San Francisco Chronicle's Scores

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For 9,305 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 52% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 46% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 2.1 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 63
Highest review score: 100 Mansfield Park
Lowest review score: 0 Speed 2: Cruise Control
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 5,161 out of 9305
  2. Mixed: 2,658 out of 9305
  3. Negative: 1,486 out of 9305
9305 movie reviews
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    • 59 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    What's Love Got to Do with It?
    Indian director Shekhar Kapur, who returns to film after more than a decade, is known for “Bandit Queen” (1994) and “Elizabeth” (1998), so this may be considered among the acclaimed director’s lighter films. But the Academy Award-winner’s skillful steering of characters allows the movie to showcase a diverse milieu rather than become a narrow East versus West portrayal.
  2. No Hard Feelings
    Basically, No Hard Feelings is everything you like about Jennifer Lawrence, brought together in one movie and then magnified: her down-to-earth irreverence, her comic timing, her idiosyncratic naturalness and her unexpected sensitivity.
  3. Doctor Sleep
    A soul-killing sequel that gets its kicks torturing and murdering children and offers little hope or redemption. King has long wanted to commit “Redrum” on the reputation of Kubrick’s film, which he openly despises. Nearly 40 years later, this adaptation of King’s 2013 book “Doctor Sleep” doesn’t so much tarnish Kubrick as embarrass itself.
  4. Cape of Good Hope
    A warmhearted film.
  5. The Contender
    Thoroughly engrossing.
  6. Mystic Pizza
    A pleasant enough "Crimes of the Heart" rip-off about three young women bumbling, stumbling and fumbling through life, looking for answers, smiling through tears, blah, blah, blah. [21 Oct 1988]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Fade to Black
    No new moment in here for rap fans or anyone else.
  8. The Lost World: Jurassic Park
    The biggest sequel of the summer has more dinosaurs, better special effects and more action than the original... But the inspiration is gone, and with it most of the fun.
  9. Love! Valour! Compassion!
    McNally adapted his Tony-award winning play for the screen, and for once a movie is an improvement on the stage version.
  10. J. Edgar
    It's watchable and reasonably entertaining, to be sure. Eastwood doesn't make movies that are hard to sit through. But something in the film's point of view is off, not at cross-purposes, not contradictory, but incomplete, irrelevant and ever-so-faintly ridiculous.
  11. Mr. Peabody & Sherman
    You might need the assistance of a time machine to find a child who is clamoring for a Mr. Peabody & Sherman feature film remake.
  12. The Cartel
    It's all talking heads, clanging music, substandard graphics, long scans of Web-page headlines and Bowdon's heavily cadenced voiceovers.
  13. Seeking a Friend for the End of the World
    Sweet and serious as it is, the second chunk of Seeking a Friend is the lesser of the two - and hard to reconcile with the more acidic comic outlook in the film's first half. The obvious movie referent is Lars von Trier's "Melancholia," a much nastier film in a much lovelier wrapping: This one lacks an eight-minute Wagner montage.
  14. Alien 3
    Alien 3 is pretentious and gimmicky by turns, resorting at times to silly B-movie tricks that undercut its seriousness and moments that can be anticipated from a mile off. [22 May 1992, P.D1]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
  15. The Railway Man
    For such a torment-filled story, the ending is surprisingly satisfying, with an important message that a lesser filmmaker might have telegraphed too much.
  16. Pocahontas
    Disney's 33rd animated feature, and its first with characters based on real people, is a stunning movie with clever twists, vivid characterizations, insightful songs and a surprising harvest of revisionist history that manages to ring smartly as pure entertainment.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Impassioned Eye
    A viewer of the film misses any sense of what distinguishes a great Cartier-Bresson picture from a good one, never mind a bad one. And the photographer himself cannot have been happy with the short shrift the documentary gives to drawing, which occupied him through most of his last decades.
  18. Sing
    Sing is a tribute to struggling live theater.
  19. Deja Vu
    A needlessly complicated and confusing thriller.
  20. Lizzie
    Directed with restraint by Craig William Macneill, Lizzie never quite gets to what made Lizzie Borden tick, but it’s possible no film ever could. But it remains an entirely watchable drama thanks in no small part to the charisma of its two lead women.
  21. Change of Plans (Le code a changé)
    This film isn't boring - it's not scintillating or spellbinding, either, just pleasantly honest and moderately interesting throughout.
  22. Cocaine Cowboys
    This is an ugly film, but with an undeniable allure.
  23. Fight or Flight
    Hartnett is naturally engaging, and one can see why, with the movie plummeting to earth, the filmmakers might decide to pull the humor ripcord. But here it smells of desperation.
  24. Heartbreaker
    It turns out to be just as bad as any routine French romantic comedy - illogical, inconsistent and sloppily written, a charmless, tasteless, witless waste of time.
  25. The Lovebirds
    Sure, not everything is great. Here and there, the movie goes out of its way to be sentimental. But The Lovebirds is a pleasing comedy, funny from beginning to end. That should be enough for anybody.
  26. Mr. Holland's Opus
    Mr. Holland's Opus is a glowing tribute to the unsung heroics of those rare, gifted teachers who make a difference in life. Richard Dreyfuss, in a performance that both touches and inspires, plays music teacher Glenn Holland.
  27. On the Basis of Sex
    A serious movie that slowly earns its emotion and enlists our involvement. Even before the finish, it’s goosebumps all around.
  28. Bitter Melon
    What makes the movie smart is its refusal to cast Troy, a difficult role well-played by Epino, as strictly a villain. Instead, Mendoza delves into the cycle of violence that can be passed down through generations.
  29. Run All Night
    After devising a sturdy frame for Neeson’s special brand of sorrowful mayhem, the filmmakers expertly fill in Run All Night with a series of charged action scenes, including a rare one in which Neeson chases after a cop car, instead of the other way around.
  30. We Own the Night
    Things are a little off. The style is gritty 1970s-style crime thriller, but the morals are straight out of 2007, and the movie is set in 1988.
  31. I Have Never Forgotten You: The Life & Legacy of Simon Wiesenthal
    Succeeds in making the case that the hatred that seemed dead and buried 60 years ago is alive and growing and beginning to present itself once again as a threat to humane civilization.
  32. Ice Age: The Meltdown
    Less a story than a series of complicated slapstick bits.
  33. Lakeboat
    A must-see for Mamet fans.
  34. Intact
    Convoluted.
  35. Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
    Places Myers firmly on the top rung of movie comics.
  36. Nico and Dani
    Sweet and harmless -- a beach movie in more ways than one -- but it doesn't run awfully deep.
  37. Signs
    Promised to be the season's thoughtful action picture, turns out to have few thoughts and no thrills.
  38. Dangerous Liaisons (2012)
    Dangerous Liaisons isn't necessarily a work of art, but it's a guilty pleasure for sure.
  39. Bridget Jones's Baby
    The film is sprinkled with “f” bombs, which fails to disguise that the enterprise is based on a surprisingly dated notion of what’s racy. Also, you simply may not find Bridget quite as adorable as the filmmaker’s clearly believe her to be.
  40. Elvis & Nixon
    Shannon is worth seeing, and so is Spacey — hunched over, doing a funny impression of Nixon’s voice and body language. But this time the actors are better than the material.
  41. Legally Blonde
    Benefits enormously from smart casting across the board.
  42. Cars 3
    Intermittently entertaining.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Good Grief
    While not offering anything particularly surprising or challenging in its take on the unpredictable shadow of loss, “Good Grief” delivers plenty of heart.
  44. Moonlight Mile
    Too predictable and too self-conscious to reach a level of high drama.
  45. Savages
    So. What part of this is boring? All of it.
  46. Roll Bounce
    Funny and honest.
  47. Together
    Both McAvoy and Horgan handle the rapid-fire dialogue with gusto, and for a while, their devastating banter is amusing. But eventually the effect begins to wear thin: These vocal diatribes need a more developed story to hang on.
  48. Molière
    A whimsical but flat-footed attempt to account for several lost months in the life of Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known to the world as Molière.
  49. Mission: Impossible
    It's the worst kind of convoluted thriller -- it can never unravel satisfactorily because there's nothing simple at its center, just more confusion.
  50. Independence Day
    The alien attack, taking place in several cities at once, is breathtaking...All the same, Independence Day is consistently funny.
  51. Sliding Doors
    No doubt this seeming effortlessness was hard-won. Movies this smooth don't happen by accident.
  52. Confidence
    Ultimately, the con we witness in the movie is almost as beautiful as the con that is the movie -- believable in the moment, too irresistible to question upon reflection and executed with invigorating confidence.
  53. Bonjour Monsieur Shlomi
    A feel-good movie.
  54. American Pimp
    Lushly entertaining, and its subjects are terrific storytellers with style to burn.
  55. The Drama
    It’s Zendaya’s movie. Her layered performance holds back then lets go as Emma’s full complexity is gradually revealed. If you can’t get onboard with Emma, then you’re the problem — which partly is Borgli’s intention.
  56. Dawn of the Dead
    It's silly, witty and good-natured, not scary so much as icky, and not horrifying or horrible but consistently amusing.
  57. Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love
    A beautiful film.
  58. Ip Man
    It's a highly entertaining, big-budget, kick-butt kung fu movie, the best of its kind since Jet Li's "Fearless" in 2006.
  59. Surviving Progress
    The name of this documentary is Surviving Progress, but that's only because "The Sky Is Falling and We're All Gonna Die" wouldn't fit on a marquee.
  60. Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance
    Degenerates in the second half.
  61. Limitless
    The story gets away from itself as it barrels forward. The tiny bit of sense it makes at the beginning is quickly sacrificed in a conclusion so facile, illogical and cheap that it could use a dose of NZT itself.
  62. Nobody 2
    Funnier, sunnier and even more violent than its predecessor, “Nobody 2” ups the ante in the cinematic action department as well.
  63. Running from Crazy
    It's good nonetheless, an artfully arranged account of Hemingway's current life, mixed with footage shot by her late sister Margaux for a 1983 documentary about the family.
  64. Jurassic World
    Jurassic World is an intelligent action movie that’s saying something simple but true: Yes, people are that stupid.
  65. Day Watch
    While the sequel to "Night Watch" is an imperfect film, it's always interesting.
  66. Rubber
    Rubber has its share of jollies, at least when it isn't boring us to death with the fourth-wall-busting monkey business. Although I appreciate Dupieux's efforts at satire, the audience-interaction subplot goes nowhere fast.
  67. Junior
    As a comedy, Junior has its share of laughs -- but no more than its share.
  68. Michael Collins
    Viewers may feel let down because the depth promised by the movie's visual artistry is never quite delivered.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Naqoyqatsi
    Passionate visual indictment of the perilous state of our high-tech world.
  70. Madame Satã
    In his thrilling feature debut, Madame Sata, Brazilian filmmaker Karim Ainouz doesn't glorify dos Santos but examines the hot, reckless fever of his life in all its thorny complexity.
  71. The Children of the Century
    The film's appeal has a lot to do with the casting of Juliette Binoche as Sand, who brings to the role her pale, dark beauty and characteristic warmth.
  72. Barbershop 2: Back in Business
    A warmhearted and surprisingly ambitious sequel.
  73. The Shape of Things
    The film is certainly clever enough to hold an audience's interest throughout, though in the end it's a victim of its own ambition. As a moral investigation, it's shallow and ultimately ludicrous.
  74. I, Robot
    Although I, Robot provokes thought, it doesn't exactly deliver thought, despite the occasional Cartesian reference to "ghosts in the machine."
  75. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps
    Greed is boring.
  76. Dalíland
    At its base level, Dalíland is all about what a drag it is getting old, especially for a narcissist. But more importantly, it’s also a cautionary tale about the dead-end that is narcissism — not just in life, but in art.
  77. Heights
    Perversely fascinating.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert
    If it wasn't for the stellar 3-D effects, there wouldn't be much to stop this hastily produced film from heading straight to DVD. But the scene at the end where all the confetti comes flying out and the pyrotechnics go off? Even I was willing to let out a little scream for that.
  79. The Whistleblower
    Clumsy and ineffective in its first half hour. But gradually, as her investigation deepens, and we see the true hideousness of what she is uncovering, the movie achieves urgency and clarity of purpose.
  80. More Than a Game
    The final message is a strong one: Even when the starting forward is one of the best high school players ever, basketball is still a team sport.
  81. Memphis Belle
    Memphis Belle goes off in several different directions at once, and the result is a movie that's scattered and unfocused. [12 Oct 1990, E1]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
  82. Summer of '42
    Director Robert Mulligan exhibits the same sensitivity about young people and their foibles as he did in "To Kill a Mockingbird." In 1962. You never sense that he's making fun of Hermie or his pals. [08 Jul 2007, p.16]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
  83. Those Who Wish Me Dead
    Those Who Wish Me Dead pretty much works on the gut-level way it was intended, but it gets extra credit for being unintentionally funny.
  84. Bad Boys for Life
    A funny, satisfying action comedy that never disappoints.
  85. Learning to Drive
    Offers some hit-and-miss pleasures, but may finally strike you as pedestrian.
  86. The Lover
    As a cold meditation on sex and power, The Lover succeeds. The girl remains invincible behind her youth and vapidity, calmly amazed at her own strength. But as an evocation of the mysterious and universal currents of love and time and passion, ''The Lover'' is inflated but empty. [13 Nov 1992, p.C3]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
  87. Upgraded
    It’s a sweet movie that accidentally expresses ideas that are complicated and perverse. This isn’t enough to make “Upgraded” transcend its formula, but it does make it slightly better than it had to be.
  88. Ballerina
    The most lethal weapon is de Armas herself. She twirls through “Ballerina” with a bone-crunching tenacity. Her and the stunt team more than earned their pay with every kick, chop, punch and glass-smashing body hurl.
  89. If You Build It
    Director Patrick Creadon, who in 2006 made the entertaining "Wordplay," about crossword fanatics, probably errs on the side of advocacy here. But give him credit for acknowledging that idealistic endeavors don't always pay off.
  90. My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done
    Flawed, flaky and exasperating, it's held together by two powerful eccentrics.
  91. Definitely, Maybe
    A sophisticated story of disappointment and accommodation.
  92. Joker
    It’s a very good movie, and it features a blood-curdling performance from Joaquin Phoenix, in the most frightening portrayal of a violent maniac in decades. One more thing: It’s clearly a response to the times.
  93. Les amants criminels
    Straddles a number of genres -- horror film, lovers on the lam, fairy tale -- and gives them all a cool, knowing spin.
  94. The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland
    Full of that wonderful junky, clunky, huggable smartness that has made "Sesame Street'' an enduring phenomenon.
  95. Bang Rajan
    While the battle scenes are impressive, they are repetitive; and while the characters are likable, they never rise above the level of cliche.
  96. The Little Mermaid
    The Little Mermaid origin story lacks room for this more feminist take. It simply is not deep enough.
  97. Magic Trip
    The period footage shows all the principals, including Neal Cassady, who was only 38 but looked 52. Ken Kesey emerges as the film's hero - he is presented as a great American adventurer, the psychological equivalent of Lewis and Clark. Maybe that's not as ridiculous as it sounds.
  98. Carmen
    You’ll see lots of movies in 2023, and you’ll forget most of them. But Carmen is so sincerely passionate and peculiar that you’re bound to remember it.
  99. What If
    Fortunately, What If rights itself well before the finish and finds its way back to the truth and the light.
  100. The Ref
    The Ref, not just about a premise but about people, is the rare good comedy that actually gets better as it goes along. [11 Mar 1994, p.C1]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
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