San Francisco Chronicle's Scores

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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 2.2 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: 5,160 out of 9302
  2. Mixed: 2,656 out of 9302
  3. Negative: 1,486 out of 9302
9302 movie reviews
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  1. It Comes at Night
    There’s just one big problem here: It Comes at Night is about as enjoyable for the audience as it is for the people in the movie. On both sides of the screen, misery reigns.
  2. Band Aid
    Band Aid is her (Zoe Lister-Jones) first film as a director — she also wrote and stars in it — and something about her and this film is really appealing.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Restless Creature: Wendy Whelan
    As Whelan slowly comes to terms with the loss of her identity, she begins to forge a new one as a contemporary dancer, going on to produce her own performances on a national tour titled “Restless Creature.”
  4. The Mummy
    The Mummy is the rare Cruise film that doesn’t quite give audiences their money’s worth.
  5. Megan Leavey
    One-half of an unremarkable war movie, followed by a touching story about the importance of animals in people’s lives. Fortunately, the stronger part is saved for last.
  6. Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie
    Captain Underpants is a very popular book series that doesn’t seamlessly translate to the big screen, and the filmmakers can’t solve this problem. The result is a cinematic wedgie: a little too dark, a little too nihilistic, a little too empty.
  7. Churchill
    Cox does a better than average job — almost everybody bombs when playing Churchill — capturing the leader’s seriousness of purpose and the weight of his responsibility. He gives us Churchill’s irascibility, but he doesn’t convey Churchill’s twinkle, his charm or his wit.
  8. Dean
    Kline is good in a role that suits him perfectly, and his scenes with Steenburgen are among the film’s most affecting. Jacobs is pretty good, too, really pouring on the Southern California “charm.”
  9. I, Daniel Blake
    Johns is terrific, the heart and soul of the movie, playing the kind of guy that’s the heart and soul of any industrialized country on the planet.
  10. Wonder Woman
    Wonder Woman achieves touching and powerful moments that are unusual for a movie of this kind.
  11. The Last Shaman
    Ultimately, the film is what Freeman aspires to be: Not a big person making his mark on the world, but a small part of something very big.
  12. Wakefield
    It’s original and idiosyncratic, but Swicord lets herself get away with things another director might not have allowed.
  13. Baywatch
    Baywatch should have been a lot more fun.
  14. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
    “Dead Men” is a jumble of half-baked impulses.
  15. The Wedding Plan
    A complex rumination on the nature of true love and how it evolves. It is also a film rooted in Orthodox Jewish faith.
  16. Alien: Covenant
    Its cinematic stylishness and its attention to modern-day anxiety raise it to something out of the ordinary.
  17. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul
    The “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” series has been, at its core, “Alvin and the Chipmunks” without the rodents.
  18. Like Crazy
    This is a movie that can be enjoyed in different ways and for lots of reasons. It’s dramatic and it’s funny, and it has a warm humanity at its center.
  19. Paris Can Wait
    A poorly acted, colossal bore of a film that strikes wrong notes from beginning to end.
  20. Risk
    Risk is far from a narrative masterpiece — it hopscotches all over the place, with even Lady Gaga making an appearance — and it peels only a layer or two from a man with many masks.
  21. Bang! The Bert Berns Story
    The story itself is arresting, and if that’s all “Bang” offered, that would be enough. But “Bang” does more.
  22. The Wall
    Whatever the numbers and whatever the broader entertainment trends, The Wall proves it’s good when big directors have the flexibility to make small projects.
  23. 3 Generations
    This is a movie that derives most of its suspense on whether a piece of paper will be signed, not a strong basis for dramatic tension. Here and there, we see moments of genuine emotion, but even then, it feels like we’ve been there, done that.
  24. God Knows Where I Am
    A dead woman tells her own harrowing story in the documentary God Knows Where I Am. It’s the kind of movie you need to be prepared for — its most intense moments have echoes of tragic literature.
  25. The Lovers
    In a sense, Jacobs has made a movie about sex that’s not about sex at all. We often hear about “sexual sublimation,” but The Lovers depicts the reverse, which is probably more common, in which sexual adventure becomes the most available substitute for cherished lost dreams.
  26. Obit
    The highly enjoyable documentary Obit finally gives credit to the storytellers who bring people to life one last time.
  27. One Week and a Day
    It’s brilliant, and extremely moving. One Week and a Day has its moments, just not enough of them.
  28. Chuck
    The Chuck Wepner story is a compelling one — and the performances ensure its place as a sports movie contender.
  29. Snatched
    It’s a funny movie, but it’s also one in which Schumer becomes truly legible, as someone who could be headlining comedies for the next decade or more.
  30. King Arthur: Legend of the Sword
    Ritchie aspires to be a great British director, but his working his way through British icons — Sherlock Holmes wasn’t even safe — does no one any good. He just reduces them to his own vernacular, his own level, and he ends up revealing nothing about them and everything about his own narrow vision.
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