Chicago Tribune's Scores

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For 7,601 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 62% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 36% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 1.3 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 66
Highest review score: 100 Autumn Tale
Lowest review score: 0 Car 54, Where Are You?
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 5,106 out of 7601
  2. Mixed: 1,473 out of 7601
  3. Negative: 1,022 out of 7601
7601 movie reviews
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  1. L'amour fou
    Berge is a meticulous and intriguing host, though one gets the feeling he's relaying, very selectively, only so much of the messier side of his life with Saint Laurent. So be it.
  2. The Tree of Life
    This may be the most overtly Christian mainstream picture since "The Passion of the Christ." Unlike that one, though, Malick's comes with a generosity of spirit large enough to get all sorts of people (including non-believers) thinking about the nature of faith and what it's all about.
  3. X-Men: First Class
    Still, the deadliest single element in this film can be traced not to Bacon's character, but to composer Henry Jackson, whose music seems determined to kill us all with waves of dramatic nothingness.
  4. Midnight in Paris
    Led by Wilson and Cotillard, the ensemble makes the most of the material that works, and makes the best of the rest of it.
  5. The Hangover Part II
    Hangover II is more like a spitball meeting, a series of ideas that might, in theory, be good enough for a sequel, than it is an actual movie.
  6. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
    The wastrel Sparrow ends up both overexploited and underpowered in this fourth outing.
  7. The Double Hour
    I've seen the fabulously acted Italian thriller The Double Hour twice now, and for all its intricate manipulations, it stays with me for a very simple reason: The love story at its bittersweet heart is played for keeps.
  8. Meek's Cutoff
    The film is not for the frantic of spirit. Its steady rhythm and even-handed tone threaten occasionally to stultify. But little things mean a lot in this universe, as they should.
  9. Everything Must Go
    The results go only so far. Yet already Ferrell has come a long way as a seriocomic screen presence.
  10. Bridesmaids
    Wiig's natural and savvy instincts to go easy, and let the audience come to her, serve her and Bridesmaids well.
  11. Jumping the Broom
    The film works because the screenwriters, Elizabeth Hunter and Arlene Gibbs, have a knack for juggling a dozen-plus major characters without succumbing to the obvious class-warfare gags every 90 seconds.
  12. The Beaver
    Director Jodie Foster's film reasserts the feverish, defiant, often gripping talent of actor Mel Gibson.
  13. Thor
    The last 25 minutes of Thor aren't much better than the first. But that hour in between - tasty, funny, robustly acted - more than compensates.
  14. Prom
    The cast's newcomers mix and mingle with ease with the hardened alums of Disney and Nickelodeon TV series.
  15. Cave of Forgotten Dreams
    The cave exists to provoke awe in mere mortals. The camera pauses at one point to take in a stalagmite reaching up to touch, nearly, a stalactite and the inevitable association is with Michelangelo's Adam and the hand of God.
  16. Stake Land
    It is a film of many ploooooches, meaning: stake in the chest? Ploooooch goes the sound effect. Yank it out again: ploooooch. Wipe. Rinse. Repeat.
  17. Hoodwinked Too! Hood VS. Evil
    As if by deliberate and vaguely sadistic design, Hoodwinked Too! Hood Vs. Evil leeches the fun clean out of the first "Hoodwinked" (2005).
  18. Incendies
    Incendies is no mere riff on a Greek mainstay. It is its own entity, delicate and fierce. Already I've risked making it sound like homework. It's not; it's an enthralling drama of survival.
  19. The Bang Bang Club
    Writer-director Silver, who trained in documentaries, appears flummoxed by the challenges of getting the audience inside the heads of these young men.
  20. POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold
    It's too bad Spurlock settles for so little here, beyond the surface gag.
  21. Water for Elephants
    Like "The Notebook," but with an elephant, the unexpectedly good film version of Water for Elephants elevates pure corn to a completely satisfying realm of romantic melodrama.
  22. Potiche
    Potiche is very "Touch of Class" and "House Calls" in its comic vibe and trappings, and if you're old enough to remember those Glenda Jackson rom-coms, you'll probably respond favorably to Potiche.
  23. Atlas Shrugged: Part I
    This movie is crushingly ordinary in every way, which with Rand I wouldn't have thought possible.
  24. The Conspirator
    Heartbreakingly average, director Robert Redford's The Conspirator errs in the way so many films do, especially films about unsung pieces of American history. It focuses on the wrong character.
  25. Rio
    The movie isn't dull, exactly; the problem lies in the other, antsy direction.
  26. Scream 4
    It's fun to see that charming underreactor Neve Campbell, looking about 20 minutes older, back as Sidney Prescott.
  27. Arthur
    Are the results funny? In the margins, yes.
  28. Super
    Wilson does amusingly steely work, while Page goes bonkers, giving her gleeful nut job one of the more memorable horselaughs in recent American film history.
  29. Hanna
    Hanna presents the problem of the well-made diversion that is, at its core, repellent.
  30. Your Highness
    An exhaustingly pushy, phallocentric and witlessly smutty spoof of early '80s medieval fantasies such as "Krull" and "The Beastmaster."
  31. Trust
    His (Schwimmer) film deserves some attention for the remarkable performance from Liana Liberato as Annie.
  32. Insidious
    Nicely acted by all and photographed in creepy, cold, under-lit tones.
  33. Source Code
    Source Code is a contraption, no doubt. But it works.
  34. Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2: Rodrick Rules
    I didn't laugh much, nor did my 10-year-old companions, but nobody had their soul crushed by the experience. This is the film industry's Hippocratic oath: First, crush no souls.
  35. Sucker Punch
    Snyder must have known in preproduction that his greasy collection of near-rape fantasies and violent revenge scenarios disguised as a female-empowerment fairy tale wasn't going to satisfy anyone but himself.
  36. Win Win
    The film offers plenty of good screen company along the way.
  37. Paul
    The script avoids going full-bore as satire. Where it goes instead lacks a purpose, a reason for being, beyond the usual name-checking of "The X-Files" and the like.
  38. Jane Eyre
    I couldn't help but feel this adaptation needed more of the thing for which Jane herself yearns: a sense of freedom. At their best, though, Wasikowska and Fassbender hint at their well-worn characters' inner lives, which are complex, unruly and impervious to time.
  39. Limitless
    Almost all of it works as wish-fulfillment fantasy.
  40. Happythankyoumoreplease
    The cast is not the limitation here. The limitation, and I found it to be a drag on this aggressively audience-pleasing indie, relates directly to its premise.
  41. Red Riding Hood
    Seyfried's a good actress, but all the art direction in the world can't make this version of events the stuff either of dreams or of nightmares.
  42. Mars Needs Moms
    On the whole, I'd rather be on Pluto, which isn't even a planet.
  43. Battle: Los Angeles
    Original, it's not. Exciting, it is. This jacked-up B-movie hybrid of "Black Hawk Down" and "War of the Worlds" is a modest but crafty triumph of tension over good sense and cliche.
  44. Take Me Home Tonight
    Take Me Home Tonight, believe me, you've already seen.
  45. Rango
    It is, for what it is, a work of considerable care and craft. And it's completely soulless.
  46. The Adjustment Bureau
    What's striking about the picture, I think, is its lack of violent threat.
  47. Hall Pass
    It's secondhand, vaguely resigned material. And while Sudeikis has some talent, he's not yet ready to co-anchor a feature comedy. He's no Ed Helms, in other words.
  48. I Am Number Four
    I found the mythology of I Am Number Four vague and sloppy.
  49. Unknown
    Sleek and, until a stupidly violent climax, very entertaining, Unknown is the opposite of "Memento."
  50. Just Go with It
    Offers only one point of interest beyond the breasts of its second female lead: Aniston's barely disguised disdain for her material.
  51. Inspector Bellamy
    Chabrol's final picture was designed with Depardieu in mind. It's a small work. Yet it's so pleasurably well-made, so obviously the work of major talents in a comfortable groove, why carp about the scale or ambition of the project?
  52. Cedar Rapids
    Modest in every way, the screenplay by Phil Johnston is enjoyable in the telling even when the details smack of contrivance.
  53. The Eagle
    The Eagle becomes more interesting the further north it travels.
  54. The Housemaid
    The acting's very strong throughout, though few would argue that the final half-hour satisfies either as suspense, or narrative, or social observation.
  55. Sanctum
    Here and there an image of spectral beauty, assisted by the 3-D technology, floats into view and captures our imagination. But the script, which really should've been called "Sanctimonium," has a serious case of the bends.
  56. Biutiful
    For many, this central performance will be more than enough. For others, the film will simply be too much.
  57. The Rite
    For an hour The Rite, as scripted by Michael Petroni, delivers the expected, but with panache.
  58. The Mechanic
    What's remarkable about the remake is its nastiness.
  59. The Way Back
    The result is a brisk trot through a story that is, at heart, a tough slog.
  60. Barney's Version
    The movie version of that life, directed by Richard J. Lewis, gives the adaptation an earnest go. But the script lacks juice.
  61. No Strings Attached
    You've seen worse. The film industry is capable of better.
  62. My Dog Tulip
    Extremely moving, exceedingly droll, flawlessly voice-acted.
  63. Another Year
    For all the warmth emanating from the film's core, thanks to Broadbent and Sheen, I don't know if Leigh has ever made a crueler picture.
  64. The Illusionist
    Chomet himself has written the gentle waltz theme and other music. The piece glides by, effortlessly.
  65. The Green Hornet
    Too much. Too numbing. Too coy. And ultimately too violent.
  66. The Dilemma
    Unexpectedly sour, The Dilemma barely qualifies as a comedy.
  67. Blue Valentine
    It's Williams you never question, who makes every detail and close-up and impulse natural. She's spectacularly good.
  68. Country Strong
    My God is this script predictable. Each relapse and betrayal shows up announced, and then announced again, a little louder, by the dialogue equivalent of an aggravating doorman.
  69. Rabbit Hole
    Rretains what made it work on stage, chiefly a disarming sense of humor amid the grimmest sort of personal crisis, and a pair of juicy leading roles.
  70. Gulliver's Travels
    The cast is enjoyable, with Jason Segel (as Gulliver's lil' pal, Horatio) and Emily Blunt (the local princess) a witty cut above for this sort of thing.
  71. Somewhere
    A small but, in its way, daring picture.
  72. Little Fockers
    The sole memorable scene involving a little Focker in Little Fockers, though memorable doesn't mean amusing, involves Ben Stiller's male-nurse character administering a needle full of adrenaline to his dyspeptic and unhappily aroused father-in-law Jack Byrnes, played by Robert De Niro.
  73. True Grit
    The biggest change from the '69 "True Grit" is the best thing about this formidably well-crafted picture. Portis's narrator and heroine, 14-year-old Mattie Ross, runs the show this time, not the one-eyed marshal.
  74. The King's Speech
    The actors, predictably, are superb in roles shaped by screenwriter David Seidler, and directed by Tom Hooper. Yet they are unpredictably superb as well.
  75. Yogi Bear
    Yogi Bear gives cheap hackwork a bad name. Which is a shame, because hackwork made this industry.
  76. How Do You Know
    It's relaxed without being sloppy, or patronizing, and in particular Witherspoon and Lemmon - sorry, make that Rudd - bring charm to burn.
  77. The Tempest
    She tackled "The Tempest" on stage, years ago. On screen I wish she'd (Taymor) adapted it with a freer hand, and then directed it with a more considered one.
  78. The Fighter
    An off-center but exceptional boxing film I prefer in every aspect, especially one: It feels like it comes from real life as well as the movies.
  79. Megamind
    Moderately funny though immoderately derivative.
  80. TRON: Legacy
    The results impart that "trapped" feeling all too well. It's a sullen affair, dominated by a grim visual palette that intrigues for about 30 minutes.
  81. Due Date
    The pathos really are shameless, arriving with killing regularity and false humility.
  82. Unstoppable
    The runaway train thriller Unstoppable is one of Tony Scott's better films.
  83. White Material
    Its dramatic vexations are at war with Denis' prodigious visual skill. And the fight, ultimately, rewards the viewer.
  84. Love and Other Drugs
    They put the "obvious" in "obvious."
  85. Faster
    Dwayne Johnson leaves his lovable self behind in the violent but bland Faster.
  86. Monsters
    Monsters is a sharp little low-fi monster movie operating from a tantalizing premise.
  87. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
    The Dawn Treader doesn't so much reinvent the "Narnia" franchise as do what's needed, and expected, with a little more zip than the previous voyages.
  88. Tangled
    Bright and engaging, and blessed with two superb non-verbal non-human sidekicks, Tangled certainly is more like it.
  89. Burlesque
    The choicest dialogue in Burlesque provokes the sort of laughter that other, intentionally funny films only dream of generating.
  90. Tiny Furniture
    The movie is full, assured and extremely wry.
  91. Night Catches Us
    Surely the gentlest American film ever made about home-grown revolutionaries.
  92. The Tourist
    A facsimile of a masquerade of a gloss on "Charade," and on all the lesser cinematic charades that followed in the wake of director Stanley Donen's 1963 picture.
  93. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I
    With that kind of financial imperative it's something of a miracle the Potter films have been, on the whole, good. One or two, very good. One or two (the first two), less good. This one's good.
  94. Black Swan
    Is Black Swan high-minded? I'm happy to say: No. It is extremely high-grade hokum, which is to say it offers several different and combustible varieties.
  95. Skyline
    Their (The Brothers Strause) effects are pretty good, on a fairly limited budget. And that's about all you can say for Skyline.
  96. 127 Hours
    127 Hours never calms down. You suspect you're only getting half the truth of what this ordeal must've been like.
  97. Morning Glory
    If the romantic comedy Morning Glory clicks with audiences, the McAdams factor surely will be the reason why.
  98. For Colored Girls
    Aiming for a piece with the raw impact of "Precious," on which he served as executive producer, he (Perry) ends up with 134 minutes of misjudged intensity.
  99. Fair Game
    Liman's sensibility isn't sophisticated enough to tease out the nuances of what must be a pretty interesting marriage; the movie is more about texture and surfaces and surface tensions.
  100. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
    Larsson's leading characters have less to do in this wrap-up chapter. As Larsson wrote it and screenwriter and exposition-condenser Ulf Rydberg adapted it, it's a rather wobbly blend of courtroom drama and loose ends tied, albeit rather leisurely.
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