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. A Simple Plan
    Generates genuine tension because it's propelled by actual human feeling, which, these days, turns out to be a surprisingly thrilling prospect. [11 Dec 1998]
    • Chicago Tribune
  2. Life and Nothing More
    It’s full of life, guided by first-time screen performers portraying versions of themselves. And because Esparza’s a dramatist, not a melodramatist, the experience of watching Life and Nothing More becomes truth, and nothing less.
  3. Beanpole
    The film is about bargains made and broken and re-negotiated. You watch it in an anxious, protective state, regarding the fate of these characters, and this fallout.
  4. The Killing
    Forty years later, The Killing has lost little of its punch. It's both vintage '50s noir and a stunning introduction to a killer director. [22 Jul 1998, p.L]
    • Chicago Tribune
  5. Harry Is Here to Help
    The actors and writing lend unexpected dimension to all of the characters, and Lopez's Harry is an indelible antagonist, one who manages to be genuinely big-hearted and evil.
    • Chicago Tribune
  6. All the Pretty Horses
    Thornton and his excellent company summon up for us the long rides, dangerous companions, rites of passage, the mad love and, most of all, the special relationship between the man/boys that rode over the border and the horses that carried them there.
    • Chicago Tribune
  7. 76 Days
    The result is a narrow slice of a much, much larger story, somewhat akin to the hands-off, eyes-wide-open documentary approach of Frederick Wiseman — if Wiseman were a war correspondent. Rarely has recent global history seemed so far away, yet so present. It’s one of the year’s essential documents.
  8. 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
  9. What Happened Was...
    A small jewel about a most common experience-a first date. Writer-director Tom Noonan also stars as a quirky, shy guy who comes over to the Manhattan loft apartment of a co-worker (Karen Sillas) for a first date. Their dance of engagement is absolutely riveting and sad. Created as a stage play, it also works on film. A true sleeper. [09 Dec 1994, p.B]
    • Chicago Tribune
  10. Cold War
    Kulig comes with everything the role of this sullen, reckless siren demands, and then some.
  11. Transit
    A more threatening embodiment of that idea, of new times that seem like old times, comes to subtly provocative life in Transit, one of the most intriguing films of the new year. Written and directed by German filmmaker Christian Petzold, it’s an audacious reminder that there’s more than one way to adapt a so-called “period” novel for a new era.
  12. Some Body
    Bennett also co-wrote the script, based loosely on her own experiences, and is the best thing about the film. A physical cross between Holly Hunter and Christine Lahti, she's quite convincing as she tries to figure out what has gone wrong in her personal life - and how she can fix it before it is too late.
  13. L'Enfant (The Child)
    Like all the Dardenne s' films, L'Enfant embraces a peculiarly ascetic brand of what, in other filmmakers' hands, might seem like cheap melodrama.
  14. The Children of the Century
    A romance incandescent, a fiery pageant of l'amour fou. Whatever its historical transgressions, it opens up a vein and lets life and blood pour out.
  15. Henry Fool
    Movies about literary lives don't always catch fire, but Henry Fool is a glorious exception: an austerely funny, brilliantly written and acted serio-comic tale of two writers. [17 Jul 1998]
    • Chicago Tribune
  16. The Roaring Twenties
    Walsh and producer Mark Hellinger's classic ultra-tough gangster opus about World War I, Prohibition and good-hearted mobster Jimmy Cagney's breezy rise and grim fall. [18 Feb 2005, p.C6]
    • Chicago Tribune
  17. American Splendor
    Such a stylistic inconsistency might be bothersome in another film, but here it's just part of the texture.
  18. Stevie
    So troubling and unflinchingly honest that watching it becomes a test of empathy and compassion.
  19. The Grifters
    Huston gives one of her very best performances as a strong lady who can con almost everyone but herself. Her manner on the screen in this picture and in Woody Allen's "Crimes and Misdemeanors'' marks Huston as the one contemporary actress who comes closest to having the power of classic female dramatic stars of years past. [25 Jan 1991]
    • Chicago Tribune
  20. Four Weddings and a Funeral
    A better film about love delayed than "Sleepless in Seattle." It's funnier, more credible, more bittersweet and the characters are a whole lot brighter. Naturally, it won't be as big a hit. [18 March 1994, Friday, p.C]
    • Chicago Tribune
  21. Fight Club
    It's a genuine shocker - a dazzler of a film - a hellishly funny picture.
    • Chicago Tribune
  22. Is That Black Enough for You?!?
    [Mitchell’s] celebration of these films is seriously entertaining.
  23. Broken Flowers
    A dark subject certainly, but in Murray's bouquet-bearing hands, it can still hand us a laugh.
  24. WarGames
    A thoroughly entertaining thriller about a teenage video game freak who almost starts World War III. A clever warning against nuclear weapons and too much reliance on computers. Only a preachy scientist hurts a fine entertainment. [22 July 1983, p.3-10]
    • Chicago Tribune
  25. Crime Wave
    A recently resurfaced noir classic, in which an ex-con (Gene Nelson) is trapped between his criminal ex-buddies (Charles Bronson, Ted De Corsia and Timothy Carey), pulling him back into the underworld and the tough, toothpick-chewing L.A. cop (Sterling Hayden) who wants to make him a stoolie. Harsh, rough, sharp as a knife. [24 Oct 1997, p.L]
    • Chicago Tribune
  26. Orfeu
    A seductive revisiting of an old classic - one that helps us see these lovers and their world with renewed passion.
    • Chicago Tribune
  27. Unfaithful
    All the accolades Lyne got for "Fatal Attraction" -- and didn't really merit -- he deserves here.
  28. Juno
    Ellen Page is key to its success, as much as Cody, or director Jason Reitman.
  29. The Central Park Five
    An unusually good documentary about an outlandish miscarriage of justice.
  30. Say Anything...
    Complex, knotty and at times even uncomfortable; its world has a weight and heft that makes its ultimate romanticism seem genuinely transcendant, genuinely magical. [14 April 1989]
    • Chicago Tribune
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