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. Firewall
    This movie, an efficient time-passer at least until the plot starts obsessing over the fate of the family dog, is more into gadgets than people.
  2. The Pink Panther
    This Pink Panther really doesn't have to achieve the heights of the original; it just has to be funny on its own terms. But it pales there too. Kline, a master of comic hypocrisy, deserves more screen time, Emily Mortimer is wasted as Clouseau's adoring assistant Nicole and Knowles is over indulged as Xania.
  3. London
    Newbie director Richards shoots all the women like slabs of meat, and his self-seriousness throughout London--some of it tries to be funny, a lot of it is funny by accident--borders on the delusional.
  4. Neil Young: Heart of Gold
    Pretty-near pure gold.
  5. The Fallen Idol (re-release)
    Of all the movies that try to take us into the mind and viewpoint of a child, Carol Reed's 1948 The Fallen Idol, adapted by Graham Greene from his short story, is one of the most ingenious.
  6. A Good Woman
    A tedious picture, redeemed in part by Tom Wilkinson's performance as Tuppy--he's the sole cast member who doesn't give birth to every epigram--and by the hats.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Something New
    Thanks to Hamri's light touch and the considerable chemistry between Lathan and Baker, it's easy to forgive these missteps--leaving the film plenty of goodwill to spare.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 12 Critic Score
    Tamara
    There are few words to describe the awfulness of this movie, but let's give it the old college try: dismal, depressing, embarrassing and utterly lacking in any artistic or social worth.
  9. Who Gets to Call It Art?
    Shot with a Peter Greenaway-like austere impudence and edited brilliantly (by Jed Parker), this is an entertaining movie, and a moving one--even if, like me, you're not especially fond of these paintings or that scene.
  10. Bubble
    An odd little movie and a good one, worthy for what it is and potentially groundbreaking for how it's being made available.
  11. Annapolis
    The Navy will no doubt like what it sees, yet a project such as this should impart some sense of the times we live in.
  12. Nanny McPhee
    Nanny McPhee maintains a satisfying, all-ages balance between broad comedy and human warmth.
  13. Imagine Me & You
    I guess there's something progressive going on when a lesbian love story gets to be just as dreadful and tacky as most straight ones.
  14. Little Jerusalem
    The film, both light-hearted and serious, suggests that freedom comes more easily within restrictions--and that's true of Albou's approach as well.
  15. Manderlay
    The acting has the bravura stage eloquence of Broadway Shakespeare and the movie is narrated, beautifully, by John Hurt.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Roving Mars
    The sad thing is, even for NASA/space fans, a snooze isn't out of the question despite the film's scant 40-minute running time.
  17. Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story
    It's a little bit "Tom Jones," a little bit "Adaptation," a smidge of Monty Python and a dash of Fellini's "861/2," right down to Winterbottom's use of music by the brilliant Fellini composer, Nino Rota.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Go for Zucker
    It remains a diverting, mildly entertaining movie, far short of provoking the controversy (or hysterical laughter) it apparently prompted during its release in Germany.
  19. Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World
    The results are distressingly flat, frequently patronizing and, for a topical comedy, strangely out of it.
  20. Why We Fight
    A pretty entertaining case against our current war and question the integrity of our president, but more than that, these docs manipulate imagery, music and sound bites to work their audiences into a frenzy.
  21. End of the Spear
    A childish and visually repetitive movie, ham-fisted, proselytizing and overtly simplified.
  22. The Real Dirt on Farmer John
    In many ways, it's a painful story, but it's also full of curious triumphs and outlandish redemptions.
  23. Glory Road
    The movie's great end-title sequence redeems everything. Under the credits, we see and hear the real-life game veterans as they are now--including, movingly, ex-Lakers coach Riley.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Last Holiday
    We may know exactly where we're going, but the journey is so much fun, all but the most peevish audience members will find it impossible to complain.
  25. Tristan and Isolde
    Mindless, predictable and mildly entertaining.
  26. Fateless
    It's a work that sears the heart and conscience. The events are annihilating, the way they're told both beautiful and terrifying.
  27. The Promise
    I'm not sure the director should return to this particular genre, whatever you'd call it. But he is, in fact, a real director.
  28. Match Point
    Match Point is fantastic to look at, sharply dramatic and Allen is--who knew?--a master of suspense.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Wolf Creek
    As horror movies go, this is a pretty good one.
  30. Casanova
    Hallstrom gives us a genial interpretation and a supremely good-humored film.
  31. Rumor Has It...
    Easygoing but surprisingly likable comedy.
  32. The New World
    Malick's nature documentarian impulse has never been more flagrant than in The New World, yet it has never made more organic sense. The film, which is superb on every technical and design level, has both greatness and fuzzy-headedness in it.
  33. The Matador
    Works remarkably well as a stylish and unconventional buddy flick--cruising along with wit and wisdom.
  34. Munich
    It's when Spielberg stops trying to think so hard that Munich works best. Though some of the assassination scenes feel a little too choreographed, more "West Side Story" than "Bourne Identity."
  35. Caché (Hidden)
    In this movie, Auteuil ("Jean de Florette") and Binoche ("Chocolat") are such marvelous actors, they can shift us in almost any emotional direction with a speech or a glance.
  36. The Ringer
    Knoxville, Jed Rees and Bill Chott act daffy and more impaired than their counterparts, and that never sat right with me. This may not be the equivalent of acting in blackface, but it's awfully close.
  37. Fun with Dick and Jane
    This is familiar clowning territory for our actors -- hypothetically well-matched here, with Carrey a far more sophisticated and energetic comic partner for Leoni than Adam Sandler was in "Spanglish."
  38. The White Countess
    It's a very classy, finely made film, and, as one watches it -- particularly those last sweeping scenes of political turbulence and escape -- one feels both pain at their (Merchant-Ivory) parting and grateful for what, together, they achieved.
  39. Cheaper by the Dozen 2
    Compared with Martin's first "Dozen" and the recent mega-family movie "Yours, Mine and Ours," this sequel is Academy Award material.
  40. The Family Stone
    Parker is pretty much a disaster here, shrill and phony and, worst of all, spineless. She reminded me of Tea Leoni in "Spanglish," her performance working against the movie, serving only as a cumbersome, opaque obstacle.
  41. The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
    Jones' film actually takes you somewhere you haven't visited in a million other movies. It has a wonderful sense of place, and space, and carries the bite and tang of a good short story.
  42. The Producers
    The Producers on screen, as a musical, does not work. It is not very funny. It doesn't look right. It's depressing.
  43. Hoodwinked!
    Hoodwinked treats "Red Riding Hood" as a detective story we've never really understood until now, with nuttier motivations, more complex characters and a screwier climax.
  44. King Kong
    The new Kong is just different enough to be terrific screen company. His relationship with his leading lady, played with heart and panache by Naomi Watts, doesn't feel like an old story retold. It feels like a brand new story.
  45. Memoirs of a Geisha
    Colleen Atwood's costumes are the best a film adaptation of a popular book can buy. They rustle like nobody's business. The film itself is equal parts silk and polyester.
  46. Brokeback Mountain
    A good and eloquent Wyoming-set love story with a great performance at its heart.
  47. Mrs Henderson Presents
    A dear film, sentimental and fond, full of beautifully acted British resolve.
  48. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
    The problem with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is this: The closer the many-hands screenplay gets to the Christ-like sufferings and resurrection of Lord Aslan, the lion (voiced by Liam Neeson), the more conflicted the filmmakers' efforts become.
  49. The World's Fastest Indian
    Fast, funny, big-hearted.
  50. Transamerica
    At its best, Transamerica made me laugh and feel for Bree. At its worst, it made me cringe at the potential creepiness of its central relationship.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    First Descent
    Visually, this is one of the most arresting sports documentaries in years, and it doesn't skimp on the visceral thrills, either.
  52. The Far Side of the Moon
    Like many stage-to-screen projects "Moon" loses something in the journey from the planet Theater to the planet High-Def Video. Yet Lepage is such an interesting camera subject, you stick with this dreamy rumination even when the going gets arch.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Be Here to Love Me: A Film About Townes Van Zandt
    Proves a less-than-satisfying examination of the country singer's art, career and demons.
  54. Æon Flux
    By forcing definition on Flux, the filmmakers rob her of any allure. What do they offer instead? Clumsy exposition, bland PG-13 gunfights and subpar computer animation.
  55. The Kid & I
    Though The Kid & I falters as both a comedy and an After School Special, it works as a rather touching episode of "This is Your Life," with a parade of cameos from Arnold's career that'll coax a sniffle or two from his family.
  56. The Boys of Baraka
    There are many tragedies and accomplishments here, without the engineered uplift afflicting any number of lesser documentaries.
  57. Mrs Palfrey at The Claremont
    The cast manages some sweet moments, and Plowright lends a touch of grace and wit to each new indignity or kindness. Yet the whole thing feels programmed; the movie's sense of humor lacks understatement.
  58. The Ice Harvest
    The Ice Harvest is not "Bad Santa" redux. It has comic moments - primarily from Oliver Platt, in fine drunken stupor - but Ramis' tiptoe into film noir isn't really a comedy.
  59. Just Friends
    But alas, even with young talent, director Roger Kumble and writer Adam Davis rely way too heavily (no pun intended) on the fat-suit joke and titular impasse.
  60. Rent
    It's a pretty good version of a pretty great stage phenomenon.
  61. 39 Pounds of Love
    Like the cerebral palsy-stricken Irish artist Christy Brown of "My Left Foot," Daniel Day-Lewis' Oscar-winning role, Ami is forced to fight such overwhelming odds to express himself that his very limitations become an aid to his vision.
  62. The Libertine
    It's a bit too muddy, dismal-looking and smoky to beguile us, too fixated on filth and too dreary-looking to really shock us.
  63. Syriana
    Politically, Syriana is a card-carrying liberal, more in tune with Le Carre and Greene than with Clancy.
  64. Yours, Mine and Ours
    Even as slapstick, it's a major snoozefest.
  65. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
    J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter just keeps growing up. So do the Potter movies, in size, in ambition and in visual splendor - and with increasingly stunning results.
  66. Walk the Line
    It doesn't matter much that Phoenix and Witherspoon sound more like Phoenix and Witherspoon than Cash and Carter. The chemistry is there. The actors walk their own line, successfully.
  67. Breakfast on Pluto
    Some road pictures take you somewhere. Breakfast on Pluto, from its archly poetic title on down, promises a lulu. Yes, well. Promises, promises.
  68. Gilles' Wife
    The ending is a stunner. Like those '30 classics it suggests, Gilles' Wife seduces us with true cinematic magic: rich characters, great acting and that rapturous old French blend of realism and theatricality.
  69. The Syrian Bride
    Like the whole of this easygoing plea for a better future, it's sweet.
  70. Derailed
    It's a cheap thrill, with twists that later seem evident and foreshadowing that often seems obvious, with a B-movie look and vibe reminiscent of the much tighter "Jagged Edge."
  71. Zathura: A Space Adventure
    It's a tick better than the movie version of "Jumanji," if that's any help. If you liked the book, you'll find the film of "Zathura" faithful in most respects, though not so much amplified as padded.
  72. Pride & Prejudice
    At the end, director Wright wraps the whole thing up with a fairy-tale coda more Shakespearean than Austen-tine. Yet it all works.
  73. Bee Season
    Gere and Binoche are both terribly miscast--one far too charismatic, the other far too dowdy, which is something for Juliette Binoche. And the spelling bees? Dull. Dreary.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Ellie Parker
    Welcome to the world of Ellie Parker, a faux-documentary and big, fat raspberry dedicated to L.A.'s underclass.
  75. Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic
    Pairing monumental insensitivity with a bright-eyed delivery, Silverman is the current valedictorian of the nothing-is-sacred school of comedy, a modern-day Lenny Bruce spared her forefather's legal woes by time, breasts and porcelain skin.
  76. Duane Hopwood
    Thanks to the actors and the way the movie lets them loose, it's often funny or moving at all the right moments.
  77. Get Rich or Die Tryin'
    Sheridan's ensemble ensures that "Get Rich," the film, comes to life around the edges, if not at its center.
  78. Jarhead
    Inner dialogue is a hard sell on screen.
  79. Brooklyn Lobster
    The kind of smart, realistic indie family drama the movies should give us more often, just as they should more often offer performances as full-blooded and rich as Aiello's and Curtin's here.
  80. The Dying Gaul
    The Dying Gaul stays interesting even when it asks more and more--too much, probably--of the audience's disbelief suspension.
  81. Christmas in the Clouds
    I won't pretend there aren't moments of sweetness here--there are, aplenty. But the promise of true emotion goes bust with bad acting, cheap writing and false sentiment.
  82. Chicken Little
    For all the whiz-bang visuals, however, "Little" could use a little consistency in tone.
  83. Gay Sex in the 70s
    Largely male gay sex, with nary a lesbian in sight, or in mind.
  84. The Legend of Zorro
    Well, it's pretty bad, a long way from the dash and satisfactions of the earlier picture.
  85. Prime
    I found nothing likable or funny about either of these characters, who both deserve a pie in the face. (One of them even gets it.)
  86. Saw II
    It's not a film, it's an excuse to show victims bleeding at the mouth, or getting shot in the eye, or plucking out their own eyeballs. Most gruesome of all, the sequel oozes dialogue that is best described as "functional."
  87. The Weather Man
    In The Weather Man, Nicolas Cage, a great oddball movie star who sometimes takes enormous risks, has a good, risky part again.
  88. Paradise Now
    It's an intricate, sometimes implausible ideological thriller that might be better as a smaller-scaled, less% preachy psychological drama. Still, "Paradise" catches and keeps your attention because of its daring subject, real-life backdrops and the intensity of its actors.
  89. The Passenger (re-release)
    Still packs a wallop. It's also a movie with no easy passage to its dark heart.
  90. Three... Extremes
    A bloody strange movie--and a surprise. Who would have thought that you could put together an anthology of "extreme" Asian horror featurettes by three cutting-edge Asian directors where the most tasteful, restrained contribution was the one by Japanese mad dog moviemaker Takashi Miike?
  91. Ballets Russes
    May not be the greatest dance documentary ever made, but it could well be the most accessible and touching.
  92. 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance
    An eliptical puzzle that comes together beautifully in the last five minutes. Challenging, disturbing and at times brilliant. [21 Oct 1994]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 59 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story
    Russell, who looks younger with each movie, holds his own against the formidable force that is Dakota Fanning.
  94. Shopgirl
    On the page Shopgirl was a small but fine Chekhovian thing, coasting along on Martin's omniscient narration and witty prose...The movie version locates roughly half of what worked in the novella.
  95. Stay
    Despite the actors, the visuals and Forster's directorial swagger, the movie lacks impact.
  96. Emmanuel's Gift
    An inspirational movie about a inspiring figure: Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah of Ghana.
  97. Innocence
    An unashamed art picture, the kind of film where extreme aestheticism mixes with nightmare dread, where the story resembles a bad dream and where Freudian symbols cluster around the events like a swarm of insects. It's a very pretty film, but it's also lean, enigmatic and so obscure.
  98. Protocols of Zion
    In the end, Protocols of Zion is all context--a bit here about Father Coughlin, a minute there about the Holocaust, a stint with "The Passion" and a brief shot of Levin watching the beheading of Daniel Pearl--no soul.
  99. Doom
    Doom, the film, aspires to be more than just a gory shoot em' up--though it'd still be a stretch to call it a thinking man's action movie.
  100. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
    Black's retro-noir reminds us why we love movies: because they can surprise us, even when we're ankle deep in bullet casings, bodies and enough twists to tie us in knots.
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