Roger Ebert Reviews

The world lost one of its best filmmakers this week with the passing of the brilliant, passionate, and unapologetic William Friedkin. A Chicagoan through and through, he changed the film landscape with works like “The French Connection,” “The Exorcist,” and “To Live and Die in L.A.”—a trio of masterpieces that puts to shame the entire […]

In 2020’s “The Mole Agent,” the Chilean director Maite Alberdi got an elderly investigator into a nursing home and filmed his attempts to uncover potential abuse there. The senior facility residents were told that they were to be the subjects of a documentary. Which was true, but definitely in a different way than they clearly

John Rosman’s “New Life” is an invigorating piece of humanity horror and the work of a genre mad scientist. No right-minded debut writer/director would simply make a slow-burn chase movie set in Idaho with a pursuing character with ALS symptoms, right? But Rosman knows there can be great meaning in grounding action and horror with the more regular experiences of

The first sign of serious trouble was in December of 2016. The plot of “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” explained how a group of rebels managed to steal the Death Star plans that Princess Leia is fleeing within the opening of 1977’s “Star Wars.” Early in “Rogue One,” a character goes to talk to Grand

Fantasia ended its 27th year of festivities on Tuesday night with a bang to the head, a dumbbell to the shin, and copious blood-gushing sliced throats. Such squirmy moments are thanks to Xavier Gens’ “Mayhem! (Farang),” a potent action extravaganza (which will get a 2024 release by IFC) from the filmmaker behind “Frontiers,” Timothy Olyphant’s “Hitman”

Director Peter Berg approaches Netflix’s six-episode “Painkiller” with an almost frantic style. There’s an urgency here in his telling of the origin of the opioid crisis in this country that’s admirable given the damage still being caused by Purdue Pharma, but ultimately shallow. Every episode of the series opens with shots of loved ones of people