Chicago Tribune's Scores

Select another publication »
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 1.4 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
view
per page
  1. The Sheep Detectives
    What you might not expect is how moving this whole story actually is. It’s not just the fun of figuring things out among this cast of colorful characters, rendered with a storybook look, it’s actually a tale about the importance of finding, and tending to, a flock.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Chasing Amy
    This small-scale, low-budget movie is defined by an honest searching quality.
    • Chicago Tribune
  3. Married to the Mob
    It's a movie of a thousand pleasures - of glinting insights and sly twists. [19 Aug 1988]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 71 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    The Water Horse
    First, a few things The Water Horse is not: revolutionary, controversial or challenging. What it is: a sweet, familiar story, beautifully filmed and lovingly told.
  5. Beetlejuice
    For all the film's popped eyeballs and severed limbs, Beetlejuice retains an innocence that makes the grotesque humor very appealing. Burton has captured the sweet ghoulishness of a 12-year-old pouring over horror comics, dreaming of the greatest Halloween costume ever invented. [30 Mar 1988]
    • Chicago Tribune
  6. Wonderland
    One of the best realistic dramas of the year.
  7. All the Real Girls
    A small movie about big emotions, with Green capturing the rush of love and sting of heartbreak with great vividness.
  8. Spy Kids
    A throwback to the family films of the 1970s, like one of Disney's goofy capers crossed with "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory."
  9. Man Push Cart
    A realistic drama about life's uncertainties.
  10. Tadpole
    But as likable as it is, Tadpole is hardly a maturing woman's revenge movie, but another male fantasy -- that of the sexually nurturing mother figure. If only all coming-of-age sexual experiences could be as healthy and wholesome.
  11. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
    Director/co-writer Destin Daniel Cretton’s film accomplishes something akin to what “Black Panther” accomplished in better times. It broadens the scope of superhero representation and storytelling. It offers an adversary, and a father figure, of teasing ambiguity and complicated rooting interests.
  12. Luca
    There is, however, just enough atmospheric detail and, in the final lap, enough genuine feeling in the thorny friendships to make it worth seeing.
  13. The Man Who Came to Dinner
    It's a pleasant movie, not quite up to its reputation. [06 Aug 2000, p.23C]
    • Chicago Tribune
  14. La Moustache
    With his thin-lipped grimace and big, soulful eyes, Lindon's an ideal actor for this sort of puzzle.
  15. The Menu
    Part “Seven,” part haute-cuisine “Saw,” part reality cooking show, director Mylod’s film finally isn’t sure of how far to push the effrontery. It helps, however, to have Fiennes in the kitchen and a Nordic smokehouse out back.
  16. Holes
    With the movie's attentions spread so thin, almost everything begins to seem peripheral - even if almost every loose end is tied together, no matter how unlikely the connection.
  17. Cookie's Fortune
    An absolute delight, one of the most sheerly pleasurable movies Altman has ever made. It's wry, jokey and sexy, a tart and delectable entertainment. And, like most of Altman's best work, it's graced with a top-notch ensemble of first-class [9 April 1999, Friday, p.A]
    • Chicago Tribune
  18. Rudy
    Anspaugh, whose "Hoosiers" showed he knows from feel-good movies, directs this story as if he were conducting "Bolero," carefully building climax upon climax as the story spirals to an underdog triumph every bit as tearful as that of "Rocky."
  19. The Big Lebowski
    It put a smile on my face that never left for 117 minutes.
  20. Thank You for Smoking
    The first film in a long time with a true gift of gab. A lot of the time people actually talk fast in it. Its wisecracks actually crack wise.
  21. Pete's Dragon
    [Lowery] has made a larger, very different movie without losing his instincts, his directorial stealth or his ability to finesse his actors' performances, in this case in the vicinity of an achingly expressive and unexpectedly furry dragon with a little bit of bulldog in him.
  22. Monkey Shines
    One of Romero's most complex and challenging creations. The film shifts effortlessly between playfulness and outrage, between a distanced irony and an awful, immediate horror.
  23. Map of the Human Heart
    Ward's ambitions for this project far outstripped the intentions and capacities of its screenplay.
  24. Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed
    The film struggles to capture what Hudson’s personality was like in private. Nor does it talk about his drinking, which reportedly became an issue later in life. But it’s a terrific portrait of how Hollywood once functioned — and the artifice of it all.
  25. The Long Walk
    It’s a stunning showcase for the acting talents of the young ensemble.
  26. The Good Girl
    There's a shallowness about The Good Girl that can't always be excused as an accurate portrayal of a shallow milieu -- in the end, just like Justine, it's not as good as it could have been.
  27. Intolerable Cruelty
    Elegant, cheerfully cynical fun of the kind we used to get regularly from Billy Wilder, Howard Hawks and other masters of the classic Hollywood screwball comedy -- all those '30s-'40s movies about rich people sloshed, or acting crazy and running romantically amok.
  28. Intimate Strangers
    Such a triumph of simplicity, subtlety and tact--and of the eroticism in words, looks and glances--that the actors ravish us with sheer talent and intelligence.
  29. Factotum
    Factotum, starring Matt Dillon and Lili Taylor in two of their best film performances, is a good movie about the L.A. underbelly, as recalled by an expert: Charles Bukowski.
  30. Tropic Thunder
    In the end Tropic Thunder is an expensive goof about an expensive goof, and the results are very impressive and fancy-looking.
  31. Good Will Hunting
    Presents a few too many hugs and arguments over what's best for Will. But ultimately, the movie, like its protagonist, boasts an integrity and intelligence that are tough not to admire. [25 December 1997, Tempo, p.1]
    • Chicago Tribune
  32. Spider-Man: No Way Home
    Holland provides the glue and the webbing for the latest Spidey outing Spider-Man: No Way Home. He’s physically nimble — he’s soon to play Fred Astaire in a biopic — quick-witted with his darting comic timing and an all-around easygoing presence. When the movie treats the mayhem and brutality for real, he’s there with the right degree of anguish.
  33. Ralph Breaks the Internet
    A weirder and more interesting movie than “Wreck-It Ralph,” Ralph Breaks the Internet tells a lie right in its title because isn’t that thing broken already?
  34. October Sky
    A family tale, in the best sense. [19 February 1999, Tempo, p.4]
    • Chicago Tribune
  35. Mad Dog and Glory
    Mad Dog and Glory was directed by John McNaughton, who wisely lets many scenes run to the point of being uncomfortable, just like his characters are with each other. Everything about this movie seems fresh. [5 Mar 1993, p.C]
    • Chicago Tribune
  36. Red Eye
    McAdams, who resembles a more compact and subtle Geena Davis, captures both the strength and the insecurity beneath her sharp-witted heroine's aim-to-please facade.
  37. Eight Men Out
    The ensemble performances are of such a uniformly high caliber that our interest in the story never wavers.
  38. Nocturama
    Much like Bonello’s previous film, “Yves Saint Laurent,” Nocturama revels in pure experience. But the sum total of its gliding abstractions is a mite brainless.
  39. Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome
    This middle portion of the picture becomes dangerously preachy, but just before we and Max are bored, director Miller returns Max to his roots, a screaming chase sequence through a desertlike Australian landscape.
  40. Dolls
    A work both rigorously stylized and deeply personal. Devotees of Kitano and Japanese cinema will admire Dolls.
  41. My Brother Is an Only Child
    It’s a history lesson, a look at ’60s strife inside a corner far removed from our more familiar American images of that era. It’s also brightly performed, from sullen, boorish, yet charismatic Scamarcio to the instinctive, charming, infuriating characterization by Germano.
  42. Tangled
    Bright and engaging, and blessed with two superb non-verbal non-human sidekicks, Tangled certainly is more like it.
  43. Edge of Tomorrow
    I'm not sure Edge of Tomorrow holds much repeat viewing potential among teenage movie consumers, since the movie's a self-repeating entity to begin with. But once is fun.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    The Opportunists
    Contains ample dry humor and its share of surprising turns, but they operate on a human level rather than with the kind of empty flash we've come to expect from the post-Tarantino crime flicks.
  45. The Embalmer
    The movie, a keen look at the way passion unravels and obsession destroys, creates a black mood, a sense of truth and an enduring chill that stay with you.
  46. Superstar in a Housedress
    It's an engrossing peek at an era that now seems as meteoric, crazy and distant as the Roaring Twenties.
  47. Wonderstruck
    The performances, including a sweetly sincere and easygoing turn from the deaf actress Simmonds, become the audience’s way into Wonderstruck.
  48. An Affair to Remember
    A perfectly balanced blend of romance in exotic settings (shipboard, in Italy) and the trauma-drama of accident and heartbreak. [08 Aug 1999, p.23]
    • Chicago Tribune
  49. Hacksaw Ridge
    Vince Vaughn, plainly enjoying himself, plays his casually astonished sergeant, who encourages hazing and beatings of Doss.
  50. Welcome to New York
    The film, a sleek and oddly moving study in the cost of debauchery, has its gleeful excesses.
  51. Deep Blue
    In terms of pure visual scope, Deep Blue might be one of the best IMAX films never created for the IMAX screen.
  52. Le petit lieutenant
    A fine, taut, tough example of the realistic police drama.
  53. From Up on Poppy Hill
    Your kids may will fall in love with it, if you help them find it.
  54. 22 Jump Street
    Be sure to hang around for the closing credits, which imagine all sorts of "Jump Street" sequels to come.
  55. Young Adult
    Cody would likely acknowledge she's working through her own contradictory feelings toward her protagonist - and that she may have been a draft or two away from shaping those feelings into a terrific black comedy, rather than a pretty interesting one.
  56. Postcards from the Edge
    Postcards From the Edge is alive only when it's being as mean and vicious as its little heart can be, which is more than often enough. [12 Sep 1990, p.1]
    • Chicago Tribune
  57. Singles
    There is something new here, and very fresh.
  58. Brad's Status
    When he finally learns to settle into the moment, to find contentment in the things he already experiences, it's a beautiful and quiet revelation, rendered with Mike White's singular sensitivity and gentle touch.
  59. The Pledge
    A rare thriller - and a rare American film - that centers on both dramatic and moral issues, crises of conscience. And thanks to a superb central performance by Nicholson as detective Black, it's a film that compels, thrills and ends up coming very close to tragedy.
    • Chicago Tribune
  60. The Score
    It's a summit meeting between three brilliant leading men from three generations with three striking on-screen personas.
  61. Real Women Have Curves
    It's a warmly realistic comedy-drama that pulls you right into its lively, well-drawn L.A. milieu.
  62. The Road Home
    A great love story and a deeply moving celebration of simple lives.
    • Chicago Tribune
  63. Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer
    Though one can question the movie's quality as a documentary -- Broomfield is a dogged but often annoying interviewer, and Churchill's photography is sometimes slapdash -- Aileen raises such troubling issues that it stays, hellishly, in your mind.
  64. Nicholas Nickleby
    McGrath's version of Nicholas Nickleby cashes in on age-old show biz wisdom of "always leave 'em wanting more." It's a pity we're only allowed such a small nibble of one of Dickens' richest works.
  65. Represent
    While Represent could’ve used another 20 minutes to flesh out its unguarded moments, this is a strong feature-length directorial debut. Regional politics is local politics is national politics. It’s revealing to see how the sausage gets made, and who gets to make it.
  66. A Quiet Place Part II
    What’s so maddening about A Quiet Place Part II is the unused potential. Krasinski opens up the world and timeline of the film, but doesn’t utilize it in any meaningful way, introducing new ideas but then jettisoning the opportunity. Again and again he falls back on more of the same old tricks from “A Quiet Place,” which was a bore to begin with.
  67. River of Grass
    More than "Natural Born Killers," it's a real deconstruction of the whole love-on-the-run crime genre: drab, grim but effective.
  68. Bronson
    Hardy is remarkable, however. This is an actor with a memorably expressive rasp of a voice, both blunt and musical.
  69. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
    The most coldly compelling version yet of the tale dreamed up by the late Stieg Larsson.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Desperately Seeking Susan
    It's a highly implausible story, but one that's told with engaging, often witty style, enhanced by the film's offbeat settings and situations and the charm of its cast. [29 Mar 1985, p.E]
    • Chicago Tribune
  71. Rita, Sue and Bob Too
    Like "My Beautiful Laundrette," "Rita, Sue and Bob, Too" imagines an untraditional romantic relationship, outside the bounds of monogamy and exclusive heterosexuality, as the only effective alternative to a social structure that has reached the end of the line. [02 Oct 1987, p.A]
    • Chicago Tribune
  72. How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
    From the beginning, the animators got something very, very right with Toothless, who works with an artificial tail just as his human friend works with a prosthetic hand. He’s adorable, yes, of course. But he’s not conventionally flawless, and he’s all the better for that.
  73. Swingers
    Doesn't really add up to much -- except a good time. But it's smart, funny and cute. With all that going for you, who needs to be money? [25 October 1996, Friday, p.H]
    • Chicago Tribune
  74. Horton Hears a Who!
    Someday, if we’re all good little boys and girls, the world will hand us a Dr. Seuss film half as wonderful as one of the books. Meantime we have the competent, clinical computer animation and relative inoffensiveness of Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who! to pass the time.
  75. Emma.
    The latest “Emma,” marking the feature directorial debut of Autumn de Wilde, is a little edgier, driven by a more ambiguous and emotionally guarded portrayal of the blithe young matchmaker played by Anya Taylor-Joy.
  76. Damage
    "Damage" is a fruit bowl reduced to a raisin. [22 Jan 1993, p.B]
    • Chicago Tribune
  77. Mansfield Park
    Why should we keep seeing Austen fresh, through our own, modern eyes? Because she's a writer who has never really left our field of vision. And, as this new Mansfield Park proves again, she never will.
  78. Deadline
    A prime example of advocacy journalism--a form often criticized but perfectly honorable. Most importantly, it gives you a chance to ruminate on some crucial questions of human error, justice and life-and-death.
  79. Becoming Astrid
    Throughout Becoming Astrid, August acquits herself brilliantly; the woman we come to know is a tangle of impulses and qualities, and feels vibrantly alive.
  80. No Man of Her Own
    An essential Carole Lombard film, it's her one screen pairing with her eventual husband Clark Gable. To call their scenes electric is putting it mildly. [30 Dec 1993, p.9A]
    • Chicago Tribune
  81. Macbeth
    Partly, I think, the problem lies in Kurzel and his key performers being so determined to make the language conversational and naturalistic, they forgot to make the individual scenes move.
  82. Warrior
    Every time you start resisting, somehow the film makes the sale, again.
  83. Far from the Madding Crowd
    I can't help but wish this new Far From the Madding Crowd came with the thrill of interpretive discovery, the way Jane Campion gave Henry James' "Portrait of a Lady" a good shaking-up or, more conventionally, the way James Ivory mainstreamed E.M. Forester in "A Room With a View" and "Howards End."
  84. Sleepwalk with Me
    With a refreshing lack of fake glamour, the film captures what it's like to be an initially unpromising comedian on the road.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Pleasantville
    More clever than coherent.
  86. Tales from the Gimli Hospital
    An original and insinuating black comedy from Winnipeg, Canada, where something very strange seems to be going on. The pastiche is nearly perfect, played with an utter sincerity that makes it impossible to tell just where the jokes are coming from.
  87. Blackmail
    Hitchcock's first talkie, begun as a silent film and then converted midstream, alternates stiff dramatic scenes with brilliant, highly visual suspense sequences. [26 Nov 1999, p.A]
    • Chicago Tribune
  88. Requiem for a Dream
    Often, Requiem for a Dream is as technically inventive and daring as the Scottish heroin film "Trainspotting," but it has more resonance and feeling. And when Burstyn is on screen, it often becomes heartbreaking.
  89. Separate Lies
    The writing isn't always up to the actors, who all give the kind of expert, theatrically ingenious performances that often seem director-proof.
  90. Where the Wild Things Are
    Not since Robert Altman took on “Popeye” a generation ago, and lost, has a major director addressed such a well-loved, all-ages title. This time everything works, from tip to tail.
  91. Little Fish
    Hartigan has a knack for sensitive, human dramas, and while Little Fish takes place in a near-future heightened reality, the story is relatable not only because we’re all living through a pandemic ourselves, dealing with grief and loss on a scale that ranges from the deeply personal to the impossibly large, but because this kind of loss is also very real.
  92. Revoir Paris
    While many will find Revoir Paris moving, for me it’s because the performances do the heavy lifting, effortlessly, while the material lays everything out too neatly. The mess of life, the anguish of what Mia is going through, deserves a clear-eyed exploration and a little less gloss.
  93. Roman de gare
    The ultimate charms of the movie lie in Lelouch’s confident control, in his telling of the story his way, almost stubbornly, his canvas splattered with both garish and hypnotic splotches.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Earth
    An extraordinary movie on many levels.
  95. Shadow of the Vampire
    His (Dafoe's) re-creation of Schreck is an Oscar-level performance, but more than that, it's an unforgettable one: great, scary, horrifically funny.
  96. A Woman Is a Woman
    Moves us now because it's so playful and the players are so young - and because later, when Godard tried to play for keeps, in his self-consciously radical films of the late '60s and '70s, he began to lose his game.
  97. Twin Falls Idaho
    If you're in the mood for something strange, this film may please you, twice over.
  98. Carandiru
    A prison movie of unusual richness and jarring power.
  99. Collateral
    Really two movies: a taut, terrific, realistic crime drama, and, by the end, an over-the top, high-tech extravaganza which tries to out-Woo John Woo and turn Cruise into another Terminator.
  100. Carnage
    Confidently directed and tightly constructed, Carnage announces the presence of a fresh, powerful directorial mind with each frame.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »