Chicago Sun-Times' Scores

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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
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  1. 1900
    Bertolucci can direct great set pieces, of course, and some of his biggest scenes (like the outdoor dances that are his favorites) are spectacular. But he needs well-defined characters to anchor his stories, and he seems more confident when he drills into their psyches instead of spreading himself all over the ideological map.
  2. Looking for Mr. Goodbar
    The performance and the character are fully realized, even in this movie that finds room for so many loose ends and dead ends.
  3. Oh, God!
    Oh, God! is lighthearted, satirical, and humorous and (that rarest of qualities) in good taste.
  4. Julia
    Julia is the story of a fascinating woman, told from the point of view of someone who hardly knew her. That is, I realize, an unkind judgment against Lillian Hellman, whose wartime memoirs provide the inspiration for the story. But this movie's problems start with its point of view, and it never quite recovers from them.
  5. Bobby Deerfield
    A big, slick melodrama that knows exactly what it wants to accomplish and does so with great craft.
  6. The American Friend
    There's something cheerfully perverse about filming a thriller and then tossing out the parts that would help it make sense, but Wim Wenders has a certain success with the method in The American Friend.
  7. New York, New York
    Abandon your expectations of an orderly plot, and you'll end up humming the title song. The movie's a vast, rambling, nostalgic expedition back into the big band era, and a celebration of the considerable talents of Liza Minnelli and Robert De Niro.
  8. A Bridge Too Far
    The movie's big and expensive and filled with stars, but it's not an epic. It's the longest B-grade war movie ever made.
  9. Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope
    If I were asked to say with certainty which movies will still be widely known a century or two from now, I would list "2001,'' "The Wizard of Oz,'' Keaton and Chaplin, Astaire and Rogers, and probably "Casablanca'' ... and "Star Wars,'' for sure.
  10. Annie Hall
    Annie Hall is a movie about a man who is always looking for the loopholes in perfection. Who can turn everything into a joke, and wishes he couldn't.
  11. Airport '77
    The movie’s a big, slick entertainment, relentlessly ridiculous and therefore never boring for long.
  12. Freaky Friday
    The problems resulting from the switch of identities are fairly predictable, but fun: This is one of the better recent Disney productions.
  13. The Enforcer
    The Enforcer is the best of the Dirty Harry movies at striking a balance between the action and the humor. Sometimes in the previous films we felt uneasy laughing in between the bloodshed, but this time the movie's more thoughtfully constructed and paced.
  14. Nickelodeon
    A curiously flat movie. It functions like clockwork and it looks right, but it doesn't feel like much.
  15. A Star Is Born
    I enjoyed a lot of A Star Is Born. I thought Miss Streisand was distractingly miscast in the role, and yet I forgave her everything when she sang.
  16. The Shaggy D.A.
    The movie's not without its moments.
  17. The Pink Panther Strikes Again
    There has to come a time when inspiration gives way to habit, and I think the Pink Panther series is just about at that point. That's not to say this film isn't funny -- it has moments as good as anything Sellers and Edwards have ever done -- but that it's time for them to move on.
  18. Bound for Glory
    One of the best-looking films ever made, in its photography, in its use of locations, in its recreation of the America that Woody Guthrie discovered.
  19. Rocky
    By now, everyone knows who wins, but the scenes before the fight set us up for it so completely, so emotionally, that when it's over we've had it. We're drained.
  20. Carrie
    Brian De Palma's Carrie is an absolutely spellbinding horror movie, with a shock at the end that's the best thing along those lines since the shark leaped aboard in "Jaws."
  21. Network
    So the movie's flawed. So it leaves us with loose ends and questions. That finally doesn't bother me, because what it does accomplish is done so well, is seen so sharply, is presented so unforgivingly, that Network will outlive a lot of tidier movies.
  22. Two-Minute Warning
    It's a cheerfully unashamed exploitation of two of our great national preoccupations, pro football and guns.
  23. The Next Man
    A movie with an impenetrable plot that nevertheless has its moments.
  24. Car Wash
    The screenplay and the direction juggle the characters so adroitly, this is almost a wash-and-wax MASH.
  25. God Told Me To
    This is the most confused feature-length film I've ever seen.
  26. Burnt Offerings
    Burnt Offerings is a mystery, all right. What's mysterious is that the filmmakers were able to sell such a weary collection of ancient cliches for cold hard cash.
  27. Marathon Man
    If holes in plots bother you, Marathon Man will be maddening. But as well-crafted escapist entertainment, as a diabolical thriller, the movie works with relentless skill.
  28. Solaris (1972)
    Routinely called Tarkovsky's reply to Kubrick's "2001" -- But Kubrick's film is outward, charting man's next step in the universe, while Tarkovsky's is inward, asking about the nature and reality of the human personality.
  29. Bugsy Malone
    In an uncanny way the movie works as a gangster movie and we remember that the old Bogart and Cagney classics had a childlike innocence, too. The world was simpler then. Now it's so complicated maybe only a kid can still understand the Bogart role.
  30. At the Earth's Core
    You remember Captain Video. He was a science fiction hero on the old DuPont TV network. He and his trusty sidekick (Bucky? Rocky?) were forever landing on strange planets and sneaking around rocks. After three weeks, you realized that the rocks were always the same. Same here.
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