Roger Ebert Reviews

The ruminative and moving “All That Breathes” opens with a shot of a dark landscape as a camera moves over the littered ground in the city of New Delhi. As other animals lurk in the background, the garbage in the street is food to the rats that scurry in an unfocused frame, the noise they […]

History is written by the victors, who are only concerned with covering their asses and mythologizing their glory. This is why the oral histories that have been passed down from generation to generation by African-American families remain so important. Black history is American history, but so often it has been corrupted, miscategorized, bowdlerized, or flat-out ignored in

Watching “Ticket to Paradise,” one can’t help but think of the famous James Stewart line from 1940’s “The Philadelphia Story.” It goes, “The prettiest sight in this fine, pretty world is the privileged class enjoying its privileges.” To be clear, the privileged class in Ol Parker’s frustratingly unexceptional rom-com doesn’t only consist of the story’s

“It’s not a comeback. It’s a relaunch,” Tanya Tucker insists. Country star Brandi Carlile idolized Tucker from the time she was a young girl. She loved Tucker’s toughness, her husky voice, her musicianship. She believed that while men like Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard were admired as outlaws for their bad behavior, Tucker was seen

A group of Inuit teenage girls battle some aliens “Slash/Back,” the charming directorial debut from Nyla Innuksuk. Perhaps most famously, Innuksuk co-created a Marvel Comics character named Snowguard, who hails from the same Arctic place as these girls—Pangniturang, Nunavut. In this film’s press notes, Innuksuk says that “this is primarily a movie for Inuit,” but

The Belgian filmmaking brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne are low-key the most influential filmmakers working today, I reckon. While their impact on mainstream Hollywood product is nil, you can feel them in independent cinema worldwide. Every time a movie opens with an over-the-shoulder shot of what will turn out to be its main character walking

“It’s built on my sadness. It’s built on my struggle,” says director Nina Menkes as she shares the impetus behind her latest film, “Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power.” This personal connection to the material is evident in every frame of the documentary. Unfortunately, it also covers the film in a thick layer of confirmation bias. That there is

At last year’s Middleburg Film Festival, the pandemic required attendees to bring a negative Covid-19 test before being able to sit at the venues, where they were also required to don masks. This year, some film fans of a certain age still felt the need to safeguard their health with masks, which was probably wise. Even

Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, and featuring a remarkable lead performance by Dwayne Johnson, the spiky and majestic “Black Adam” is one of the best DC superhero films to date. This tale of a gloomy, seemingly malevolent god who reappears in a long-occupied Middle Eastern nation rejects most of the choices that bland-ify even the good

In the foreground, an 11-year-old girl lies asleep in bed. On the balcony beyond, seen through the plate-glass door, the girl’s father struggles to light a cigarette, hampered by the cast on his right arm. Mission accomplished, he sways back and forth rhythmically, arms moving outwards and upwards and down, a dreamy approximation of Tai