Ruthe Stein, San Francisco Chronicle
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For 398 reviews, this critic has graded:
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56% higher than the average critic
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2% same as the average critic
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42% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 3.6 points higher than other critics.
(0-100 point scale)
Ruthe Stein's Scores
- Movies
| Average review score: | 63 |
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| Highest review score: |
Critic Score
100
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| Lowest review score: |
Critic Score
0
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Score distribution:
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Positive: 233 out of 398
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Mixed: 110 out of 398
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Negative: 55 out of 398
398
movie reviews
- By critic score
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Ruthe Stein 100
Visually stunning, it meshes haunting images with a complex multilevel story about the enchantment of youth. -
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Ruthe Stein 100
To say it is about a debilitating disease is as reductive as saying "Little Miss Sunshine" is about a beauty pageant. Both are intimate stories of family ties that bind but sometimes also choke. -
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Ruthe Stein 100
Richly satisfying entertainment the way movies are at their best, when they prod you to think. -
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Ruthe Stein 100
The humor manages to be simultaneously sophisticated, supremely silly and very dark. -
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Ruthe Stein 100
Nobody into lush melodramas dripping in sex should miss this pulsating Italian import. -
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Ruthe Stein 100
Totally original yet filled with familiar human frailties, "Everyone" leaps off the screen to become one of those rare movie-going experiences. -
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Ruthe Stein 100
It grabs you from a symbolic opening scene of gang members rolling the dice -- the odds, it soon becomes clear, are stacked against them getting lucky -- and never lets go. -
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Ruthe Stein 100
The thrills in Spike Lee's singularly savvy thriller are in small unexpected moments. -
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Ruthe Stein 100
The movie is a stunner, so hypnotic that the length hardly matters. -
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Ruthe Stein 100
A film that must be seen to understand the sad truths of our times. It's been made with a sensitivity and creativity that's come to exemplify Winterbottom's work. -
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Ruthe Stein 100
Glatzer and Westmoreland live in Echo Park, and they have given their film a remarkable sense of place. -
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Ruthe Stein 100
Unlike Sean Penn's demagogue in "All the King's Men," you're able to forget that Whitaker is acting. He embodies the role. When clips of the real Amin are shown at the end, it's almost shocking to realize the extent to which Whitaker has become him. -
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Ruthe Stein 100
There's an edge to this exemplary family movie, just as there is in the story. -
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Ruthe Stein 100
Notes on a Scandal won't be everyone's cup of tea. But if you like your films strong, this one is not to be missed. -
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Ruthe Stein 100
Immediately has you in its thrall and doesn't let go -- a reminder of how powerful and moving cinema set in wartime can be when all the elements align. -
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Ruthe Stein 100
Among the many strengths of the sweetly touching Introducing the Dwights, a small gem from Australia unearthed at the Sundance Film Festival, is that Jean never becomes Godzilla. -
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Ruthe Stein 100
Frothy and exuberantly entertaining - in part because of the sexual innuendoes - it's the best romantic comedy so far this year. -
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Ruthe Stein 100
Exhilarating and enchanting family picture. It's the best I've seen this year and highly recommended for girls and for boys, too. -
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Ruthe Stein 100
The Visitor, is, if anything, more imaginative and touching than his first. -
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Ruthe Stein 100
Much of that appeal comes from compelling performances by the two main actors. -
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Ruthe Stein 100
Evokes grand emotions -- anxiety, sadness, joy -- sometimes within moments of one another. Broken Wings has heart and a poetic soul. -
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Ruthe Stein 100
Often is on the verge of spilling over into melodrama, but that doesn't bother me because life is the same way. -
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Ruthe Stein 100
One of very few films to accurately portray the experience of growing up male. -
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Ruthe Stein 100
Woody Allen's strongest and most mordantly funny movie in years, even if it is also his bleakest. -
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Ruthe Stein 100
Daring in its affirmation that a dowdy woman in her late 60s still can let go of her inhibitions and exhibit a lascivious side. -
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Ruthe Stein 100
A breed apart from anything coming off the Hollywood assembly line or, for that matter, from the saccharine romances Britain has lately produced. -
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Ruthe Stein 100
The very best thrillers -- a select group to which The Clearing clearly belongs -- exploit subconscious fears that bubble up at vulnerable moments. -
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Ruthe Stein 100
I don't claim to have seen every entry from around the world, but it's hard to imagine five better than this deliciously offbeat comedy, as wildly inventive as anything Billy Wilder ever conceived. -
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Ruthe Stein 100
A revelatory independent film whose moments of incredible sadness are offset by the same state of grace that blesses its astonishing title character. -
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Ruthe Stein 100
Hauntingly tells a story older than the Odyssey and as timely as today's body count from Iraq. -
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Ruthe Stein 100
The real wonder becomes how British filmmaker Sandra Goldbacher was able to write and direct such an accomplished, touching and original movie her first time out. -
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Ruthe Stein 75
An old-fashioned and occasionally schmaltzy movie that delivers an emotional wallop -
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Ruthe Stein 75
Schizo offers not just the proverbial window into village life in Kazakhstan, but a panoramic view. -
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Ruthe Stein 75
At its warmhearted center, Beauty Shop is a workshop in how to walk around like Oprah with a feeling of confidence and entitlement. -
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Ruthe Stein 75
A marital comedy as perceptive as it is delectable. -
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Ruthe Stein 75
The sooner you let yourself go with Kim's flow, the more likely you are to come away satisfied. Think of it as South Korea's answer to "Memento," just don't think too hard. -
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Ruthe Stein 75
Though overly long and difficult to digest, it's a feast you won't want to miss. -
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Ruthe Stein 75
An argument could be made that too many bad things happen to the good members of this sisterhood. The movie does occasionally teeter on the brink of soap opera, but then, so does life. -
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Ruthe Stein 75
The humor is all over the place, veering from light to dark and from broad to subtle -- as if an "I Love Lucy" episode had been retooled by Woody Allen. -
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Ruthe Stein 75
Like its singular central character, Before the Fall stands out from the pack. -
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Ruthe Stein 75
Richard Jenkins gives the standout supporting performance, worthy of Oscar consideration, as Josey's father, a miner unable to conceal his anger at his daughter for having a child out of wedlock and, now, creating dissension at his workplace. -
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Ruthe Stein 75
An emotionally satisfying example of a genre whose sketchiness can be off-putting. -
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Ruthe Stein 75
It works as an intriguingly offbeat character study while offering Nicolas Cage a chance to show why he used to be considered one of the top actors of his generation. -
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Ruthe Stein 75
The movie harks back to a time before state-of-the-art technology when writers and directors had to rely mostly on imagination. -
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Ruthe Stein 75
Funny, original, occasionally poignant and almost all of it too dirty to repeat in a newspaper. -
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Ruthe Stein 75
Offers a brew of wondrous chimera combined with the wonders of human nature. -
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Ruthe Stein 75
Known for his visual images, Jordan outdoes himself in "Breakfast,'' a feast for the eyes. -
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Ruthe Stein 75
By focusing on one family's dilemma, the movie brings home the messy Middle Eastern situation in a way easier to relate to than the headlines and opinion pieces. -
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Ruthe Stein 75
The casting, at least, is magical. Plowright shows both her character's strength and her heartbreaking vulnerability, sometimes at once. -
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Ruthe Stein 75
Has an old-fashioned feel, as if it had been made in the period of its setting. I mean this as a compliment. -
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Ruthe Stein 75
Accomplishes the near impossible, bringing a fresh perspective to a horrific subject. -
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Ruthe Stein 75
It's reassuring to see Steven Soderbergh return to riveting down-and-dirty filmmaking with Bubble. -
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Ruthe Stein 75
At its exhilarating best, Following Sean is reminiscent of the lauded British documentaries that began with "7 Up.'' -
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Ruthe Stein 75
A highly amusing combination period film and mockumentary. -
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Ruthe Stein 75
A wildly entertaining fantasy thriller that propels Russian cinema into the 21st century. -
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Ruthe Stein 75
The movie has a sweetness and innocence that makes it near perfect entertainment for its target audience. -
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Ruthe Stein 75
While hardly glorifying abusive husbands, Take My Eyes, a mesmerizing and deeply disturbing film from Spain, makes an attempt to understand their thought processes. -
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Ruthe Stein 75
Don't Tell often has the eerie feel of a Hitchcock film -- "Vertigo" in particular -- where you're not always sure if what you're seeing is really happening. -
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Ruthe Stein 75
For all the squalor and extremely upsetting subject matter, you can't take your eyes off the screen. -
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Ruthe Stein 75
An emotionally charged coming-of-age saga that will make you laugh and cry, maybe at the same time. -
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Ruthe Stein 75
Akeelah and the Bee connects where it counts most, on an emotional level. Only a curmudgeon could watch this feisty but vulnerable youngster rack up victories against all odds without tearing up. -
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Ruthe Stein 75
Fun to watch although falling short of a real hoot, this latest in a barrage of family movies largely succeeds at keeping the kiddies entertained and their parents from nodding off. -
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Ruthe Stein 75
Dark, disturbing and audaciously original in a way only indies are given license to be anymore, the film never telegraphs where it's heading. But you don't need a pathfinder to sense the general direction is toward hell. -
