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 1.4 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
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  1. Eden
    The Coens' film is a wisenheimer, a mordant black comedy. Eden is utterly different, more muted and humane in tone. It won't be enough for some audiences.
  2. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
    An oddity: an adaptation of a popular novel co-written and directed by the novelist himself. It's also a fine, gentle film love story and a cinematic tribute to the power and manifold benefits of communications between different cultures and nations.
  3. Carny
    Gary Busey, Robbie Robertson, and Jodi Foster star in a romantic triangle about some carnival sharpies and a runaway girl. A beautiful portrait of the carnival as an American institution. [18 July 1980, p.8]
    • Chicago Tribune
  4. The Man Who Knew Too Much
    Hitchcock's glossier and more complex remake of his classic 1934 spy thriller, with James Stewart and Doris Day as the average American couple caught in a whirlwind of intrigue and terror. [26 Nov 1999, p.A]
    • Chicago Tribune
  5. The Guard
    Part Joel & Ethan Coen and part John Millington Synge, this grotty little fairy tale casts a deft line and reels you in. I'd see it again just to hear the drug smugglers argue over the use of the Americanism "good to go."
  6. Babel
    It's a powerhouse, demanding film that sometimes stretches the limits of credibility. But it's done with such consistent technical brilliance--and with such a first-rate cast and company.
  7. Dave
    Dave has been directed by Ivan Reitman in a refreshingly restrained fashion-there are plenty of quiet passages, rare for American movies these days-which compliments Kevin Kline's wonderful work as well.
  8. Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret
    This book deserved a really good film version, and writer-director Kelly Fremon Craig (”The Edge of Seventeen,” also really good) captures Blume’s humane wit and spirit, while adding some new emotional and narrative wrinkles.
  9. The People vs. Larry Flynt
    There's a gentleness and open-mindedness in that touch and throughout the film that's a little at odds with the shallower script. But, in the end, that humanity pays. [27 Dec 1996]
    • Chicago Tribune
  10. Blood Work
    A violent, improbable movie done in tersely elegant style, and it may be the last action movie for one of the cinema's great action stars, Clint Eastwood.
  11. Oklahoma!
    This 1955 Todd-AO blockbuster, made from the landmark American stage musical, faithfully preserves the play's robust spirit and extroverted charm, while resetting it among vast golden and green outdoor vistas. [15 Nov 2005, p.C3]
    • Chicago Tribune
  12. Tiny Furniture
    The movie is full, assured and extremely wry.
  13. The Yes Men
    These are some terrifically funny and gutsy guys who want to draw attention to what they see as the natural limit of WTO policy.
  14. The Farewell
    Crucially, Wang and company found all the right actors to populate a semi-autobiographical tale of familial deception.
  15. High Hopes
    It's this balance of vivid performance and directorial detachment that allows Leigh to move freely between delicate sentiment and highly caustic wit; even in his most harshly satirical moments, he never denies the humanity of his characters.
  16. Diane
    It’s harder than it should be to describe Kent Jones’ Diane in a way that makes it sound distinctive or special, which it is.
  17. The Miracle Worker
    Anne Bancroft won the Oscar playing Helen Keller's teacher, Annie Sullivan, in this intelligent adaptation of William Gibson's Broadway hit, and it's a fierce, moving job, highlighted by the incredibly savage battles between teacher Annie and pupil Helen (fellow Oscar winner Patty Duke). It's a model serious bio-drama.
  18. 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.
  19. Always
    It's the film in which an entertainer at last becomes an artist, dealing with manifestly personal, painful emotions and casting them in a form that gives them philosophical perspective and universal affect. It's Spielberg's finest achievement, a film that will look better and better with the passage of time. [22 Dec. 1989]
    • Chicago Tribune
  20. Volver
    You always get more than one genre with this filmmaker. Volver draws upon all sorts of influences -- a little Hitchcock, a little Douglas Sirk, a little telenovela -- but from those sources Almodovar and his collaborators, both on screen and behind the camera, make an improbably organic whole.
  21. Heaven
    The result is both engrossing and moving, a poem about a love that breaks barriers and passes understanding.
  22. Nurse Betty
    The movie has a deliberately screw-loose feel.
  23. Enemy Mine
    Although you probably haven't heard much about Enemy Mine this season, you might want to check it out. You'll be pleasantly surprised. [23 Dec 1985, p.C2]
    • Chicago Tribune
  24. Infernal Affairs
    It's hard to breathe in Andrew Lau and Alan Mak's Infernal Affairs, a relentlessly taut Hong Kong cop thriller that, unlike many of its cinematic peers, doesn't burn off tension in choreographed action sequences.
  25. A Scanner Darkly
    It's one of the most faithful movie adaptations of any Dick story to date, and it comes from the scariest of all his books, as well as the truest.
  26. Untamed Heart
    Tony Bill directs a fresh and only occasionally too purple script by Tom Sierchio. [12 Feb 1993, p.C]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 87 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    All About My Mother
    Generous in spirit and always engaging as it demonstrates that no matter how difficult life may become, there's no excuse for being drab.
    • Chicago Tribune
  28. The Land Before Time
    It is, in the best Disney tradition, a story of childhood's end, of leaving the family and accepting adult responsibilities. Bluth relates it through a smooth counterpoint of humor, sadness and horror.
  29. Wonderland
    One of the best realistic dramas of the year.
  30. Silver Linings Playbook
    Cooper's performance is his best yet. As is Lawrence's (the more crucial role, in fact).
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