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. Before Night Falls
    It's an horrific and tragic story, but somehow made beautiful through the care and attention of Schnabel's direction and Bardem's tender, unforgettable performance.
  2. Injeong sajeong bol geot eobtda
    A Korean film that takes an American genre and gets fancy with it.
  3. The House of Mirth
    Her (Anderson) performance is a study in the difference between hubris and pride, remarkable for how unshowy but profoundly devastating it is.
  4. Miss Congeniality
    A mannerless, styleless brute, Bullock's Grace Hart is Eliza Doolittle in sweats.
  5. State and Main
    Mamet finds an angle just new enough to be fresh.
  6. O Brother, Where Art Thou?
    Joyously unhinged and outrageously inventive.
  7. Cast Away
    It will bring joy in a way certainly not intended, as one of the most gloriously and unwittingly silly films ever devised by a major American filmmaker.
  8. The Family Man
    Cage gives a performance that invites audiences to lay cynicism aside in a romantic fable.
  9. Finding Forrester
    Rich supplies some eloquent grace notes, and Van Sant uses them to make understated music.
  10. The Gift
    Pure ham and cheese.
  11. Pollock
    Renders the juicy bits of the artist's life in two hours of pulsing highlights that suggest a man who never really had any emotional or psychic downtime.
  12. The Emperor's New Groove
    This oddball comedy may be one of the brightest, funniest pieces of entertainment of the season.
  13. What Women Want
    The movie's gimmick for airing the contents of a woman's head is not unlike that used for the dogs and tots in those "Look Who's Talking" movies.
  14. Dude, Where's My Car?
    Don't tell Mom, but everybody seems stoned.
  15. Chocolat
    A lighthearted fable with jarring scenes of violence and halfhearted stabs at mystical realism, its saving grace is its gooey center, the luminous Binoche.
  16. Vertical Limit
    The film is well shot and has titillating action without a single persuasive emotion.
  17. Dungeons & Dragons
    The audience has already checked out, long before the formulaic finish.
  18. Proof of Life
    A hostage drama that oscillates between soap opera and action flick.
  19. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
    The class act of action movies.
  20. A Good Baby
    Re-creates that chilling sense that comes when, in the middle of a pleasant conversation, one realizes the other person is off his rocker.
  21. Boys Life 3
    The show takes little more than an hour to finish and less than a minute to forget, while politely reminding us not only that gay movies have fallen on hard times but also that they refuse to give up.
  22. Spring Forward
    It's the kind of unpretentious movie that falls between the cracks, and for a certain kind of audience, the thoughtful kind, it would be a shame to miss.
  23. 102 Dalmatians
    In every kids' picture, there are going to be sections that only kids will enjoy. Fortunately, 102 Dalmatians has enough for the adults, too.
  24. Unbreakable
    Even the surprise ending arrives with a thud and makes us wonder why Shyamalan didn't try something new instead of recycling his "Sixth Sense" recipe.
  25. Quills
    Rush is amazing throughout this absorbing, provocative film.
  26. Lies
    In slightly less than 1,000 years, the competition for worst film of the third millennium will be fierce. Yet the smart money may well be on the Korean art film Lies.
  27. Bounce
    Surprisingly tepid and soapy.
  28. La bûche
    Sweet and insubstantial -- just like the French Christmas cake for which it's named.
  29. Sasayaki
    It's not always clear what this film is driving at, but Shiota makes the weirdness visually arresting.
  30. One Day in September
    Impassioned and well-crafted, One Day in September is also grueling.
  31. The 6th Day
    This movie knows how to entertain.
  32. How the Grinch Stole Christmas
    Overall, the film sparkles. But it's a curiously unaffecting sparkle, an example, almost, of how the special effects stole Christmas.
  33. Rebels with a Cause
    It rambles, it's repetitive, but once in a while there's a sparkling moment when someone speaks in a way that conjures the fierce passion of the '60s.
  34. Non-Stop
    Never rises above the level of its gimmick.
  35. Red Planet
    There still is no life on Mars. Red Planet is airless.
  36. Men of Honor
    Gooding can't will this well-meaning film into life.
  37. Little Nicky
    Adam Sandler finally has a good excuse: The devil made him do it.
  38. You Can Count on Me
    It's simply a quiet and heartbreaking look at the dynamics of one family. That's the beauty of it.
  39. Suzhou River
    The film is energized by the naturalness of its characters and the way in which it plays a game of mixed signals and double illusions.
  40. Me & Isaac Newton
    An elegant and rather even-tempered documentary.
  41. The Legend of Bagger Vance
    A pleasant myth.
  42. Charlie's Angels
    An utter debacle.
  43. Loving Jezebel
    A joyous first feature by director Kwyn Bader, is a charmer.
  44. The Little Vampire
    The results are predictable and only mildly entertaining.
  45. A Room for Romeo Brass
    Goes downhill fast.
  46. A Time for Drunken Horses
    Presents us with characters of such humanity and dignity that it begins to seem obscene that until now we haven't exactly given all that much thought to the Kurds.
  47. Stardom
    What makes it interesting is the story that the viewer must put together, of a model who lives her entire life -- or at least what we see of it -- in front of the camera.
  48. Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2
    Worse than dull. It's parasitic.
  49. Lucky Numbers
    When Travolta plays, everybody has a good time.
  50. What's Cooking?
    A big-hearted celebration of the we're-all-in-this- together American way.
  51. George Washington
    Hardly perfect or fully successful, but it's strange and strangely beautiful -- a unique work of art.
  52. Kirikou and the Sorceress
    Kirikou and the Sorceress is definitely a sunny spot in the mire of frenetic, violent and often dopey cartoon films produced by Hollywood. It's also far more imaginative that most.
  53. Sound and Fury
    A documentary with the emotional power of the very best in narrative film. It has characters impossible to forget, moments impossible to shake and an ending that leaves the audience both moved and rattled.
  54. The Wolves of Kromer
    The wolf-homosexual analogy is well drawn, but Wolves ultimately feels slight, a tad unfinished -- as if it were conceived as a sketch and hadn't been fleshed out to feature length.
  55. The Yards
    Keeps sinking into its own grimness.
  56. Just One Time
    Darned if this film doesn't have some nice touches.
  57. The Legend of Drunken Master
    Among Chan devotees, it achieved cult status.
  58. Calle 54
    It is a spellbinding hour and 45 minutes of pure music, Latin jazz to be specific.
  59. Pay It Forward
    Has all the elements of a satisfying movie except knowing when to stop.
  60. Bedazzled
    Fraser and Hurley are terrifically matched for their interplay, and some of the writing is so smart it outclasses the film's cartoonish feel.
  61. Just Looking
    Pleasant, ultimately sweet but never quite inspired.
  62. Cleopatra's Second Husband
    It's a bitter pill to swallow, featuring a quartet of unsympathetic characters and an unrelenting air of misanthropy.
  63. Lost Souls
    While it's beautifully shot, it's way too slow.
  64. Dr T and the Women
    Provocative, audacious.
  65. The Contender
    Thoroughly engrossing.
  66. Billy Elliot
    People who see it may feel like dancing out of the theater afterward. Go for it.
  67. The Ladies Man
    An unblushing sex farce often so raw it might make even fairly open-minded people feel a bit uncomfortable.
  68. Ratcatcher
    When it's not awful, it's dull.
  69. One
    Visceral and strong.
  70. Taboo
    A further, captivating extension of Oshima's marriage of the oblique and the erotic.
  71. CyberWorld
    This novelty film is little more than a strung-together product reel of animation pieces put to the 3-D and IMAX test.
  72. Two Family House
    It's the kind of small but amazing character study (think ``Marty'') that film lovers yearn for while griping that this type of picture no longer gets made. Turns out it does.
  73. Bamboozled
    Guaranteed to inspire, antagonize and divide his (Lee's) audience.
  74. Get Carter
    This noir mystery is murkier than it needs to be, through no fault of Stallone's.
  75. Bootmen
    The film's overburdened, silly plot renders it a disaster.
  76. Digimon: Digital Monsters
    Has an unrelenting staccato quality. Some would say a jackhammer quality.
  77. Yi Yi
    Wise, delicate and impeccably performed, Yi Yi is a three- hour drama that looks at one middle-class family in transition -- and does so with such a kind and probing eye that we all see our lives reflected through Yang's lens.
  78. Meet the Parents
    It's a kind of "sex, lies and videotape'' in suburbia.
  79. Requiem for a Dream
    He (Aronofsky) has put together a phantasmagoria of self-destructive obsession that is so visually astounding it becomes its own saving grace. Otherwise, we might not be able to bear it.
  80. Beautiful
    (Driver) is stuck in a mess of a movie that suffers from awkward writing, a plot with major disconnects in plausibility, an annoyingly screechy kid character and cheesy production values.
  81. Girlfight
    The movie belongs to Rodriguez: A gorgeous woman with a powerful body and the face of an Aztec princess, she's also a natural talent who instinctively understands the importance of economy in good acting.
  82. Remember the Titans
    Earns its emotional moments, and it takes the audience along.
  83. The Great Dance: A Hunter's Story
    Moreover, what the film lacks in temporal credibility, it amply makes up for in sheer rawness -- the rawness being literal.
  84. Barenaked in America
    These guys are very normal off stage, making them easy to like and not very exciting to watch.
  85. Best in Show
    In terms of dramatic tension, Best in Show is more compelling than a lot of formulaic sports movies.
  86. Chutney Popcorn
    Her direction is weak, her dialogue is cliched, and her acting lacks energy and focus.
  87. The Fantasticks
    Has slow patches and requires a generous suspension of disbelief. But it's also sweet and optimistic -- a welcome antidote to gloom.
  88. Urban Legends: Final Cut
    Schlock, but amusing schlock.
  89. Woman on Top
    Wants to be a brightly colored bubble but has trouble getting aloft.
  90. Dancer in the Dark
    A thrilling, audacious work.
  91. Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport
    At its slowest, the film has value as a historical document. At its best, the film gives a human face to stories of unimaginable suffering and unexpected triumph.
  92. Duets
    Appealing, and ultimately moving.
  93. Urbania
    Rarely does a movie come along that captures an aspect of everyday consciousness that has not yet made it onto film.
  94. Human Resources
    A rare film about the class and educational divide that can happen even within families.
  95. Goya in Bordeaux
    The movie never catches fire with the emotions.
  96. Bait
    The action is difficult to follow.
  97. Paragraph 175
    An exquisite and powerful documentary -- one whose elegance only heightens its devastating impact.
  98. Almost Famous
    A sweet but curiously unfulfilling story.
  99. Pola X
    Carax, with Pola X, has become a parody of himself with a self-indulgent, overreaching style that many viewers will find a struggle to watch -- provided they can contain their contempt for pretentiousness.
  100. The Watcher
    A hodgepodge of half-baked visual styles can't disguise the fact that this dismal thriller is all situation and no story.
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