Roger Ebert Reviews

Don Hertzfeldt’s “ME” is available on Vimeo On-Demand.  Don Hertzfeldt’s “ME” will feel familiar to the filmmaker’s fans and admirers, with its expressive stick figures serving as our protagonists, its depiction of technological breakthroughs that cause societal disarray, and journeys through time and space that warrant repeated viewings just to take in all the ideas […]

Despite its expansive scale, Alessandra Lacorazza’s “In the Summers” thrives in the smaller moments, prioritizing the ways we wear complex emotions in our bodies far better than we can ever hope to articulate through words. The film, which won the U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, focuses on sisters, Eva and Violeta, who every

It seems like TV shows based on video games have turned a corner with titles like “The Last of Us” and “Fallout,” after years of all adaptations in the direction of film or television being generally disastrous. You know a path that still struggles? Film to video game. For years, it was little more than

Writer-director Hannah Peterson cut her filmmaking teeth on the sets of Sean Baker and Chloé Zhao, learning firsthand how to hone her cinematic voice and bring a fresh perspective to the screen. This can be seen in her radically empathetic debut feature film “The Graduates,” about the aftermath of a school shooting, which premiered at

If you notice any aesthetic blemishes on the miniatures in director Adam Elliot’s stop-motion film “Memoir of a Snail,” just know they were left in intentionally. Elliot’s film is all about the importance of embracing imperfections and understanding how life’s tragedies may shape us, but don’t have to define us. This thesis is extended to

Note: This piece was filed in conjunction with the Telluride Film Festival and run this week with the theatrical release of Netflix’s “The Piano Lesson.”  I was one of the lucky ones to witness the original Broadway production of August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson, which was a pure revelation. Now, in 2024, in a version

At first, I thought maybe the audience didn’t like it. The world premiere of “Orang Ikan” at the Tokyo International Film Festival was scheduled to begin at 11:35 AM, not exactly prime time for a creature feature. But that’s just how it goes at festivals sometimes. And the audience was subdued, barely reacting to gory

Who is the Jackal? Is he a multimillionaire with a lavish estate who travels around the world? Is he a custodian who quite literally cleans up messes? Or is he simply a hired hand who also happens to be the world’s best sniper? As far as star Eddie Redmayne and the new series “The Day

HBO’s new “Like Water for Chocolate” is sumptuously shot. And it’s not just the costumes or the sets, although they are both clearly rendered with care. Gathered skirts, wide-brimmed hats, and lace-up black boots. Colonial archways and formal sitting rooms. What makes this show feel so rich is the cinematography, framing a kiss between the