Roger Ebert Reviews

At this year’s Chicago Film Festival, I’ve noticed a prominent connection between intimate family tales in my viewing lineup. As a youngest daughter and little sister to two older brothers, I admit the domestic stories I gravitate towards are often ones with which I can identify. However, at this year’s festival, I found myself moved […]

Zohra Lampert’s Jessica in 1971’s “Let’s Scare Jessica to Death” smiles as she suffers horrors. Not because she’s particularly brave or placid — on the contrary, she’s terrified more often than not — but because she knows what will happen if she tells her husband Duncan (Barton Heyman) or their friend Woody (Kevin O’Connor) about

In Apple TV+’s “Before,” protagonist Eli (Billy Crystal) tells his therapist that his life has “turned into a Dali painting.” A few hours prior to their meeting, the series established that Eli is quickly losing touch with reality. The pilot opens with a dream sequence where Eli falls into an empty indoor swimming pool, cracking

The brilliance of Dick Pope, who died this week at 77, can be seen in nearly all of the movies he shot as a cinematographer. But the first examples that spring to this viewer’s mind are two shots from 1996’s “Secrets and Lies,” one of many collaborations with his greatest creative partner, Mike Leigh.  The

As those who have been attending film festivals for any amount of time can attest, after watching the usual array of awards-bait titles and the kind of forgettable fodder that never manages to get any play outside of the festival circuit for a while, sometimes you are just in the mood for something a bit

Due to the highly publicized conversations between Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel, especially in the early ‘80s, about the moral boundaries of horror movies, Roger is often accused of disliking the genre. Nothing could be further from the truth. Not only did he give his highest rating to future classics like “Dawn of the Dead,”

It’s not often that a film festival and book festival join forces, but that is just the case in Iowa City where the Refocus Film Festival, which celebrates films that are adapted from other mediums, and the Iowa City Book Festival just wrapped. I was delighted to attend both as a guest this past week,

Year after year, the Chicago International Film Festival’s documentary program features exceptional stories from around the globe. For its 60th year, the programming has shaped itself around the theme of legacy. It reflects sixty years of platforming emerging and established filmmakers, alongside one another, creating a symbiotic system for their success in reaching new audiences.

“The Fall,” now finally available on Mubi and getting a theatrical release from the company, feels impossible. It’s one of those films that’s richly steeped in the history of cinema while also expressing itself through a unique, special voice. Of course, no one got it. The story goes that, fifteen minutes into its TIFF launch,