Chicago Sun-Times' Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
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:
8156 movie reviews
  1. This is a B-movie through and through, but thanks in large part to a deep cast of familiar faces and reliable character actors, it’s a solid crime thriller that respects the true-life blueprint of the story.
  2. In Erica Tremblay’s lean and quietly powerful “Fancy Dance,” a 13-year-old girl named Roki can scarcely contain her excitement about an upcoming dance, but the circumstances in this story couldn’t be more different than those old-school high school fairy tales.
  3. Even if you’re never seen the first two “A Quiet Place” films (though we highly recommend that you do), “Day One” writer-director Michael Samoski, working from a story he conceived with John Krasinski, delivers a compelling and at time surprisingly poetic and melancholy survival story, with the brilliant Lupita Nyong’o carrying the film every quiet step of the way.
  4. This is a simple film, but a special one.
  5. This is the kind of film that will send some viewers to the exits by the halfway point, while others surely will hail the bold genius of Lanthimos’ absurdist flourishes.
  6. The running time for the doc is a robust 2 hours and 27 minutes, but hey, the 73-year-old Van Zandt has lived too much life for it to be encapsulated in a zippy hour or so.
  7. This is a deeply personal and introspective piece of work, with Davis telling us, “I hate dolls,” at the beginning of the journey, but eventually coming around to acknowledge and appreciate the importance of something as seemingly simple as a doll can be in the development, self-esteem and worldviews of impressionable young minds.
  8. Writer-director Nichols does a skillful job of paying homage to the glamour and bad-boy appeal of motorcycles and motorcycle movies, but also illustrating that while these guys are the stuff of feature films, in real life you’d most likely grow tired of their company after yet another day of drinking and petty crime.
  9. This is a pure comfort-viewing experience, filled with authentic characters who talk the way real people talk, even when the situations stretch credulity.
  10. Duchovny has never been better. Even if you’re a Yankees fan, you’ll appreciate the heart and passion of “Reverse the Curse.”
  11. As for disappointments ... Judd Nelson wasn’t available for the documentary, while Molly Ringwald declined to participate. Perhaps she’s learned to let it go. One hopes McCarthy will be able to do the same after making this film, but we get the distinct impression the best he can hope for is to learn to live with it and realize it doesn’t define him.
  12. Ghostlight becomes a love letter to the power of theater, to the power of the timeless written word, to move us, to make us feel, to change us.
  13. It was a tall order to match the brilliance of “Inside Out,” but the sequel meets the challenge on every level.
  14. Alas, though Ishana Night Shyamalan demonstrates promise as a filmmaker and delivers some arresting visuals and a few good jump-scares, “The Watchers” feels like a cover band’s take on familiar scary movie themes, with little in the way of original ideas or surprises.
  15. Arriving in theaters nearly three decades after Will Smith and Martin Lawrence proved to be a hilariously likable duo in the original “Bad Boys” and four years after the entertaining, midlife-crisis threequel, the bombastic and cartoonishly over-the-top “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” is one loud misfire.
  16. This is sweet and smart film.
  17. Not that this film (or for that matter, any other Western made in the last 30 years) can stack up to “Unforgiven,” but it is a lean and brutally authentic tale bolstered by outstanding performances from Mortensen, the versatile Vicky Krieps and a terrific supporting cast.
  18. Directed with just the right amount of stylistic flair (including terrific and helpful graphics) by the talented Muta’Ali, “MoviePass, MovieCrash” is a worthy companion to documentaries such as “Eat the Rich: The GameStop Saga,” “WeWork: Or the Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn,“ and the Fyre Festival documentaries.
  19. This is a murky-looking, CGI-heavy dud.
  20. With Powell and Arjona sizzling as the most electric romantic pairing of the year so far, “Hit Man” is pure escapist early summer fun.
  21. Though this direct prequel can’t match the sheer creative audacity and heavy metal awesomeness of “Fury Road” — which was nominated for 10 Academy Awards and won six and is widely considered to be one of the all-time great action movies — it’s still a rousing and thunderous and fiery dystopian thrill ride that only occasionally pauses to take a breather over a 2 hour and 28 minute run time.
  22. With Pamela Adlon (“Better Things”) directing in a style reminiscent of the best Woody Allen and Nora Ephron movies of the 1970s and 1980s, a sharp and hilarious and poignant screenplay by Glazer (“Broad City”) and Josh Rabinowitz, and winning performances from the co-leads, “Babes” is one terrific friend-com, or should we say a mom-com, and I can already picture Eden and Dawn making fun of that latter term.
  23. In a pair of elegantly chilling sequences (the editing in this film is superb), Maya and Ryan fight for their lives against the needle-drop background of first “Nights in White Satin” by the Moody Blues and later “The Best of Times” by Styx. You’ll never think of those classic rock tunes in the same way again.
  24. IF
    IF never quite soars, never fully grabs our hearts, never fully captivates our imagination.
  25. Wildcat is an inventive and haunting mood piece with a number of memorable scenes.
  26. This is one of the best movies of the year, featuring two of our finest actors at the top of their game. Wright’s lead performance is worthy of major award nominations, as is O’Connor’s supporting work.
  27. There are times when “Kingdom” is thuddingly heavy-handed with its particular brand of messaging, and the dialogue is cornier than a 1950s action epic, but there’s always another exhilarating action sequence around the corner, and the visuals are never less than stunning.
  28. Such an original and disturbing and haunting and creatively outrageous piece of work that it refuses to drift from your conscience.
  29. Unfrosted is one of the worst films of the decade so far.
  30. Even though “The Idea of You” adheres to many of the time-tested elements of the Rom-Com Playbook, the premise is a bit tricky and could have turned cringey in the wrong hands. Instead, the potential “ick” factor is played for just the right combination of cringe humor and legit insights about how even in 2024, we tend to be more shocked and judgmental about age-gap romances when it’s the woman who is older.

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