Chicago Tribune's Scores

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For 7,599 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: 5,104 out of 7599
  2. Mixed: 1,473 out of 7599
  3. Negative: 1,022 out of 7599
7599 movie reviews
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  1. Off the Black
    There's something very right with Off the Black in terms of pure emotion and performance craft.
  2. Screamers
    A commendably brave piece, but less focused and powerful than you'd like. In the end, Garapedian might have been better off concentrating her energy on the 1915 Armenian story--which has been told on film various times (for example, in "Forty Days of Musa Dagh" and Atom Egoyan's "Ararat"), but never with the power of, say, "The Pianist" or "Schindler's List."
  3. Days of Glory
    Its social impact is part of what makes this movie memorable. But as with almost any exceptional, truthful war picture, Days of Glory moves us because we know the soldiers -- because we share their fear, triumph and pain.
  4. Inland Empire
    It may not look like anything he's done before, but Inland Empire joins "Mulholland" and the whatzit "Lost Highway" (1997) to form the strangest show-business triptych around. All three concern artists whose identities demand more than one body. The films give new meaning to the phrase "dual citizenship."
  5. The Nativity Story
    The Nativity Story surprised me. I didn't expect such an obvious art film approach. Yet the Bible, in the King James version, is great English literature.
  6. 3 Needles
    Writer-director Thom Fitzgerald's ambitious but hopelessly inchoate AIDS drama is actually three separate, sequentially-told stories.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    10 Items or Less
    Moves at an agreeable, meandering pace but never loses its verve or its sharp humor.
  8. The Architect
    It's a fairly well-written piece and an even better acted one. And these days, when independent films are increasingly the salvation of the serious American dramatic movie, it's heartening to see something like The Architect, which tries to reawaken a major American dramatic tradition and sometimes succeeds.
  9. Highway Courtesans
    Highway Courtesans carries a feeling of truth, of bravely facing problems that are pressing and real. It's a good, informative piece on the oldest profession--and on how the world differs from what we usually see in the movies.
  10. The Lives of Others
    Works beautifully, both as a social and psychological drama and as a taut, tightly wired thriller.
  11. Turistas
    The stalwart American hero of Turistas comes off as a dislikable blank in the hands of Josh Duhamel, of the TV series "Las Vegas." More relaxed is Melissa George, who co-stars as the Aussie.
  12. Eating Out 2: Sloppy Seconds
    A soft-core sex comedy that keeps throwing out comic variations on the idea of the line between gay and straight sexuality.
  13. The Fountain
    It's possible to admire or respect a movie without enjoying it too much, and that's partly the reaction I had to Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain. It's an incredibly ambitious film of sometimes thrilling visual achievement, but it didn't connect fully to my mind and nerves.
    • 28 Metascore
    • 38 Critic Score
    Deck the Halls
    Nobody expects every holiday film to ascend to classic status; in fact, we're happy to let most fade from memory as soon as the decorations are taken off the trees. We can, however, demand they live up to a certain level of fun, thereby allowing parents to watch along with their kids without plotting the most direct route to the exit.
  15. Deja Vu
    It's an almost overwhelmingly professional picture, murderously fast, slick and full of outlandish notions, painstakingly realized. And it's also surprisingly satisfying -- thanks to Washington, a good cast, Tony Scott's swift direction and that unyielding professionalism.
  16. Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny
    A large amount of dope is smoked in The Pick of Destiny, perhaps the most since the salad days of Cheech & Chong. This may be the problem. Pot rarely helped anybody's comic timing.
  17. Backstage
    The results aren't gothic and bloody, as they were in the Lauren Bacall film "The Fan," or elegant and ironic as in the Bette Davis classic "All About Eve"--though the plot suggests a bit of both.
  18. Opal Dream
    Sophisticated cinephiles aren't likely to go ga-ga over this one, but Opal Dream is a worthwhile family film, graced with an ambivalent, bittersweet ending and just the right touch of cinematic poetry turning on the gemstone in its title.
  19. The History Boys
    The film is worth seeing, if you have any fondness for the writer who co-created "Beyond the Fringe" and who is second only to Stoppard in his sprightly but mellow wit.
  20. Casino Royale
    Eleven years ago director Campbell made "GoldenEye," the first of the Brosnan Bond pictures. Casino Royale trumps it every which way.
  21. Happy Feet
    A lot of director George Miller's film is gorgeous and exciting. Its craftsmanship and ambition put it a continent ahead of nearly every other animated feature of the last couple of years.
  22. Candy
    The way director and co-adapter Armfield shoots it, the film's awfully pretty in its grimness, in the way "Leaving Las Vegas" managed to make train-wreck alcoholism more fake-lyrical than grungy.
  23. Fast Food Nation
    Linklater's working-class mosaic is seriously interested in how most of this country gets by for a living. And that, sadly, makes it distinctive.
  24. For Your Consideration
    True to form, Guest's newest doesn't pull out the long knives. On the gentleness scale, this one's way over here, as opposed to the film of the moment, "Borat," which is way, way over there.
  25. The Aura
    Darin is an actor who's really consummate at suggesting two simultaneous levels of character.
  26. Flannel Pajamas
    Love can be a battleground, and, despite its homey-sounding title and gentle, almost nonchalant air, Jeff Lipsky's Flannel Pajamas gives us a series of messages from the front.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    A Good Year
    The film, for all its pretensions of revelatory, life-altering enlightenment, is actually about as deep as a wading pool, as substantive as cotton candy.
  28. Harsh Times
    Harsh Times, is almost a good, salty urban thriller.
  29. Stranger Than Fiction
    When Ferrell and Hoffman do their thing together, a charming bit of whimsy becomes something more. It becomes really, really funny.
  30. Iraq in Fragments
    One of the year's finest documentaries, a remarkable example of the conjunction of a burningly topical and newsworthy subject with a brilliant filmmaker.
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