San Francisco Chronicle's Scores

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For 9,305 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: 5,161 out of 9305
  2. Mixed: 2,658 out of 9305
  3. Negative: 1,486 out of 9305
9305 movie reviews
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  1. Cassandro
    Cassandro takes place in an inherently goofy arena — this is over-the-top, stagey fighting, after all — but the filmmakers avoided the temptations of cheap laughs and produced a satisfying dramatic story that will appeal to both fans and non-fans of this outlandish wrestling genre. That’s a rope move worth cheering for.
  2. House Party
    With House Party, the Hudlins have made a happy, harmless romp of a movie that, in its own minor way, manages to make a contribution to black cinema. There is a measure of social equality in the mere fact that black teens get stupid movies made about them, too. [9 Mar 1990, p.E6]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
  3. No Sudden Move
    Even as everyone’s plans unravel, the film does not. The script, by Ed Solomon, is sharp, as is Soderbergh’s direction.
  4. Safe
    For all its flaws and vagueness, Safe is smart, challenging and provocative -- a film that gives you plenty to chew on, long after Carol's sad tale has wound down.
  5. Stronger
    Stronger always feels right in the moment, solidified by an outstanding central performance by Gyllenhaal, and some wonderful ensemble work, especially the actors just below the top billing.
  6. Smoke Signals
    Beautiful in both its brevity and its vision of contemporary Indian culture, the film abounds in easygoing humor.
  7. September 5
    September 5 succeeds as a tense and involving film, at least partly because it makes the case that the tragedy, despite all its other consequences and ramifications, marked a signal moment in news broadcasting. It was the first time that a hostage drama played out on live television.
  8. The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!
    You don't walk out thinking or feeling anything in particular, except satisfied that you got your money's worth and maybe even got a little tired from laughing so hard. [2 Dec 1988]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
    • 76 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil Le Clercq
    Director Nancy Buirski not only is able to give rare insights into the dance world but a compelling tale of love, friendship and perseverance.
  10. At Eternity's Gate
    In At Eternity’s Gate, Dafoe often works in silence, but tells us everything we need to know with his face and eyes.
  11. The Dance of Reality
    The Dance of Reality may not succeed, but it may hold some interest to cinephiles as a relic of a kind of extravagant, overheated personal cinema that doesn't exist anymore.
  12. Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation!
    It's all very foul, and completely entertaining.
  13. Obvious Child
    The pregnancy monologue isn't funny at all, despite cuts to audience members laughing it up. It's a small false note in a movie that's otherwise as honest as they come.
  14. Standing in the Shadows of Motown
    Catches magic on the screen -- a behind-the-curtain peek at some of the world's best-loved music, straight from the cats who made it happen.
  15. Iris
    Splendid.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Witness
    The new movie eloquently dramatizes the unusual cultural conflicts between contemporary, violent urban life and an archaic rural community with pacifist convictions. [08 Feb 1985]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
  17. The Animation Show 2005
    Very entertaining.
  18. The Loneliest Planet
    There's no getting around it. Though it's not without virtues, The Loneliest Planet may try the patience of even the most dedicated lovers of art film.
  19. Nil by Mouth
    A semi-autobiographical tale of addiction, anger and domestic violence, Nil by Mouth is as blunt and unsparing as a fist to the gut.
  20. King Richard
    Once the focus switches to Venus, whatever is going on with Richard becomes secondary. In her scenes on the court, Sidney is able to convey the double quality of a killer in embryo and a vulnerable kid.
  21. Pray Away
    Though there are political elements here, to be sure, Pray Away has more the feeling of witnessing multiple spiritual journeys. These journeys are, by their very nature, moving.
  22. Shirley
    Shirley is slow and uneventful, but intermittently interesting, and Moss is great. In the end, what tips Shirley into the realm of recommendation is that Moss will be the only thing anyone remembers of the movie. That means that, even if it’s only an OK experience, it should last as a good memory.
  23. Nanking
    The stories are harrowing, and because they are delivered by living, breathing witnesses, they move us in deep ways that the archival footage, for all its horror, cannot.
  24. mother!
    Aronofky gets exactly what he needs from his top-notch cast. Lawrence is appealing and never allows herself to be reduced simply to a howling victim. Bardem, Harris and Pfeiffer are menacing in their own varying ways, with Bardem capable of turning on the charm at key times that makes us wonder if we haven’t misjudged him.
  25. Trees Lounge
    Buscemi eschews the conventional and ends "Trees Lounge" on a stranger, more tantalizing note.
  26. What We Do in the Shadows
    An inspired and funny vampire comedy, one that’s more than just a smart premise but that remains fun and inventive from beginning to end.
  27. The Usual Suspects
    Self-consciously bleak.
  28. 10 Cloverfield Lane
    At one point, this movie had me so on edge that I had a fleeting impulse to run out of the theater. It might be weird to say that and mean it as a compliment, but good thrillers work that way sometimes.
  29. A Dangerous Method
    Instead we get Knightley, who juts her chin, quakes, shakes and bugs her eyes, but nothing about her pain calls out to us, because nothing in it seems real.
  30. Mother
    Mother is a relationship comedy, like Woody Allen's films, and it screams for the smart, elastic pacing that Allen creates. The situations are funny -- 40- year-old John moves into his old bedroom, goes shopping with Mother, is shocked that she has a boyfriend and occasionally curses and smokes -- but his poor timing flattens most of those scenes.
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