Roger Ebert Reviews

With “Dangerous Liaisons,” Starz continues its doubling or tripling down on the bawdy, “Bridgerton”-y period costume dramas it’s made its stock in trade over the last few years. And for what it’s worth, the source material seems prime fodder for the network’s penchant for slightly modernized, bodice-ripping tales of powerful women surviving in worlds of […]

The 2022 Black Harvest Film Festival has been dedicated to my friend and colleague, Sergio Mims, who passed away last month. The co-founder of the annual Chicago event would be overjoyed to see what’s about to unfold at the Gene Siskel Film Center starting today and running through November 20th (before a virtual component launches

With “Causeway,” Jennifer Lawrence returns to the kind of raw, understated performance that put her on the map and earned her the first of her many Academy Award nominations when she was only 20 years old. All the naturalism and authenticity she exhibited in Debra Granik’s excellent, 2010 indie drama “Winter’s Bone” are on display

There’s no saving some movies from themselves, even if they come loaded with a fool-proof idea and a parade of talented actors who should be able to sell even a much lesser premise. Unfortunately, “Death at a Funeral” writer Dean Craig’s fumbling “The Estate” is one of those movies. On paper, its “let’s swindle our

“You Resemble Me” is at its strongest when it tries to humanize its misunderstood central figure in simple, intimate ways. Journalist-turned-filmmaker Dina Amer, with her feature directing debut, aims to make us sympathize with the plight of Hasna Ait Boulahcen, who was miscredited as Europe’s first female suicide bomber in connection with the November 2015

Grief doesn’t present in just one way. Grief literally messes with your mind. Someone dies, and you can still hear their footsteps in the hall. You think you see them on a crowded street. You can’t delete their number from your phone. Grief is a tough subject to address because it isn’t understood or, really,

In “The X-Files,” the poster on Fox Mulder’s wall declares “THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE”. The truth is “out there,” it can’t be grasped. The conspiracy involved in covering it up would be massive. “The X-Files” is one of the most paranoid television series ever made, and “Something in the Dirt,” a film written, directed,

Midway through the one-take indie thriller “Soft & Quiet,” a pregnant white woman with bleached blonde hair and a leopard print cardigan says that she was born into the KKK, but these days she’s more active on the Neo-Nazi website Stormfront. “The media loves to portray us as big scary monsters. Am I really that

Reduced to its bare bones, the story of “Utama” (which is Quechua for “our home”) is one you might think you’ve heard a hundred times. A man and a woman work the land in a remote area that’s largely deprived of the blessings of civilization. But they’re old, and their age is catching up to

“Next Exit,” the debut feature from writer/director Mali Elfman, is a peculiar little film that starts off with a potentially astonishing hook—the kind that could easily be expanded into a limited series without having to stretch things out in any way—only to quickly transform into an all-too-familiar trip through a standard-issue road movie narrative. It