Chicago Sun-Times' Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Select another publication »
For 8,156 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: 6,085 out of 8156
  2. Mixed: 1,243 out of 8156
  3. Negative: 828 out of 8156
8156 movie reviews
view
per page
  1. The Boys Are Back
    Clive Owen can be a likable actor, but the character is working against him...And please, please, give us a break from the scenes where the ghost of the departed turns up and starts talking as if she's not dead.
  2. Paranormal Activity
    An ingenious little horror film, so well made it's truly scary.
  3. The Providence Effect
    Impressive, although not quite the film it could have been. It asks few hard questions.
  4. Capitalism: A Love Story
    The film's title is never explained. What does Moore mean? Maybe it's that capitalism means never having to say you're sorry.
  5. Irene in Time
    It offers certain pleasures, but suffers from an inability to structure events or know when to end a shot. And it has an ending that is simply, perhaps ridiculously, incomprehensible.
  6. 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.
  7. The Informant!
    As Soderbergh lovingly peels away veil after veil of deception, the film develops into an unexpected human comedy. Not that any of the characters are laughing.
  8. Jennifer's Body
    It's not art, it's not “Juno,” it's not “Girlfight,” for that matter, but as a movie about a flesh-eating cheerleader, it's better than it has to be.
  9. Paris
    Every character has life and depth. It's unusual for an episodic film to involve us so well in individual lives; as the narrative circles through their stories, we're genuinely curious about what will happen next.
  10. The Burning Plain
    Told chronologically, it might have accumulated considerable power. Told as a labyrinthine tangle of intercut timelines and locations, it is a frustrating exercise in self-indulgence by writer-director Guillermo Arriaga.
  11. Disgrace
    This is such a rare movie. Its characters are uncompromisingly themselves, flawed, stubborn, vulnerable.
  12. Harmony and Me
    Bob Byington directs with an exact sense of what he wants; consider the perfect timing of his use of Harmony's mom (Margie Beegle). How she says "don't ask me" and "leave me out of it" is unreasonably funny.
  13. 35 Shots of Rum
    You can live in a movie like this.
  14. 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.
  15. The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers
    It is a skillful, well-made film, although, since Ellsberg is the narrator, it doesn't probe him very deeply.
  16. 9
    The best reason to see it is simply because of the creativity of its visuals. They're entrancing.
  17. Walt & El Grupo
    The result: No other studio could produce historical treasure like this from its vaults.
  18. Extract
    Sort of entertaining, but lacks the focus and comic energy of Judge's "Office Space" (1999), and to believe that Suzie would be attracted to the gigolo requires not merely the suspension of disbelief, but its demolition.
  19. All About Steve
    The screenplay by Kim Barker requires Bullock to behave in an essentially disturbing way that began to wear on me. It begins as merely peculiar, moves on to miscalculation and becomes seriously annoying.
  20. Amreeka
    A heartwarming film, not a political dirge. Much of this warmth comes from the actress Nisreen Faour.
  21. Black Dynamite
    It's one of those loving modern retreads of older genre movies.
  22. Big Fan
    One of the more thought-provoking sports movies I've seen.
  23. The September Issue
    What comes across is that she is, after all, a very good editor.
  24. We Live in Public
    This is a remarkable film about a strange and prophetic man. What does it tell us? Did living a virtual life destroy him?
  25. Wolke Neun
    These performances are so quietly effective that we watch, absorbed. I'm not sure, however, that where this film comes from quite earns the place it goes to.
  26. Play the Game
    The screenplay, written by first-time director Marc Fienberg, fervently stays true to an ancient sitcom tradition.
  27. Taking Woodstock
    Taking Woodstock has the freshness of something being created, not remembered.
  28. Post Grad
    It's a screwball comedy. It's also, I have to say, a feel-good movie that made me smile a lot.
  29. Inglourious Basterds
    A big, bold, audacious war movie that will annoy some, startle others and demonstrate once again that he’s (Tarantino) the real thing, a director of quixotic delights.
  30. The Baader Meinhof Complex
    The film would have benefitted by being less encompassing and focusing on a more limited number of emblematic characters -- Meinhof and Herold, for starters.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »