Roger Ebert Reviews

In 1973, R&B legend James Brown appears on “Soul Train,” and host Don Cornelius asks him for his advice to young people. Brown tells them to work on themselves. And then Cornelius introduces a 19-year-old who is embarking on a lifetime of working on the rest of the world. Like Brown, he has impressive hair […]

It doesn’t matter why or how it happened, but somehow, the military-industrial complex created a killer robot Santa. That’s how “Christmas Bloody Christmas” starts, with a “RoboCop”-style montage of fake TV ads for Yule-themed promotions and events, like a Christmas rock concert—come see Santa live at the Civic Center—and Christmas edibles, too (cookies, naturally). Who

“I Am D.B. Cooper” opens in 1974 with a shot of a raggedy-looking guy with two black eyes hoovering a white powder up his nose in the back seat of a car. (It could be cocaine, but as we learn later, it could just as well be an amphetamine referred to by the denizens of this

“Empire of Light” is a grandiose title for Sam Mendes’ intimate new character drama, which starts out a bit dim and unfocused and becomes sharper and more illuminating as it unreels. The story is set in the fall and winter of 1980-81 in the seaside town of Margate, Kent, around a palatial two-screen Art Deco

“The Whale” is an abhorrent film, but it also features excellent performances. It gawks at the grotesquerie of its central figure beneath the guise of sentimentality, but it also offers sharp exchanges between its characters that ring with bracing honesty. It’s the kind of film you should probably see if only to have an informed,

A common complaint about LGBTQ+ movies from LGBTQ+ people is that they always end tragically. The new dramedy “Spoiler Alert” doesn’t break this mold, but given that it’s based on the life story of TV journalist Michael Ausiello, it gets a pass. Besides, Ausiello does issue a warning up top that this tale will have

Given all the money that Apple TV+ pours into their programs—big-budget, prestige dramas with A-list casts and dreams of Emmy glory, like “Severance,” “The Morning Show,” and “The Mosquito Coast”—it’s easy for scrappy little anthology shows like “Little America” to fall by the wayside. And yet, in its unassuming nature and casual confidence, not to

“Retrograde” is about many things, but it’s really about the faces. The cameras linger on the faces, allowing the expressions of suffering, tension, nerves, desperation, to take root or take wing. There is a lot of story here, story the world knows very well. “Retrograde” details the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan in 2021,

The 2023 Sundance Film Festival announced a lineup of 99 films today, in preparation for the event that will take place from January 19 to the 29th. Unlike the last two years, the festival will be taking place in person in Park City, Utah, but will also include many of its premieres in an online experience that

Adapted from Miriam Toews’ novel of the same name (itself loosely based on the real events that took place at the Manitoba Colony in Bolivia), writer/director Sarah Polley’s latest film “Women Talking” follows a group of Mennonite women who meet in a barn to discuss their community’s future. Early on in the movie, it is