San Francisco Chronicle's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
For 9,316 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:
9316 movie reviews
  1. An old-fashioned prisoner-of-war movie that becomes much more because of writer-director Werner Herzog's admiration for the remarkable true story of its protagonist, Dieter Dengler.
  2. Even more ridiculous than it sounds.
  3. There's bad, there's awful and there's horrible, and then somewhere beyond that, in its own Kingdom of Lousy -- where all the milk curdles and the jokes aren't funny -- is License to Wed, the latest ghastly exercise starring Robin Williams.
  4. Ratatouille is a classic.
  5. Sicko will scare people, and it probably should.
  6. The constant shifting between today and years ago is, in and of itself, powerful.
  7. Vitus is likable enough and definitely suitable entertainment for young people willing to read subtitles.
  8. Either Live Free or Die Hard will go down as the summer's best action blockbuster, or it's going to be one exceptional summer.
  9. This is the old stuff, the good stuff, the tried-and-true stuff of shrewdly accomplished audience manipulation.
  10. A limp, slow-moving and desperately unfunny comedy.
  11. Heart-wrenching film.
  12. Never very frightening, but it's clever and fun, with a memorable amount of humor and gore.
  13. Broken English doesn't break any code or offer original insights on the subject. But there's a spark whenever Posey and Poupaud are together.
  14. As the title character in Lady Chatterley, Marina Hands does the most persuasive job of feigning sexual pleasure since Jane Fonda in "Coming Home."
  15. You Kill Me is pretty light, but it's well made, and within the built-in limitations of its story -- a hit man goes to Alcoholics Anonymous -- it's fairly pleasing.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    A good bio of any historical character has to have a compelling story, whether evil or good. Klimt appears to have had that story. I sure would have liked to know what it was.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Leaves its audience with many troubling questions. Among them: Should a film console us with its own brilliance when it aims to discomfit us with its content?
  16. One of the most enjoyable pictures of the season.
  17. The mystery of Nancy Drew' is how a movie can get so many things right -- particularly the inspired casting of Emma Roberts as the spunky teenage sleuth -- yet ultimately disappoint.
  18. Sounds great and if nothing else should help diminish the stereotype, blasted by the film's subjects, of Gypsies as little more than pickpockets whom travelers need to be wary of.
  19. Visually, the film is a stunner, dotted with psychedelic colors and many shades of red -- one battle is fought with red laser-gun sights -- some looking realistically like blood. When gangsters open fire, their falls are choreographed like a ballet. The problem comes when the cast opens its mouth and Elizabethan dialogue tumbles out.
  20. A satisfying story of a grand-scale swindle, but it also retains the impishness and charm of "Ocean's Twelve." Even better, it solves the Roberts problem in the most thorough and economical way possible: She's not in the movie.
  21. Basically torture porn.
  22. The entertaining new film from Sony Pictures Animation is a nice surprise, and the rare mainstream American kid film.
  23. A feverish, unremitting and grimly joyless film.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    It's a movie that seems simple, yet its subtle and brilliant complexity is not to be denied.
  24. Knocked Up has some rough edges, but it's a noteworthy film by a significant and blossoming talent.
  25. Sporadic on-field violence is only a tiny reason that Gracie disappoints, but it's indicative of the film's greater problem. Producers Elisabeth and Andrew Shue seem so intent on creating a hero out of the main character and villains out of almost everyone else, that they've completely distorted reality.
  26. The appeal of Mr. Brooks is as obvious as it is hard to resist: Kevin Costner as a serial killer.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    It leaves one feeling queasy about human nature.

Top Trailers