San Francisco Chronicle's Scores

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For 9,302 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 2.2 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: 5,160 out of 9302
  2. Mixed: 2,656 out of 9302
  3. Negative: 1,486 out of 9302
9302 movie reviews
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  1. The Curse of Bridge Hollow
    The film’s broad performances, undemanding humor and not-too-frightening horror are all designed to appeal to kids (and older fans of the “Haunted House” series). Adults are advised to enjoy the living Spirit Halloween aesthetic of it all, and remember that you love your children while enduring the rest of this hollow experience.
  2. Halloween Ends
    Halloween Ends is far from a great finale, but it’s a decent showcase for Jamie Lee Curtis, whose place in film history has long been assured because of this role. Will this be the last we see of Laurie Strode, or the “Halloween” storyline? It’s best to wait for the box-office reports. After all, franchises never die — they just change shape.
  3. All Quiet on the Western Front
    There are dull stretches — interrupted by moments of terror — but that’s not really a complaint for a movie such as this. “All Quiet on the Western” is only partly a narrative. It’s also an immersive experience, an invitation to walk in someone else’s shoes, albeit from the safe side of a screen.
  4. Stars at Noon
    Stars at Noon has some interesting ideas, and a general fatalistic malaise creates a perversely appealing Le Carré-esque mood. But it’s so vague — perhaps because Denis doesn’t understand Central America as much as she does West Africa — that its impact melts in the heat of its near equatorial setting.
  5. TÁR
    Blanchett is so convincing, and Field’s approach is so authentic, that it feels like an event, not just a movie.
  6. Luckiest Girl Alive
    The movie maintains interest throughout and it’s ultimately satisfying, though with one qualification: The last minutes treat the story as though its whole purpose was to illustrate a social and political issue. It’s actually, for 98% of its running time, the story of a person — and it’s better that way.
  7. Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile
    A final word about Bardem: He’s simply terrific. With his shaggy curly hair, exaggerated showmanship, athletic dance moves and operatic gestures, Hector is part Willy Wonka and part Gene Kelly — it’s Bardem’s most off-the-rails performance since his turn as a James Bond villain in “Skyfall.”
  8. Triangle of Sadness
    It’s still an unusually good picture and worth the time (though you could skip the last 30 minutes and still get all you’re going to get from it). But if only writer-director Ruben Ostlund (“The Square”) had figured out a graceful way to end his movie at, say, the 100-minute point. He’d have had something extraordinary.
  9. Hocus Pocus 2
    Ultimately, Hocus Pocus 2 operates as a cheerful throwback to the 1980s/early ’90s genre of plucky kids saving small-town America from existential danger, a vibe tapped into by not just the original “Hocus Pocus” but such classics as “Gremlins,” “Back to the Future” and “The Goonies.”
  10. Smile
    Smile is an immensely well-crafted horror movie.
  11. The Greatest Beer Run Ever
    Efron makes what he can of an impossible role. He’s watchable, that helps.
  12. Bros
    Eichner is quick and funny, and Macfarlane is a strong leading man and a sensitive listener — with Eichner constantly deluging him with a torrent of words, Macfarlane would have to be. Audiences will become very fond of both long before the end of the picture.
  13. Blonde
    Ana de Armas is inspired and flawless as Marilyn Monroe, and yet “Blonde” is a total bomb. Intuitively, that would seem impossible, for someone to be that good in a failed picture. Here’s something else that would seem impossible: “Blonde” has seriousness of purpose and a strong director, Andrew Dominik, who clearly made the movie he wanted to make. It’s still bad.
  14. Sidney
    Even though the film is by the numbers, it offers younger generations who know nothing of Poitier’s life and groundbreaking work a look at this important actor and activist.
  15. Do Revenge
    A clever mishmash of Hitchcockian and 1980s and ’90s high school movie sensibilities, the Netflix dark comedy Do Revenge falters when it tries to grow a heart.
  16. Don't Worry Darling
    Sure, “Don’t Worry Darling” — whose very title reeks of paternalism and condescension of the worst order — comes from a woman’s viewpoint, an element that differentiates it from other films or TV series to which it might be compared. But it’s still not enough to keep the movie from slipping into predictability.
  17. See How They Run
    Directed by veteran British television director Tom George, “See How They Run” won’t impress demanding viewers, but acts as an a rather agreeable placeholder until the next “Knives Out” movie arrives.
  18. The Silent Twins
    What happens to the twins won’t be revealed here (those with overriding curiosity can find the Wikipedia page about them), but Smoczynska, Wright and Lawrance find the humanity and empathy in their story, if not the complex psychological reasons behind their unique lives.
  19. Pearl
    Taken together, “X” and “Pearl” make for a compelling double-feature showcasing blood-spattered homages to different eras of film.
  20. The Woman King
    Sure, it’s overly simplistic and not altogether historically accurate but if anyone is looking for a well-made, action-fueled popcorn movie, “The Woman King” sure beats a Wikipedia page every day of the week.
  21. Clerks III
    The banter, often Smith’s strong suit, is witless and tiresome, mostly obsessive conversations about minor characters in “Star Wars” and other aspects of pop culture. It’s probably not Smith’s intention, but we end up feeling sorry for the characters, that they inhabit such a tiny mental landscape.
  22. Pinocchio
    Like Disney’s tepid 2019 live-action remake of “The Lion King,” it’s virtually a beat-by-beat remake of the original, but without the original’s energy and movement.
  23. Barbarian
    An unnerving thriller that never goes quite where you’d expect, this feature writing/directing debut from Zach Cregger (“The Whitest Kids U’Know”) also does monstrously amazing things with lighting, sets and special effects makeup.
  24. The Anthrax Attacks
    The Anthrax Attacks conjures the terror and paranoia afresh and, with the hindsight of 21 years, asks the viewer to consider how effectively the crisis was handled.
  25. Peter von Kant
    François Ozon’s Peter von Kant, about a film director toxically obsessed with a young actor, is much more than a remake. It’s a valentine.
  26. Me Time
    Credit to Hart, though, for trying to make every scene, comic or sentimental, as strong as he can. He reads each line that’s supposed to be funny as if it is, locates Sonny’s emotional truth no matter how ridiculous the scene is, and never lets his signature energy sag.
  27. Three Thousand Years of Longing
    There’s more to life than just stories and really, Djinn and Alithea just need to get a life.
  28. The Good Boss
    The cast is uniformly good, but it’s Bardem’s sly, harried performance that powers this overlong, and more amusing than funny, comedy.
  29. Samaritan
    It’s a pastiche of a pastiche, cycling through familiar tropes without adding anything to them; turning what could have been a fascinating critique of society’s superhero obsession into just another way of indulging it.
  30. Breaking
    In his quiet, sad stoicism, Boyega at times seems to be channeling Denzel Washington. He embodies the dignity of suffering.
  31. The Territory
    The filmmaker’s default setting is to tell each person’s story with dignity, a significant achievement that goes a long way.
  32. Beast
    The movie’s midsection, by far its most effective part, offers its share of heart-pounding moments.
  33. Look Both Ways
    Look Both Ways has a couple of things going for it, namely a compelling premise and the charm of Lili Reinhart (“Riverdale”) in the lead role. But the whole movie is a lie, and once you figure that out, the realization cuts into a lot of the pleasure.
  34. The Princess
    The movie captures something that we missed on this side of the Atlantic. The British public’s obsession with Diana was unrelenting. Every move she made became occasion for analysis — most of it idiotic — on the endless string of talk shows they have over there.
  35. Day Shift
    Day Shift pauses for a promising concept every now and then before zooming off to its next helping of amped-up gore. The graphic violence is never terribly disturbing, mostly because it’s rendered with cartoonish exaggeration.
  36. Girl Picture
    Girl Picture excels at showing how teenage life can be a sensory experience that’s exhilaratingly joyful and unbearably painful, sometimes simultaneously.
  37. Emily the Criminal
    It’s a crime movie, but as the title suggests, it’s a personality study, a detailed one that grows in dimension. It’s fascinating to watch Plaza fill in those details. Her face is almost blank, but only almost. We always know what she’s thinking.
  38. Bodies Bodies Bodies
    It’s the rare film that can match the vapidity and venom of "Bodies Bodies Bodies," a combination that’s both toxic and entertaining. There are many influences — “Mean Girls,” “Gossip Girl,” “Scream,” to name a few — but "Bodies Bodies Bodies" takes all of these influences and creates an original spin for the social media age.
  39. Prey
    A lean, mean, riveting back-to-nature horror film that flies through its thrilling 99 minutes.
  40. Mija
    Ultimately, “Mija” fails almost totally, and two main things tank it: (1) the lack of complete access to the subjects, who should have been grateful for the exposure, and (2) too much collaboration between the director and her subjects. There are documentaries and there are promotional films. A documentarian needs to keep those categories rigorously separate.
  41. Bullet Train
    It’s not like bad Tarantino. That would be too kind. It’s like an imitation of a bad imitation of Tarantino — violent, unfelt and witless, and straining to be funny.
  42. Thirteen Lives
    Thirteen Lives deserves to be seen. The only question is whether audiences will be up for it. I saw it on a huge screen and had to occasionally remind myself that if it got really overwhelming, I could always close my eyes. It’s that intense.
  43. Vengeance
    Vengeance is unexpected and, in the best way, weird. In his first film as a writer-director, B.J. Novak takes familiar elements, but puts them together in ways that are original and unexpected. Even when the plot turns go off the deep end, it’s impossible not to appreciate Novak’s audacity.
  44. Resurrection
    With Margaret threatening to lose it at any moment, “Resurrection” is #MeToo horror at its cringiest.
  45. My Old School
    In the end, “My Old School” is a well-made documentary that succeeds in most ways but that starts to crumple in the face of a single question: Who cares?
  46. DC League of Super-Pets
    It’s a loving sampler platter full of big laughs and heart that will satisfy lifelong DC buffs, while serving as the perfect on-ramp to the universe for a whole new generation of young fans.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Anything's Possible
    A familiar feel-good story told through an unseen perspective, Anything’s Possible is an overdue inclusion of trans youth in the celebratory innocence of the coming-of-age genre.
  48. Nope
    Every so often an obviously talented person makes a bad movie, and that’s what we have in Nope. The talent is there, the movie is dead on the screen.
  49. My Donkey, My Lover & I
    Writer-director Caroline Vignal could have made "My Donkey” into a 90-minute monologue, with Antoinette talking to the donkey. Instead, there’s lots of variation, smart turns of story and well-drawn, well-defined characters. Vignal makes even the bit characters, the ones with just three or four lines, vivid.
  50. The Gray Man
    The Gray Man gets better as it goes along, and it contains a couple of action sequences that are as imaginative and well-crafted as any that you’ll see all year. So don’t dismiss it. Netflix it.
  51. Gabby Giffords Won't Back Down
    Irrespective of what the future holds in terms of gun control, the movie is a striking portrait of a married couple who expected one kind of life, got another, and are making something useful from their misfortune.
  52. Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank
    “The Legend of Hank” offers a few hints of the wit and wisdom of its predecessor but is mostly content to coast through a familiar story on the accumulated charm of its star-studded cast of voice actors.
  53. Fire of Love
    This is a film that pops on the big screen — no CGI needed here, folks. But the way Dosa shapes the story, emphasizing the couple’s deep love for each other and their unconventional lives, is what makes Fire of Love...one of the most moving and memorable films of 2022.
  54. Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris
    This world of entirely nice people seems like a trite fantasy — trite because the movie never makes you believe it. But it does makes you want to believe it, and so, like a lot of these movies, it takes you halfway there.
  55. Persuasion
    Persuasion is a handsome film, but it doesn’t have much trust in its audience to think or feel for itself.
  56. Thor: Love and Thunder
    Most of Thor: Love and Thunder is a mess, pleased with itself and tonally everywhere. As bad as one of the better “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies, but that’s still pretty horrible.
  57. Both Sides of the Blade
    Both Sides of the Blade is what people like about French cinema. Its indulgences are worth wading through because, in its commitment to the truth about people and its willingness to explore the hugeness of normal human life, it’s unlike anything you’ll find in America.
  58. The Princess
    Director Le-Van Kiet and screenwriters Ben Lustig and Jake Thornton succeed by making the action look real, by coming up with intriguing plot twists and keeping our heroine in danger at all times.
  59. Minions: The Rise of Gru
    At 88 minutes, Minions: The Rise of Gru struggles to find enough story to encompass its run time, ending up feeling substantially longer as a result.
  60. The Man from Toronto
    As a 110-minute diversion, as a source of some laughs, as an opportunity for two funny guys to be funny — and to be funny with each other — what’s not to like? Just go in not expecting much.
  61. Official Competition
    Argentine filmmakers Gastón Duprat and Mariano Cohn (who wrote the film in collaboration with Duprat’s brother, Andrés) direct Official Competition with a sophisticated understanding of its tone, which is essentially realistic and deadpan. The world isn’t crazy, just the people in it.
  62. Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe
    At 86 minutes, Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe feels twice that long. Most of the good laughs are front-loaded in the premise; the rest pop up every 15 or 20 minutes, which isn’t exactly prime Mel Brooks ratio.
  63. The Black Phone
    The Black Phone has better-than-average acting, an interesting period setting and well-developed characters. But it runs out of story less than halfway through, forcing the filmmakers to repeat the same kinds of actions, over and over, in order to stretch it to feature length.
  64. Elvis
    It’s extraordinary how Luhrmann is able to tell this story honestly, while still making it palatable. It’s equally extraordinary that he can take this short and tragically misdirected life and make it feel like a triumph.
  65. Spiderhead
    In dramatic terms, Spiderhead is mostly a face-off between Hemsworth’s irresistible force and Teller’s immovable object. It offers the pleasure of watching two actors, just coming into their full powers, going at it full-bore, moment by moment. And each makes the other’s performance better.
  66. Cha Cha Real Smooth
    By end of Cha Cha Real Smooth, you feel like you’ve met some people, and you liked them all, and it all felt true. For a 24-year-old filmmaker, that’s not bad.
  67. Lightyear
    Ultimately, the people who made “Lightyear” bet too much on the appeal of Buzz, when they really needed to be deepening him and transforming him. Buzz is no Woody, and to sustain an entire movie, he pretty much had to be.
  68. Jurassic World Dominion
    The ultimate failure of Jurassic World: Dominion is not only that it relies too much on action, but that the action is lousy.
  69. I'm Charlie Walker
    The movie is so enamored of Walker, and Colter radiates so much charisma and pleasant mischief in the role, that it takes about half the running time to realize that the movie is not delivering on the basics.
  70. The Phantom of the Open
    Rylance is always good, but director Craig Roberts, to use a golf term, lays up instead of going for the pin. In other words, he plays it safe.
  71. Hustle
    There’s a sweetness at the film’s core that never gets too sickly. The international angle feels right for a league that has never been more worldly. Most of all, there’s Sandler, who finds something very real in Stanley, something beaten down but still hopeful. The actor has reached a point in his career where he can summon gravitas without it feeling like a hustle.
  72. Crimes of the Future
    As writer and director, Cronenberg devises for himself a compelling situation, but a situation is not the same as a story. Within 20 minutes, Cronenberg has written himself into a hole, one populated entirely by passive characters who do nothing but get cut up or watch other people get cut up.
  73. Benediction
    Benediction is an awesome combination of wildness and control. Davies is out there all by himself, speaking a cinematic language that is his own and that has little to do with plays or literature.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Fire Island
    Despite the shortcomings, Fire Island is a feel-good, enjoyable comedy and a celebration of queer, Asian American storytelling. Let’s hope its success paves the way for even more subversive films to come.
  75. Montana Story
    It moves, makes us care and involves us in the genuine drama of two young people trying to heal themselves. The austere beauty of the locations doesn’t hurt either.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Bob's Burgers Movie
    If they can swallow the intensity of the musical numbers, fans of the show will feel at home with this adaptation, which is just a higher-stakes version of a typical episode (with shadows).
  77. Emergency
    “It’s not what it looks like” is both the marketing tagline for Emergency and an accurate description of this ingenious independent film.
  78. Downton Abbey: A New Era
    The acting is splendid. Fellowes’ dialogue may not be subtle, but the actors are so familiar and at home in these roles that they make up for whatever is lacking.
  79. Senior Year
    Senior Year is a just-OK movie, but it’s a very good Rebel Wilson movie, in that she has been funny in supporting roles, but this is the first time she has excelled as the name above the title.
  80. Hit the Road
    Panah Panahi, making his feature debut with Hit the Road, definitely inherited his old man’s trouble-making genes. His eye for composition is accomplished, but the movie meanders and the pacing sometimes drags. The problem, of course, is the filmmaker holds back the relevant information that would keep a viewer engaged until the end.
  81. Top Gun: Maverick
    If you haven’t been to the movies in a while, Top Gun: Maverick is a way to get back in. It’s pretty much what “going to the movies” is all about.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Vinyl Nation
    Rather than simply reveling in nostalgia, “Vinyl Nation” becomes a forward-looking story about connections: between artist, tradesperson, retailer and listener. And also between families, friends and strangers.
  83. Hatching
    Hatching has the quality of a fable, and like the best fables, it has meanings that reverberate well beyond its story.
  84. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
    Still, despite Olsen and the appealing breeziness of Cumberbatch, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is what it is, a superhero extravaganza with too many fight scenes. But director Sam Raimi doesn’t overplay them, and the creative visuals keep them from becoming monotonous.
  85. Memory
    Neeson also does a good job tracing his character’s cognitive deterioration over the course of the movie. As such, Memory is like a hybrid, mixing serious sections with Neeson’s usual action stuff. Call it a little bit of this and a little bit of that, or not enough of this and not enough of that.
  86. The Duke
    Ultimately, The Duke tells an enjoyable real-life story.
  87. The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent
    As a Nicolas Cage movie — not just as a movie, but as a vehicle for what a specific actor can do onscreen — this is the most interesting thing Cage has done since “Face/Off.”
  88. The Bad Guys
    If anything, the fun character dynamics laid out in the first two acts make it all the more disappointing when the final third tips over into noisy excess. But on balance, this ends up being a small complaint.
  89. Petite Maman
    Petite Maman immerses the viewer in all the things you might have forgotten about childhood — what’s funny to a child, what’s valued, what’s priceless, what will be remembered and valued in years to come. Just watching the almost-identical Sanz sisters play and interact becomes fascinating, like witnessing from the outside some lovely and enclosed world.
  90. Paris, 13th District
    At any given time, a different character will seem to be the movie’s focus. But as long as we recognize that love’s transformational power is the real subject, there can be no mystery about the movie’s intentions or how it’s unfolding.
  91. Dual
    While Stearns’ style is detached and clinical, he finds tender humanity in unexpected places.
  92. Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore
    There are all kinds of dull movies. There’s check-your-watch (or phone) dull. There’s run-into-the-bathroom-to-splash-water-on-your-face dull. And then there’s Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, which is standing-up dull.
  93. The Northman
    For almost half of the movie, you might wonder why Nicole Kidman chose to take such a lackluster role. The answer: Just wait — and brace yourself. Kidman is never happier than when she gets to go to extremes, and by that measure, Queen Gudrun is one of her happiest roles.
  94. Ambulance
    There’s enough variation and suspense, enough complication in the form of other characters with other concerns, that Ambulance stays fresh until the finish.
  95. As They Made Us
    The film is worth watching thanks to a flawless central performance by “Glee” alum Dianna Agron, solid elder annoyance shtick from Candice Bergen and Dustin Hoffman, and Bialik’s “Big Bang Theory” co-star Simon Helberg locating his pain and relishing every minute of it.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Metal Lords
    While the movie can play like one big valentine to an adolescent’s adoration of metal music culture, it also nails the most important aspect of metal music in a teen’s life: how it can provide a sense of power to misfits who often feel like they have none.
  97. Sonic the Hedgehog 2
    The big-screen series has smartly keyed into the character’s long-running (and fast-running) appeal. Like its predecessor, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 knows when to go big, but more important, it knows when to stay small. Go ahead, put a ring on it.
  98. All the Old Knives
    Looking back over All the Old Knives, it might be more accurate to call it a spy romance, except that makes it sound titillating. Better to say it’s a movie about the consequences of trying to stay human while working in the spy business.
  99. Cow
    It doesn’t make cows into human beings. If anything, for some 90 minutes, it turns us into a cow. In doing so, it shows us — in a way that we actually feel it — how amazing it is to exist.
  100. The Bubble
    Think of The Bubble as part of a pattern we could have anticipated. Pandemic movies almost can’t be any good at this point. The pandemic won’t be funny, interesting or anything anybody wants to think about until we’re safely beyond it by a few years. So, filmmakers, set your watches for pandemic nostalgia to commence circa 2027, and between now and then, just put it out of your minds.
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