San Francisco Chronicle's Scores

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For 9,303 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: 5,160 out of 9303
  2. Mixed: 2,657 out of 9303
  3. Negative: 1,486 out of 9303
9303 movie reviews
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  1. Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael
    Best of all is Winona Ryder, who gets to play a brilliant teenager, as she did in ''Heathers.'' It's almost automatically comical to hear such a clear, emphatic and intelligent voice coming out of a kid. But Ryder also works that oddness for dramatic advantage, creating with Dinky the sense of a great spirit temporarily stuck in a child's body. [12 Oct 1990, p.E3]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
  2. The Hangover Part II
    This dark and seedy follow-up to 2009's blockbuster comedy has a quite a retro message - suggesting that civilized men carry inside them a monster, a "demon" within, that requires constant taming.
  3. The Game Plan
    The two best things about this logic-challenged, predictable and overlong (110 minutes!) film are The Rock's performance - surely he's one of the more likable people in the movies, and here he handles physical sight gags with aplomb; and the parallel disciplines of football and ballet, which provide a way for father and daughter to understand each other.
  4. The Old Guard 2
    While the original was serious, Old Guard 2 is merely forlorn. Its story holds little interest and, to make matters worse, it doesn’t even end. Instead, it stops mid-story, promising a sequel that feels less like a promise than a threat.
  5. Along Came Polly
    Its story is paint-by- numbers...But it's funny, and funny covers a lot of sins.
  6. The Gates
    Dialogue, quirky incidents and a general acceptance that this is the unfortunate way life is make this more than just a genre exercise, though hardly a breathtaking grabber of “Get Out” proportions.
  7. Mary Reilly
    The film is too mannered, too stuffy. Even Malkovich's interesting performance won't let it break free of a formal style and cloyingly creepy tone that becomes precious while trying to be merely claustrophobic.
  8. The Ring Two
    Perfunctory, thrill- free sequel.
  9. The Caveman's Valentine
    A wildly implausible thriller.
  10. Smiling Fish & Goat on Fire
    An appealing film with a hideous title.
  11. What Dreams May Come
    Astonishing visualizations of the afterlife are coupled with a drawn-out allegory about communication between the living and the dead that becomes something of a trial to sit through.
  12. Barney's Great Adventure
    The film is a fairly happy excuse to give the beloved dinosaur some room to do what he likes best -- sing kid-friendly songs and peddle a twinkly message that imagination and kindness are good things.
  13. Unknown
    Despite a clever script and top-notch cast, whose commitment to doing service in the indie branch of the industry is commendable, Unknown falls apart just when it should be coming together.
  14. Rifkin's Festival
    To watch Rifkin’s Festival and Allen’s previous film, A Rainy Day in New York (2019), is to wonder whether this is a filmmaker who has ceased to understand the world.
  15. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
    “Batman v Superman” is an insanely long and convoluted action movie, made worse by an air of importance. It’s dispiriting and visually bland.
  16. This Is Where I Leave You
    Bateman comes off well, humanizing his character with a strain of melancholy that’s one of the movie’s genuinely touching elements. Fey is all right, though she falls back on her patented shtick. Driver makes the most of his hipsterish role, nicely playing off the other siblings’ tension.
  17. Chandni Chowk to China
    More important is to be in a silly mood yourself. Without that - without a complete suspension of disbelief - Chandni Chowk to China is a drag to sit through.
  18. The Answer Man
    A perfect example of an Intelligent Bad Movie.
  19. Connie and Carla
    A clever idea, but it's not quite pulled off.
  20. The Village
    The Village seems poised to become as cheesy in its effects as a low-budget horror film. Shyamalan's gracefulness keeps his movie just out of that abyss.
  21. Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason
    A great role becomes an unenviable chore, in which a superb comic actress finds herself trying to sell a series of unfunny comic situations by mugging and pushing with all her might. It's an unflattering spectacle for all concerned.
  22. The Prophecy
    For all its goofiness, director Widen has made a film with some genuinely creepy moments.
  23. Mortal Kombat
    Those who just want to watch a cool, competent and only semi-dumb action movie, though, can thank god for small favors like that.
  24. The Bronze
    There’s a nude scene that comes out of nowhere that’s almost embarrassing. Why is it there? Like the movie itself, it’s almost daring, except it’s not.
  25. One Last Thing...
    The across-the-board strong performances indicate a sure directorial hand. Everyone is made vivid, down to the smallest roles.
  26. Bloodshot
    A lively and amiably stupid action movie, given an extra dose of atmosphere by the presence of Vin Diesel. He is his own quality control, his own authentic center, so that even in a story like this — a kind of Philip K. Dick for dummies — there’s something onscreen that’s not ridiculous, that’s reliable and consistently cool.
  27. Jobs
    At its best, it's a good picture, and at its worst, it's almost good.
  28. The Libertine
    There is little debauchery to be had in Laurence Dunmore's adaptation of The Libertine. In fact, hedonism has never looked so bleak.
  29. The Losers
    The Losers is boring. It's predictable. It's so, so active, and yet so, so dead.
  30. Southland Tales
    A mess, and that's really a shame.
  31. Nina's Heavenly Delights
    A lightweight and sentimental exercise that succeeds at little except maybe inspiring the viewer to go out and find a decent curry.
  32. Life Happens
    Coiro, who directed and co-wrote the film with Ritter, has a firm hold on snappish humor and bookish references, but the whole thing sags under a creaky narrative structure.
  33. Schizopolis
    It's fresh, unexpected and goofy. It's not a smart career move, just a film that its director wanted to make for some crazy reason, and he made it.
  34. Snow Falling on Cedars
    Ultimately there's something too measured, too controlled in his film.
  35. Sex with Strangers
    More depressing than liberating, but it's never boring.
  36. Gasoline
    Earnest, but a work in progress.
  37. America's Sweethearts
    This is the downside of Roberts' giant success and her dazzling ability to charm: Every time she goes plain, as she did in the little-seen "Mary Reilly" and "Michael Collins," our princess simply fizzles.
  38. Killer Elite
    Director-co-writer Gary McKendry seems to know a thing or two about hard-fisted fight scenes, but he muddies up the visuals with obligatory spasms of shaky-cam.
  39. Dudley Do-Right
    Eric Idle--a royal among sillies--turns in a wonderfully wacky performance.
  40. 4th Man Out
    Fourth Man Out is a coming-out tale with well-worn themes, but its blue-collar spin and appealing cast give it a charm that’s hard to resist.
  41. Night Swim
    The good news is you can bring the kids. When it comes time for swimming lessons next summer, there’s nothing they’ll remember from this that’ll make them afraid of the water.
  42. Firehouse Dog
    Perhaps worst of all, the movie is painfully long.
  43. Racing Stripes
    Muniz, however, is hampered by Stripes' constant moping, which brings out the "Malcolm in the Middle'' star's whinier tendencies.
  44. Eagle Eye
    The movie doesn't have three brain cells to rub together, but the premise carries it a long way.
  45. Teknolust
    Sci-fi has rarely been so playful.
  46. Palmetto
    There's no buildup and little shape. Scenes are strong, but the movie as a whole flags.
  47. Malibu's Most Wanted
    A small triumph for lowered expectations.
  48. Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials
    There’s lots of eye candy, and the pace is fast, but somehow the movie falls short. You’re forgiven if you get the idea that “Scorch Trials” suffers from “middle movie” fatigue.
  49. City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly's Gold
    What more or less saves the movie is not the humor as much as it is the action. City Slickers II, lame as it is, keeps hobbling along in an appealing way through a Wild West landscape. [10 Jun3 1994, p.C3]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
  50. 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.
  51. Survival of the Dead
    The movie is not as good as his recent low-budget effort, "Diary of the Dead," but there are enough moments of satire and coolness - two Romero hallmarks - to merit recommendation.
  52. Larger Than Life
    Larger Than Life isn't as bad as it sounds, mostly because Murray is so likable and fundamentally incapable of not being funny.
  53. Backwards
    A movie whose main virtue was its honesty ultimately lands in a place that feels canned and unsatisfying. But on the way there, Backwards isn't so bad.
  54. Collisions
    Despite the paint-by-numbers nature of its plot construction potentially working against audience engagement, the film moves along briskly, benefiting from strong performances virtually across the board.
  55. Hunter Killer
    Hunter Killer seems old-fashioned. It belongs to a genre that was pretty much exhausted before the Cold War was over. And it threatens us with a world that, from the standpoint of 2018, doesn’t look all that bad. The movie is overlong, at times confusing, and it’s self-important, with a soundtrack that keeps telling us we feel things that we don’t.
  56. San Andreas
    By turns frightening, exciting and ridiculous, San Andreas is, in the end, more impressive than anything else.
  57. American Pastoral
    An earnest film, a well-acted film and, despite the presence of a star director, a generous film. As a director, McGregor is good to his co-stars and highlights them throughout. But the energy drops out of the last third of the picture, and takes with it much of its aura of importance.
  58. Catch and Release
    Rough around the edges, but once you get used to the laconic pace, the plot grooves along nicely.
  59. The Tempest
    Not a mediocre film. It is, by turns, a great and awful film.
  60. The Omen
    The remake is a solidly crafted movie with a lot of good scares, but it also raises the question: Why even bother with an update?
    • 43 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Dad
    Yes, it's got painful and funny moments, but by the time it's all over, I was worn out coping with all Dad's manifold transformations. [28 Oct 1989, p.C3]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
  62. Suicide Kings
    It's an amazing actor who can carry a movie by simply sitting calmly in a chair. That's what Christopher Walken does in the comedy-thriller Suicide Kings. He's so good, one hardly blinks.
  63. The Mexican
    Thank God for James Gandolfini.
  64. Jersey Girl
    The film's overall construction is faulty. Its dramatic situations ring consistently false, and the story is phony as anything off the Hollywood assembly line. And yet, it's sincere phony.
  65. Fathers' Day
    Robin Williams and Billy Crystal, teaming for the first time on the big screen, are moderately fun but suffer from what looks like a case of too-calculated Hollywood packaging.
  66. 9 Songs
    This disappointing new film from director Michael Winterbottom ("24 Hour Party People") suffers from a similar malaise: It's poetic and pretty, strives for profundity without attaining it, and finally ends up saying nothing.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    The Vow
    Even viewers who are an easy touch for romance movies will find this heavy-handed.
  68. Hot Rod
    Just funny enough.
  69. Antebellum
    Unfortunately, there’s a gulf between a great idea and competent execution, and this first feature, from writer-directors Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz, can’t bridge it.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Le Chef
    A delightful French comedy.
  71. Chain Reaction
    A conspiracy tale of high-tech chicanery, Chain Reaction has better acting, better writing, more spectacular chase sequences and more genuine drama than all of this summer's blockbusters. It's also got Morgan Freeman, as good an actor as we have today, which easily qualifies it as the one action film you should see this summer if you see no other.
  72. The Girl in the Spider's Web
    Foy is anything but mysterious or feral. Rooney Mara and Noomi Rapace, who previously played this role, seemed appropriately weird, but weird depends on hiding something, and Foy hides nothing.
  73. Sorry, Haters
    It's a well-meaning but ultimately feeble and misguided attempt to say something profound about the aftereffects of the 2001 attacks on New York.
  74. The Shaggy Dog
    As good as family entertainment gets.
  75. Maleficent: Mistress of Evil
    The saddest thing about Maleficent: Mistress of Evil is that it’s not bad, but typical, that this emptiness — this immersion in mass numbification — is the modern style.
  76. X Games 3D: The Movie
    Poorly written, contains too much hero worship and profiles too many events - including one that combines the high jump with motorcycles. But the documentary generates a remarkable amount of goodwill with its stunning visuals, which look breathtaking in 3-D.
  77. Light It Up
    At all times, the audience believes that it's watching something that really could happen.
  78. American Pie 2
    No longer fresh -- though that's to be expected in a sequel -- it contains none of the virtues that made the first one anarchic and original.
  79. Anything Else
    This seemingly good idea results in disaster. Allen has no insight into the current generation of young people, and his film is just a jumbled rehash of themes and motifs that he's explored elsewhere.
  80. The Beach
    It's a movie to feel. Even when the thinking isn't all there, the emotions are, all the way to the film's poignant last seconds.
  81. The Long Kiss Goodnight
    A "nonstop thriller" that is also a nonstop dud. Underline the word "long" in the title.
  82. All I See Is You
    The best thing about All I See Is You is that it’s not afraid to experiment. But it’s an experiment that went wrong, a film in which ambiguity trumps complexity.
  83. Medicine Man
    The landscape shots are impressive, and it's fascinating just to look at the native people -- but after 10 minutes, you've had the experience. Connery is crusty, twinkling and attractive, but in reciting this ham-handed dialogue, the best he can do is be a good actor trapped in a bad film. [07 Feb 1992, p.D1]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
  84. A Family Affair
    A Family Affair never even makes the case as to why these people should be together.
  85. Night School
    The promise is double the fun, double the laughs, and the movie can’t quite deliver on that. But there are still big laughs to be had, and there’s the pleasure of watching these two gifted comedians sharing the same frame.
  86. Total Recall (2012)
    For all of its dazzlingly rendered cityscapes and nonstop action, this revamped Total Recall is a bland thing - bloodless, airless, humorless, featureless. With or without the triple-bosomed prostitute.
  87. Riding in Cars with Boys
    They try to make Beverly adorable, and the movie comes off strained and dishonest as a result.
  88. The Last Castle
    Not as simple as it looks, though its appeal is simple: Robert Redford goes to prison, and James Gandolfini ("The Sopranos") is the warden. That's a movie worth seeing right there.
  89. Hope Floats
    Floats is corny and false, with a script by Steven Rogers that's almost 100 percent artificial sweetener.
  90. Paycheck
    Running mainly on adrenaline and a gimmick, it's different from other holiday movies in that it's not ambitious, earnest or overblown, and it obviously wasn't made with one eye on the Oscars.
  91. Kingpin
    Kingpin has nastiness going for it. There are prosthesis jokes, bad-teeth jokes, ugly-women jokes, sight gags involving vomiting, etc.
  92. The Wolfman
    The movie's best special effect hands down is Anthony Hopkins as Talbot the Elder, who flounces around in a tiger stole and utters his lines with such a delicious madman twinkle you might want to snack on him yourself (ahhh-ROOooh).
  93. Dear John
    You promised only a slim plot, tidy morals and lovers with quaking loins. It was fun while it lasted.
  94. Youth Without Youth
    Lush and heartfelt, but compelling only in fits and starts.
  95. The Lady
    The Lady is a portrait in moral and physical courage, a sort of analysis of what constitutes greatness.
  96. Lost in Space
    A wild ride through nonstop visual effects yet a warm wallow in the cinema of the dumbed-down.
  97. A Dog's Journey
    A big, juicy bone for canine-focused humans, but much less of a treat for others.
  98. Vita & Virginia
    Were “Vita” better developed and edited, one might find joy in its rejection of the patriarchy. But the female-friendly dialogue relies too heavily on exposition. Nobody asks if anyone wants a cup of tea.
  99. 360
    Much like its own characters, it dithers too much - and it dares too little.
  100. The Strangers: Chapter 1
    The script is hopeless in both senses of the word, offering no hope and lacking in quality. But I enjoyed the two victims, at least until they started screaming, and appreciate the way director Renny Harlin creates a sense of menace by his choice of lenses and his placement of the camera.
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