Chicago Tribune's Scores

Select another publication »
For 7,609 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 1.5 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: 5,113 out of 7609
  2. Mixed: 1,474 out of 7609
  3. Negative: 1,022 out of 7609
7609 movie reviews
view
per page
  1. Mean Girls
    Though not a perfect comedy, it manages to be quite often laugh-out-loud funny. The film's strong cast, including scene-stealing "SNL"er Tim Meadows as the school principal, also helps smooth out most of the rough edges.
  2. Coastlines
    It's only a mild disappointment. The talent is still there, the film better than most. It just needs less crime, more love.
  3. The Other Side of the Wind
    The movie’s full of acidic wisecracks and zingers, though its attempts to be funny aren’t really funny. I found Paul Stewart, who dates back to Welles’ “Mercury Theater of the Air” days, to be the strongest human presence in this ghostly affair.
  4. Wadjda
    In the scenes between mother and daughter in their apartment, the world outside no longer judging every action, new worlds open up. And therein lies the cinema's role in our lives: It reveals what is concealed to others.
  5. Molly's Game
    The best of Molly’s Game, however, is more on the “Social Network” level, edgy and rhythmic. This is Sorkin’s feature directorial debut, and I’m happy to say it doesn’t look that way.
  6. Stand and Deliver
    Like a series pilot, Stand and Deliver has a strong character, a promising situation and not a lot of story-it seems to be setting things up for future episodes.
  7. Hairspray
    Less polished but more fun than "Dreamgirls." Both are drag revues at heart, one funny, the other serious. I prefer the funny one.
  8. Hearts in Atlantis
    Sometimes thrilling, sometimes suffocatingly tasteful adaptation of Stephen King's 1999 novel.
    • Chicago Tribune
  9. Stakeout
    The surprising emotional amplitude of Stakeout, its generosity and conviction, proves that it's still possible to achieve something of value within the tight formulas of commercial filmmaking. It needn't all be "Cobra" and "Lethal Weapon"--not as long as directors like John Badham can find room to move. [5 Aug 1987, p.C3]
    • Chicago Tribune
  10. The Grey
    Call The Grey "Deliverance" Lite, with snow, and wolves. And call it a solid January surprise.
  11. The Black Balloon
    At its sharpest Elissa Down's feature directorial debut is guided by intense, rough-edged emotional swings that feel authentically alive, even when the script settles for tidiness.
  12. The Saddest Music in the World
    It's a work for specialized tastes: for audiences who adore old movies, dark jokes and some high camp.
  13. 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.
  14. Mirror (1975)
    The Mirror may not be the easiest place to start your Tarkovsky education, but its sublime images (including a memorable shot of a burning barn in the rain), are sure to whet your appetite for more. [26 May 2000, p.M]
    • Chicago Tribune
  15. French Kiss
    In French Kiss--a picture that isn't unusually funny or original but that has expert actors, smooth direction and ravishing French locales--we can get pleasure from the sheer, relaxed polish of it all, the effortless swing. It's a good time passer. [5 May 1995, p.C]
    • Chicago Tribune
  16. City of Ember
    If older kids and adults seek out this picture, which 20th Century Fox and Walden Media clearly aren't sure how to sell, they may well find themselves drawn into a subterranean world of considerable imagination.
  17. Emily the Criminal
    Emily the Criminal delves only so far into character on the page, but working from what writer-director Ford gives her, Plaza creates a woman defined by incremental degrees of economic stress and simmering resolve.
  18. Garden State
    Though too dear at times, overly sentimental in its conclusion and sporadically overreaching to be the voice of a generation, it's otherwise emotionally spot-on as it follows Andrew back to his Garden State hometown for his mother's funeral.
  19. Genesis
    Capable of enthralling.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    The Indian in the Cupboard
    These lessons in multiculturism and tolerance should fall easily on young viewers only expecting to be entertained. [14 July 1995, p.D]
    • Chicago Tribune
  21. Sicario
    Sicario doesn't fall apart in its second half, exactly, but it does settle for less than it should.
  22. Hedwig and the Angry Inch
    (Mitchell's) Hansel may be small-boned and soft-featured in an androgynous way, but his Hedwig is a force of nature, burned out and jaded yet brimming with compassion and bursting with energy.
  23. In the Shadow of the Moon
    It has the air of an officially sanctioned tribute rather than a probing study, but it's stirring all the same.
  24. Misery
    Like any good work of popular culture, Rob Reiner's film of Stephen King's best-selling book Misery functions on more than one level.
  25. Seeing Other People
    Whatever the film lacks in presentation, it makes up for in laughs and ensemble performances that sing.
  26. Horror of Dracula
    A colorful version of Bram Stoker's deathless tale of the bloodsucking count has Christopher Lee as a suave Dracula and Peter Cushing as his nemesis Von Helsing. [02 Oct 1998, p.J]
    • Chicago Tribune
  27. Tideland
    It's crazy, dangerous and sometimes gorgeous: a feast of nuttiness that takes you, for a while, over the edge.
  28. Cahill U.S. Marshal
    A combination of toughness and sentimentality with John Wayne. [21 May 2000, p.38C]
    • Chicago Tribune
  29. The Little Mermaid
    The changes really help. The fleshed-out central romance, the performances of Halle Bailey (Ariel, the mermaid, with songs belted like nobody’s business) and, as her Above World love Prince Eric, Jonah Hauer-King — it all basically works.
  30. A Cry in the Dark
    A Cry in the Dark has been conceived as a director's film-a movie that works through imagery and narrative rhythm, through visual and aural resonance. But when Streep enters a movie (and it isn't something she can help by now) it immediately becomes an actor's film, a movie about performance-her accent, her gestures, her walk. Meryl Streep upstages Ayers Rock. [11 Nov 1988, p.A]
    • Chicago Tribune
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »