San Francisco Chronicle's Scores

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For 9,317 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 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: 5,172 out of 9317
  2. Mixed: 2,659 out of 9317
  3. Negative: 1,486 out of 9317
9317 movie reviews
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  1. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
    Its virtues are velocity, energy, innovative storytelling - and something that seems even more the province of young directors: a certain heartlessness and ironic distance in the tone.
  2. Bella
    A tearjerker that earns its sobs with heartfelt emotions.
  3. Dan in Real Life
    Dan in Real Life fires on so many circuits that at times it's actually shocking how good it is.
  4. Jimmy Carter Man from Plains
    An intriguing document, and the first significant film ever made about a former U.S. president.
  5. Music Within
    Rarely rises above the level of a TV movie.
  6. Rails & Ties
    Chock-full of holes.
  7. Saw IV
    One more small thing: Every other scene in Saw IV starts and ends with a potential victim pressing "play" on a tape recorder, to the point where it's almost funny.
  8. Lynch
    Exhilarating for Lynch diehards.
  9. 30 Days of Night
    A well-paced and entertaining horror debut.
  10. Gone Baby Gone
    A story so good that maybe anybody could have turned out something decent.
  11. Rendition
    A maddening film, maddening in a good way, but maddening nonetheless.
  12. Reservation Road
    Despite some solid acting, the film is lacking in surprises. For all the suffering that these characters endure, there's very little payoff.
  13. Things We Lost in the Fire
    Outstanding in support roles are Alison Lohman, playing a friend of Jerry's, and John Carroll Lynch, playing a neighbor who befriends Jerry.
  14. Wristcutters: A Love Story
    A quirky but surprisingly lighthearted dark comedy.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Meeting Resistance
    Worth the effort.
  16. Elizabeth: The Golden Age
    An enticingly risque saga of the 16th century monarch.
  17. The Final Season
    Follows a predictable format.
  18. Lars and the Real Girl
    A gentle comedy, offbeat but never cute, never lewd and never going for shortcut laughs that might diminish character.
  19. Sleuth
    Sleuth"is that rare film that would have been better longer. You're not through looking at Caine and Law when the final credits roll.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Terror's Advocate
    A complex story.
  21. 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.
  22. King Corn
    Neatly, and often humorously, summarizes a very unhealthy situation.
  23. Khadak
    An ambitious attempt at cinematic poetry, and how much they have succeeded depends on how well you can sort out its surrealistic meanings.
  24. Control
    There's little illumination.
  25. Finishing the Game: The Search for a New Bruce Lee
    When you finally stop laughing, there is something to think about.
  26. For the Bible Tells Me So
    It works well as a film and a lesson about, as one open-minded preacher puts it, what the Bible "reads" about what it supposedly "says" about homosexuality.
  27. The Heartbreak Kid
    It's funny in spots if you can tune out the Farrellys' ultra-crass jokes - along with any memory of the first movie.
  28. Michael Clayton
    Has a slow build and a strong payoff, but George Clooney is the element that holds it together.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    My Kid Could Paint That
    No one emerges unpunished.
  30. The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising
    A mostly entertaining movie with built-in appeal to young audiences. The good news for parents is that it won't put them to sleep.
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