San Francisco Chronicle's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
For 9,302 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:
9302 movie reviews
  1. A work of art such as A Good Person cannot be the product of some casual connection. It’s the product of a soul connection, and I hope Braff and Pugh get another chance to work together.
  2. The real story of the King Richard dig is fascinating, but the movie, directed by Stephen Frears (“Cheri,” “The Queen”), is just OK.
  3. Moving On is effortlessly intelligent in depicting the experience of being old. Even if you’re not there yet, you know intuitively that old age has very little to do with sitting in a rocking chair in perfect equanimity. It’s about living with the accumulation of things you did and things you didn’t do.
  4. The formula is tired, and it’s particularly sad to see Shazam! surrender so completely and pathetically to it, when it might have been DC Comics most human superhero franchise.
  5. Watching Inside is like being stuck inside a house, unable to escape. No, it’s worse than that. It’s like being stuck inside a house, unable to escape, and Willem Dafoe is there with you.
  6. 65
    Not cheesy enough to be fun/bad (the recent loss of Raquel Welch reminds us of what a hoot such junk films like her 1966 “One Million Years B.C.” could be) nor awesome enough to compete with the “Jurassic” movies of the world, this production is an in-betweener whose biggest asset is a tight, 93-minute running time.
  7. There’s a lot in Scream VI to satisfy longtime fans, but it still feels like a step down from the last one.
  8. Harrelson and Olson make a good pair. He’s genial and bewildered and expects the best, while she’s guarded and clear-eyed and expects the worst. They deserve a better movie, but they make Champions more than bearable.
  9. Palm Trees and Power Lines feels like an honest story about grooming, which is not only valuable in and of itself but kind of crucial at a time when hate-mongers have perverted the concept for political ends. But then, why see a movie that’s good-for-you important and profoundly uncomfortable? Because its humanity and artistry never falter.
  10. Unfortunately, “Operation Fortune” doesn’t consist entirely of scenes between Grant and Plaza. There are pockets of genuine life onscreen, followed by long, dull stretches. The movie always gets better, but then it always gets worse. Then gets better again. It’s that kind of experience.
  11. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film that conveyed with such vividness and precision the helplessness of childhood.
  12. Maren’s direction is tonally right, full of warmth and touches of humor; he makes it an inviting film to watch.
  13. To put it into a larger perspective, if Creed III were a “Rocky” movie, it would be up there — nowhere near the original “Rocky” and a little worse than “Rocky II,” but certainly better than the rest of them.
  14. Cocaine Bear is a movie that will appeal mostly to people who think it’s hilarious to get their dog stoned. If you’re someone who loves to sit on an old couch with a bong between your legs, crying with laughter as your dog bangs into furniture, “Cocaine Bear” might be your “Citizen Kane.”
  15. How Yeon-hee became Frédérique Benoît and what it all means is at the heart of Return to Seoul, an ambitious, challenging and sometimes uneven character study by French-Cambodian director Davy Chou.
  16. It’s all rather enjoyable, and O’Connor, having starred in “Mansfield Park” (1999), certainly knows her way around 19th century romance. Yet the question remains: What is the point of all this?
  17. To watch Close is to be fully immersed in its finely detailed world suggested by Dhont and co-writer Angelo Tijssens; realized by Dhont and cinematographer Frank van den Eeden; and brought to life by the exquisite performances of its top-notch cast, led by Dambrine, De Waele, Dequenne and — as Leo’s mother — Léa Drucker. As its accolades suggest, it is one of the best films of 2022.
  18. The Blue Caftan, like its title garment, has a handmade, lived-in quality, an authenticity that marks Touzani — a former journalist making her second feature — a director to watch.
  19. While it is imminently watchable, it’s a movie that consists of mostly people sitting at tables with fantastic period clothing plotting and scheming, but sometimes barely moving at all.
  20. “Ant-Man: Quantumania” is a glum, tiresome exercise that follows the pattern of every run-of-the-mill superhero movie ever made.
  21. Nothing about Of an Age seems forced. The film delicately embraces grand sentiments without ever being sentimental. And throughout the journey, we can’t help but be enthralled.
  22. With the exception of Jessica Lange, who tears into her fairly brief role as a wealthy and wicked former movie star, everyone in Marlowe is directed as if to seem groggy with depression. It’s as if they’re all bored with the story before they tell it, and then they tell it while trying not to fall asleep.
  23. Sharper works like a machine, and so it seems unfair to complain that, by the end, it feels too mechanical. It’s fun. It should have been more fun, but take the fun where you can get it.
  24. Your Place or Mine has a feeling of old and new about it. It’s an old-fashioned romantic comedy in that it depends almost entirely on the charm of its principal actors, Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher, yet it comes up with a new way of telling its story.
  25. Targeted as Valentine’s Day comfort cinema, the new Paramount+ movie At Midnight is as sappy and predictable as it sounds, with walks along the beach, romantic getaways, candy-colored scenery and, of course, the inevitable mix-ups, misunderstandings and silly arguments that are requirements of the rom-com genre.
  26. Somebody I Used to Know comes dangerously close to being interesting. It’s a romantic comedy, but it’s almost a twisted drama about a seriously damaged creep who goes back to her hometown and starts wrecking people’s lives.
  27. Magic Mike’s Last Dance may not be as dirty a delight as the male stripper series’ first two movies. It has other pleasures, though, especially for fans of screwball comedy, musicals and — yikes — serious dance.
  28. All That Breathes is the kind of immersive documentary experience other filmmakers, and film lovers, would do well to study. It never feels the need to explain what it’s doing. It’s as calm and patient as the Samaritans at its core.
  29. Though One Fine Morning is low-key and flows easily from one scene to the next, it’s truly innovative and original. Writer-director Mia Hansen-Løve has cracked a code. She figured out how to make a kind of movie that other filmmakers would love to make but don’t know how.
  30. It’s hard to deny that Shyamalan remains one of our most prolific, longstanding filmmakers, and that his work continues to make an impression on our culture. His tense, never dull “Knock at the Cabin” makes us uncomfortable at times, and few punches are pulled. Perhaps he’s found a formula that will take him to new, interesting places.

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