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. J.T. Leroy
    JT Leroy is on safer ground when Albert and Knoop are matching wits, mainly because it’s a pleasure to watch the perfectly cast Dern and Stewart on the screen. It’s easy to understand what attracted these fine actors to these roles, but the script allows them to only scratch the surface of this maze-of-mirrors story, where the truth remains deliciously elusive.
  2. Mondovino
    Overly long and not especially enlightening film.
  3. Generation Wealth
    The film has its flaws, but after watching its catalog of shifty hedge fund types, Kardashians, plastic surgery addicts, bling-laden rappers and children of Hollywood royalty, you can’t help but agree.
  4. How to Eat Fried Worms
    It's a pleasant and well-intentioned end of summer diversion that doesn't possess the imagination-stoking qualities of a premier children's movie.
  5. Balls of Fury
    The real trouble is that it's supposed to be an outrageous comedy, but in fact it's fairly tame and not all that funny.
  6. Rambo
    It's 90 minutes of flying, dismembered limbs and explosions of blood, but give the man credit. Stallone can do action. If you want action and nothing but, here it is.
  7. Shrink
    The plot relies heavily on pat betrayal, forced coincidences - and the sort of closure that lands, with a thud, in a tidy package of cliches. Yet some of the humor is delicious.
  8. De-Lovely
    A mishmash of a musical. The movie never gels -- despite Kline's nuanced performance, the stars' exquisite period clothes, designed by Armani, and, of course, Porter's great songs.
  9. Lockout
    Most of the time Lockout is pleasant enough, not something to recommend to a friend, but enjoyable in the moment. Guy Pearce has a lot to do with that, as the most impervious action star imaginable.
  10. Return to Never Land
    This is pleasant, safe entertainment that ought to appeal to kids younger than 10, especially to girls, with its female-empowerment fantasy.
  11. Slow West
    If ultimately Slow West seems more like a filmmaking exercise than an engaging piece of work — despite Fassbender’s star presence — that’s all right. Filmmakers need to get their exercise. Let’s see what Maclean does next.
  12. The Edukators
    It could have been something substantial.
  13. Mars Needs Moms
    Mars Needs Moms floats about 45 minutes' worth of story in an 88-minute ocean.
  14. Al Franken: God Spoke
    A documentary in search of a story.
  15. Rocky Balboa
    Anyone who appreciates Sylvester Stallone or enjoys the "Rocky" movies will find moments to enjoy in Rocky Balboa and will leave the theater reasonably satisfied. It's just good to see the guy, and it's good to revisit the character. And that's everything good to be said for the experience.
  16. It's What's Inside
    The body-swap movie “It’s What’s Inside” dazzles up to the moment its plot gets going.
  17. Jingle All the Way
    Jingle wants to warm our hearts and establish Schwarzenegger as a family man -- but devotes so much time to goony violence and broad physical comedy that the last-reel schmaltz feels hollow and tacked-on.
  18. Ramona and Beezus
    Another innocuous film about another unusual girl.
  19. Seducing Doctor Lewis
    A sweet, bordering on saccharine, comedy.
  20. Crazy Eyes
    The resulting film has the integrity and the ugliness of the truth. It's not true because it's ugly; no, it's ugly because it's true.
  21. Peaceful Warrior
    The film is better than it has any right to be, considering the prosaic source.
  22. House of Spoils
    House of Spoils suffers most from genre hybridization. The more explicit horror moments feel grafted on to what is essentially a character study with mystery elements. But as “Speak No Evil” recently demonstrated, Blumhouse no longer signifies low-budget, terrifying horror. The brand has become shorthand for movies lacking clear identities.
  23. Severance
    Definitely worth your time, if not your $9.50. In other words, wait a few months and definitely check it out as a rental.
  24. Mortal Engines
    The film is a reasonably entertaining trifle, though it’s overstuffed with battle sequences and peripheral characters that often consume the main story line.
  25. Talk to Me
    Before it becomes entirely too Australian, the well-crafted haunted-hand horror movie Talk to Me perfectly captures the one-upmanship of social-media-fueled youth culture.
  26. Freejack
    Freejack is the kind of picture that you watch and scoff at, and then when it's over, you leave the theater having had a good time, only mildly aware that the good time had something to do with the quality of the movie. Freejack is convoluted, a meeting of bad writing and bad science fiction. And yet, taken as a whole, it's really not bad. [18 Jan 1982, p.C3]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
  27. Red Dragon
    In Hollywood, where integrity is rapidly consumed and careers defined by market value, there's trash and there's trash with a pedigree.
  28. Japanese Story
    To mildly respect Japanese Story is easy. To enjoy it would require an act of will.
  29. The Keeper: The Legend of Omar Khayyam
    Rough around the edges, it's still a formidable movie.
  30. Strange Fits of Passion
    Mediocre-TV-drama-load of formulas.
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