“Sincerity is not manipulation.”
The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.

San Francisco
Drama · Romance · Music · 1936
A beautiful singer and a battling priest try to reform a Barbary Coast saloon owner in the days before the great earthquake and subsequent fires in 1906.
San Francisco
“She Fell In Love . . . with the toughest guy on the toughest street in the world!”
Critical arithmetic
The consensus, allegedly.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
IMDb
7.1 / 10
6.3K votes
Rotten Tomatoes
92 %
Tomatometer
TMDB
6.6 / 10
Community rating
External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.
A beautiful singer and a battling priest try to reform a Barbary Coast saloon owner in the days before the great earthquake and subsequent fires in 1906.
What this film says about your taste.
Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.
The archetype split
Who fights over San Francisco?
The Sentimental Softie
“You came to feel something, and you will.”
Read their caseThe Cool Ironist
“Feeling things is a little embarrassing.”
Read their objectionThe split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.
Nearby on the taste map.
TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.
Watch in your region.
Cinema release signals and current streaming, rental, and purchase options for your region.
Streaming availability data supplied by JustWatch.
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
W.S. Van Dyke
Written by
Anita Loos · Robert E. Hopkins · Herman J. Mankiewicz
Put San Francisco on trial.
Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.
“The strings are showing.”
Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.






