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. Joker
    At times the film overdoes it with the clown metaphors (including the use of songs such as “Everybody Plays the Fool” and “Send in the Clowns”), and I had major misgivings about one particular subplot, but with Phoenix appearing in virtually every minute of this movie and dominating the screen with his memorably creepy turn, Joker will cling to you like the aftermath of an unfortunately realistic nightmare.
  2. Rambo: Last Blood
    This is not a movie. This is mutilation porn. This is a gratuitously violent, shamelessly exploitative, gruesomely sadistic and utterly repellent piece of trash with no redeeming qualities other than its mercifully short running time of less than 90 minutes.
  3. Where's My Roy Cohn?
    With all we know about this chillingly amoral, blackhearted man, Where’s My Roy Cohn? still serves as a thorough and insightful history lesson that makes a convincing case that among other sins, Cohn was one of the early architects of bitterly divisive, take-no-prisoners, make-no-excuses, dirty-tricks politics.
  4. Judy
    From start to finish, Judy feels more like a stylized tribute act than an insightful interpretation of the real thing.
  5. 7 Days to Vegas
    7 Days to Vegas works as a broad and funny comedy about some truly bent but hilarious characters.
  6. American Dreamer
    Directed with claustrophobic, docudrama-style intensity by Derrick Borte (who also co-wrote the screenplay with Daniel Forte) and featuring a career-best dramatic performance by Gaffigan, American Dreamer is a dark and intense and sometimes brutally violent slice of rotted life.
  7. Between Two Ferns: The Movie
    “Between Two Ferns” is filled with hilarious alternate-universe moments.
  8. Downton Abbey
    It’s an extravagant dessert after a six-course meal. Absolutely unnecessary, but still a real treat.
  9. Ad Astra
    Given the nature of director/co-writer James Gray’s admirably daring, bold and ambitious, sure-to-be-polarizing, flat-out weird, crazy fever-dream space opera, it’s only fitting for the title to be so obscure and challenging.
  10. Official Secrets
    While Gun’s story is certainly worth telling and this is a well-intentioned, solid film with fine work from Knightley, Official Secrets is too heavy-handed and drab, and falls far short of procedural thrillers such as “All the President’s Men” and “Spotlight” and “The Post” or broadly entertaining whistleblower stories such as “Erin Brockovich.”
  11. Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken!
    It’s nothing we haven’t heard before, but it’s still heartbreaking to see small farmers telling their individual stories about the financial and emotional stress they’ve experienced.
  12. The Goldfinch
    It is an ambitious, dreamlike, beautifully shot movie (with cinematography by the legendary Roger Deakins) that aims for the fences again and again in the course of 149 minutes — but nearly every one of those mighty cuts is a swing and a miss.
  13. Hustlers
    Hustlers is slick and sharp and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, with writer-director Lorene Scafaria delivering a film that often feels like Scorsese Lite — a breezier, infinitely less violent, pole-dancing, glitter-covered riff on “Goodfellas.”
  14. Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice
    Directed in capable, straightforward fashion by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, and featuring voice-over narration from the artist herself, The Sound of My Voice is like a well-sourced and thorough video Wikipedia entry about the life and times of the now 73-year-old Ronstadt.
  15. Haunt
    This intense and claustrophobic gore-fest is far removed from the elegiac tone of “A Quiet Place.” It’s more like a “Saw” movie, mixed in a bloody blender with elements from films such as “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “The Cabin in the Woods” and “The Hills Have Eyes” and even “Carrie.” And yet there are a few genuinely thought-provoking sequences sprinkled in.
  16. It: Chapter Two
    For all of Muschietti’s visual flourishes and with the greatly talented Bill Skarsgard again delivering a madcap, disturbingly effective, all-in performance as the dreaded Pennywise, It: Chapter Two had a relatively muted impact on me.
  17. Brittany Runs A Marathon
    Thanks to an ambitiously layered script from Paul Downs Colaizzo (who also directs with a steady grasp of comedic pacing and a nice visual eye), and a resonant and rich performance by the terrific Jillian Bell in the title role, Brittany Runs a Marathon has some refreshingly sharp edges and occasionally charts a relatively unorthodox course for such a comfort food-type movie.
  18. Don't Let Go
    Even accepting the increasingly dizzying level of logic-defying, mind-effing, increasingly convoluted time-bending developments in the entertainingly bad (but still bad) Don’t Let Go, I found myself wondering why and how.
  19. After the Wedding
    It’s a morose and slow-paced and off-putting drama, in which even the joyous moments seem brittle and draped in melancholy.
  20. The Peanut Butter Falcon
    Shia LaBeouf turns in one of the most sincere and effective performances of his career.
  21. The Nightingale
    Though set in a real place and occurring within a historically accurate framework, The Nightingale often feels like a journey through Hell itself. It’s that punishing. That bleak. That horrific. That haunting. It’s also a powerful, gripping, masterfully filmed tale.
  22. Ready or Not
    Ready or Not is a warped and audacious and absolutely ridiculous slapstick gorefest. The gross-out visual punchlines might have you doubling over with laughter. Or gagging to the point where you’ll regret ordering those nachos. Or both.
  23. Light of My Life
    Though Light of My Life is a well-filmed and occasionally brutally effective piece of work, Affleck dilutes the power of the story with too many self-indulgent, patience-testing scenes.
  24. Good Boys
    Yes, it’s a raunchy, edgy, hard-R comedy about a trio of 12-year-old boys who drop the f-bomb every other sentence and get involved in all sorts of predicaments featuring sex toys and beer and molly — but even the most hardcore jokes have a good-natured and even sweet larger context.
  25. Them That Follow
    Them That Follow is a harrowing and chilling deep dive into an isolated community in the Appalachian mountains.
  26. Blinded by the Light
    Blinded by the Light is almost unspeakably corny at times as it shifts tones from realistic drama-comedy to flat-out musical — but it’s easy to forgive the bumpy moments in favor of sitting back and enjoying the simple pleasures of an old-fashioned, inspirational, coming-of-age tale … Especially if you’re a big Boss fan like yours truly.
  27. Where'd You Go, Bernadette
    In a rare weak performance for Cate Blanchett, she plays an aggravating, off-putting wife and mother in Richard Linklater’s disappointing book adaptation.
  28. Mike Wallace Is Here
    This is a time capsule — an expertly crafted time capsule — of an astonishing career.
  29. Luce
    So much of Luce is about what’s happening beneath the surface and between the lines. Everyone says they’re searching for the truth — even as they lie and obfuscate and bend the facts to suit their particular agendas and world views.
  30. Brian Banks
    Sure, there are times when we’re aware our emotions are being manipulated — but we’re fine with that, because we want to see, and we expect to see, the heroic underdog triumph against nearly insurmountable odds.
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