous public appearances, embarrassing press conferences, and media interviews that don’t exactly go Weiner’s way.
  22. The Harder They Fall
    Even with all the shootouts and robberies and action sequences, this is also a wonderful showcase for screen-stealing acting, with virtually everyone in the all-star cast getting some center stage moments and knocking it out of the park. This is one of those movies where we sense the cast had just as much fun making it as we have watching it.
  23. Cold Weather
    Good in so many subtle ways, I despair of doing them justice.
  24. The Bill Murray Stories: Life Lessons Learned from a Mythical Man
    This movie had me smiling from start to finish. Murray can be a mercurial and elusive figure, but we come away from this doc convinced there is nothing cynical or self-serving or ego-driven about his interactions with “regular” folks.
  25. Patriots Day
    Overall, this is a Boston Strong film about one of the worst terrorist attacks ever on American soil, and a community’s resounding response.
  26. Sonatine
    It shows how violent gangster movies need not be filled with stupid dialogue, nonstop action and gratuitous gore. Sonatine is pure, minimal and clean in its lines.
  27. Courage Under Fire
    The end of the film understandably lays on the emotion a little heavily, but until then Courage Under Fire has been a fascinating emotional and logistical puzzle--almost a courtroom movie, with the desert as the courtroom.
  28. Everything Is Illuminated
    A film that grows in reflection. The first time I saw it, I was hurtling down the tracks of a goofy ethnic comedy when suddenly we entered dark and dangerous territory. I admired the film but did not sufficiently appreciate its arc.
  29. Hard Candy
    Hard Candy is impressive and effective. As for what else it may be, each audience member will have to decide.
  30. The X Files: I Want to Believe
    The movie works like thrillers used to work, before they were required to contain villains the size of buildings.
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