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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    • 53 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Human Traffic
    You may not want to join in their activities but you're happy to have tagged along.
    • Chicago Tribune
  2. Up at the Villa
    It's a corker of a story - a polished yarn full of desire, desperation and despair.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    I Dreamed of Africa
    Doesn't have much plot. It just sort of meanders around like a wildebeest playing Blind Man's Bluff.
    • Chicago Tribune
  4. Michael Jordan to the Max
    For any of you who've ever daydreamed of playing hoops with Jordan, Michael Jordan to the Max is almost certainly the closest you'll ever get.
  5. The Basket
    It gussies up the tale with so many random subplots that by the time we cut through the morass, the film is over.
    • Chicago Tribune
  6. Gladiator
    Has the kind of super-cinematic qualities and bravura acting that make up for almost anything.
  7. Adorenarin doraibu
    It has terrific moments, but whenever it starts to cruise along nicely, it hits a comedic pothole that forces it to sputter on down the road.
    • Chicago Tribune
  8. The Big Kahuna
    While it's done well enough here - written smartly, staged crisply and acted to the hilt - it doesn't last, except as a brief virtuoso piece for three players.
  9. Committed
    One more movie comedy about how love can turn you into an idiot. And its major flaw, among many others, is that the idiocy takes over the movie.
    • Chicago Tribune
  10. Frequency
    Corny and far-fetched it may be, but Frequency works - except for some stretches when it doesn't.
    • Chicago Tribune
  11. Bossa Nova
    A breezy, elegant charmer of a movie.
    • Chicago Tribune
  12. The Idiots
    It's interesting - in its own let-it-all-hang-out, shaky-camera way.
    • Chicago Tribune
  13. The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas
    Accomplishes something I would have thought impossible. It made me appreciate its 1994 predecessor, "The Flintstones."
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 65 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Timecode
    The movie world could use more stunts as entertaining and innovative as this one.
  15. Where the Heart Is
    Never really feels right.
  16. Croupier
    Stumbles a bit towards the end when it focuses too much on a convoluted robbery attempt, but overall, it is a slick and intelligent look at life in the passing lane.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Gossip
    Suffers from an overwhelming sense of teen movie facility and "Murder She Wrote" neatness.
    • Chicago Tribune
  18. The Last September
    One of those rare movies that manages to maintain the hushed intensity and claustrophobic anxiety that is normally associated with theater or prose.
  19. U-571
    As beautiful as all the film's technology is, it needs more real human beings around - to pull the switches, man the pumps and scuttle through those corridors.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    The Virgin Suicides
    It's quite funny, though not in a predictably irreverent way, and it moves along briskly - a little too briskly toward the end.
  21. Love & Basketball
    The biggest missteps come toward the end, when Prince-Bythewood's storybook instincts get the best of her and force a wrap-up that doesn't feel earned.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Keeping the Faith
    Despite scattered bits of nice writing, the movie never quite comes together.
  23. Set Me Free
    Shows us a filmmaker, unafraid of her emotions, unafraid to mine her past, someone clear-eyed, non-egoistic, full of life and warmth.
  24. American Psycho
    A second-rate nightmare: the Reagan generation meets Leatherhead with flickers of brilliance drowned in blood and snobbery, a corpse dressed by Bloomingdale's.
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 46 Metascore
    • 38 Critic Score
    28 Days
    A cutesy, heavy-handed morality tale that contains nary a believable moment.
    • Chicago Tribune
  26. Where the Money Is
    A wildly improbable story that neither Newman nor co-stars Fiorentino and Mulroney, for all their panache and chemistry, can make much sense of it.
  27. East Is East
    He (Puri) is one of the most consistently excellent film actors that his country - or the world - has produced. And East is East, a grand cultural hybrid, is a real movie, too - raw, funny and wonderfully mixed up.
    • Chicago Tribune
  28. Est - Ouest
    Has great themes and great actors.
    • Chicago Tribune
  29. Restaurant
    Some films, oddly enough, can be too ambitious for their own good, which is the case with Restaurant.
  30. Southpaw
    So look for (Francis) at the 2000 games in Sydney, which may provide a more heated ending to this lukewarm story.
    • Chicago Tribune
  31. The Filth and the Fury
    The concerts are hypnotic, the music is swell, and the entire package moves along at just the right pace.
    • Chicago Tribune
  32. Joe Gould's Secret
    A wonderful, heart-breaking movie.
  33. Rules of Engagement
    Written with such murderous gravity, certainty and gloomy solemnity - such an absence of real life or feeling - that it tends to kill our interest.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Return to Me
    These characters deserve more than storybook plotting, as do we. The movie has won our hearts. It shouldn't be so timid about challenging our minds.
  35. Ready to Rumble
    Will come off as insipid, unfunny and too serious at times for its own good.
  36. Me Myself I
    Far too self-absorbed a picture.
  37. Black and White
    There is really no one to like in this film.
    • Chicago Tribune
  38. Price of Glory
    A pretty good film, acted powerfully .
  39. The Road to El Dorado
    It has a jokey irreverence that keeps it from teetering over the edge to absurdity.
  40. The Skulls
    A fast, slick, outlandish fiasco that starts out well and then seems to drop right off a cliff.
  41. Beau Travail
    You may not like Beau Travail - which is, after all, a quintessential "critic's film" - but I think you'll have to admit it's been almost perfectly executed.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    High Fidelity
    Easily cracks the top five list of reasons to go to the movies these days - and defies categories in doing so.
    • Chicago Tribune
  43. Here on Earth
    An almost terminally sappy youth romance.
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Waking the Dead
    By the time of Fielding's and Sarah's final, gooey encounter, she's not the only one who needs waking.
  45. The Color of Paradise
    The simplicity and idealism of The Color of Paradise are part of what makes it so attractive to near-jaded palates here. There are no evil characters in the film.
  46. Such a Long Journey
    A cinematic treat, thanks to the well-defined supporting characters, the flawless attention to detail and a performance by the great Roshan Seth - one of the most underrated actors of his generation - which is just about perfect.
    • Chicago Tribune
  47. X
    Could be the most overblown and confusing example of anime yet, as it piles one pretentious story element on top of another.
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 20 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    Whatever It Takes
    So derivative and crass that it's far more entertaining to try to think of the dozens of films it's ripping off than it is to take any of it at face value.
  49. Erin Brockovich
    Takes the raw truth and makes it jubilantly, terrifically entertaining.
    • Chicago Tribune
  50. Beyond the Mat
    Surprisingly lacking in revelatory moments.
    • Chicago Tribune
  51. Final Destination
    Meets the low standards of a mediocre TV movie.
    • Chicago Tribune
  52. Mission to Mars
    One of the most gorgeous science-fiction movies ever - and probably also one of the most realistic in detail and scientific extrapolation
  53. The Ninth Gate
    Elegant, scary fun.
  54. Deterrence
    To say this movie's premise is bonkers is putting it mildly.
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 41 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    What Planet Are You From?
    Shandling and Nichols strain to reach a mainstream audience and wind up sounding like they, too, have been trained to tell us what we want to hear. Sorry, guys, but you don't score.
  56. Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
    It's fun, but not obvious fun.
    • Chicago Tribune
  57. Drowning Mona
    A comedy murder mystery gone seriously astray, boasts an immensely talented cast .
    • Chicago Tribune
  58. The Next Best Thing
    All too obvious, all too easy, the sort of tongue-in-chic L.A. comedy that mistakes glibness for high style, heartfelt pop choruses for wisdom.
  59. 3 Strikes
    Most of the humor is aimed at 14-year-olds.
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 44 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    The Closer You Get
    Like sitting through a rerun of a show you kind of liked.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Mifune's Last Song
    Shares the characters' off-kilter yet human qualities.
  62. Wonder Boys
    An often-wondrous comedy, just as rich and surprising as "L.A. Confidential" but considerably less dark.
  63. Reindeer Games
    This new heist movie by the great thriller director John Frankenheimer flails around like its own dysfunctional gang of casino robbers.
  64. Judy Berlin
    Beautiful little film.
    • Chicago Tribune
  65. Pitch Black
    A rather wan version of "Jurassic Park" - a series of setups featuring humans being picked off by bigger, faster and stronger carnivores.
  66. Hanging Up
    (Matthau's) is a truly magical performance: hilarious, unguarded and deeply touching.
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 75 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg
    Tells an inspiring story, unknown or forgotten by many, while bringing the past to life and illuminating issues that persist today.
    • Chicago Tribune
  68. The Whole Nine Yards
    Wacky and heartless, bloody and silly -- and it ends in a flourish of grotesque sentimentality.
  69. Not One Less
    A beautiful and genuinely spirit-lifting film about poverty and education.
  70. Boiler Room
    For a movie that begins so intriguingly, Boiler Room becomes boilerplate all too quickly.
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 53 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    The Tigger Movie
    Disney has reinvigorated the Milne series while staying true both to his and illustrator E.H. Shepherd's original artistic visions.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Snow Day
    Succeeds in bringing the best attributes of Nickelodeon TV to the big screen.
  73. The Beach
    Tries to take us from heaven to hell but winds up leaving us in limbo: exasperated and dumfounded.
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Scream 3
    Although Scream 3 is often clever in the way it interweaves the worlds of "Scream," "Stab" and life outside the theater, it's not exactly groundbreaking.
  75. Grizzly Falls
    (Kids) are likely to reject Grizzly Falls as though it were a piece of chewed-over bear fat.
    • Chicago Tribune
  76. Isn't She Great
    A flabbergasting waste of time and talent.
  77. Eye of the Beholder
    Tries to blend old film noir and new high-tech thriller styles with only sporadic impact.
    • Chicago Tribune
  78. Down to You
    Ostensibly a story about first love in college, and I never believed a frame of it.
    • Chicago Tribune
  79. Supernova
    This was a mission that should have been aborted long ago.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    My Dog Skip
    A film that proves even the tiredest genre can be reinvigorated in the right hands.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 38 Critic Score
    Next Friday
    Almost comes as a breath of fresh air. Too bad it's so foul.
  82. Fantasia 2000
    Though not as good or as massively innovative as its predecessor, is still a mountainous undertaking.
    • Chicago Tribune
  83. The Hurricane
    Both the movie and Denzel Washington are knockouts.
    • Chicago Tribune
  84. Play It to the Bone
    Fghting your heart out at the end of this movie can't win the prize or the crowd.
  85. Titus
    Once you get used to the broad gestures, visual stylings and reach-for-the-sky emotions, you may find yourself luxuriating in this movie's undeniable grandeur.
  86. Galaxy Quest
    It's a clever premise but not one that lends itself to an hour and 42 minutes of high jinks. You get the joke quickly.
    • Chicago Tribune
  87. The Talented Mr. Ripley
    Minghella's psychological redraft muffles the menace, squanders the tension, throws away the main character and plot engine and turns Ripley into something he never was or should be.
  88. Any Given Sunday
    There's scarcely a scene in which the actors, action and sound track aren't cranked up to maximum intensity.
    • Chicago Tribune
  89. Angela's Ashes
    Haunts the conscience, troubles the spirit.
    • Chicago Tribune
  90. Man on the Moon
    It's not that the movie is bad; it's merely uninspired and relatively clueless about Kaufman.
  91. Snow Falling on Cedars
    Movies made from serious novels are often ridiculed as unworthy of their sources, but this one may be too worthy -- too reverent, too showy, too earnest.
  92. Girl, Interrupted
    The movie -- even though it's based on real events -- seems unsatisfying and unconvincing.
    • Chicago Tribune
  93. Topsy-Turvy
    Some movies delight you. Some stimulate and provoke. Some enlighten and inform. And some simply hand you a rousing good time-- does all of that and more.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Anna and the King
    In the end you feel like you've been taken on a pleasing, professionally run tourist trip that let you enjoy the sights without ever really inhabiting the land.
  95. Onegin
    Despite Fiennes' splendid moodiness and Tyler's radiant vulnerability, despite lovely settings... this movie is dull.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Stuart Little
    Patronizing and predictable where E.B. White's episodic 1945 book...is odd and open-ended.
  97. Simpatico
    A somewhat bewildering and unsatisfying film that nevertheless contains more inspired moments and brilliant scenes than many movies we call successes.
  98. Bicentennial Man
    Has heart, but lacks bite.
    • Chicago Tribune
  99. Jing Ke ci Qin Wang
    Few Hollywood action pictures are half as exciting or ravishing.
    • Chicago Tribune
  100. Magnolia
    The kind of brilliantly weirdo picture that, by all rights, shouldn't have gotten made at all but this time, miraculously, was.
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