Roger Ebert Reviews

“Descendant,” the incisive, caring documentary from director Margaret Brown that’s now on Netflix, begins with the search for a missing ship, but ends as so much more. That ship is the Clotilda, a vessel that brought the last enslaved Africans to America.  Its story, outlined in great detail by writer/filmmaker Zora Neale Hurston, first in […]

Michael Koch’s “A Piece of Sky” is the kind of movie that spends a minute staring at a giant rock on a gorgeous mountainside, in order to teach you how to watch it. That very image is its first shot, as clouds move gently in the background, and it introduces Koch’s sensibilities as a budding filmmaker

The 58th Chicago International Film Festival, North America’s longest-running competitive film festival, today announced the winners of its 2022 edition in categories including International Feature Film Competition, New Directors Competition, International Documentary Competition, OutLook Competition, and Short Film Competitions, as well as the Chicago Award for an outstanding program in the Festival’s City & State

Established in 1975, the now 47-year-old art cinema and pioneering video rental outlet FACETS hosted its first Screen Gems Benefit since before the pandemic, and honored Chaz Ebert with the FACETS Legend Award on September 28th at the Arts Club of Chicago, 201 E. Ontario St.  Approximately 150 guests attended the sold-out fundraiser, enjoying cocktails and a buffet dinner. Attendees then adjourned to

As the Wicked Watch: The First Jordan Manning Novel is the first in a new series from Emmy Award–winning journalist Tamron Hall. The book’s titular heroine is a crime reporter who moves from Texas to accept a job as an anchor at a television station in Chicago. While there, she investigates the murder of two Black

One thing I didn’t have on my lifetime cinematic bingo card—and I bet it is not on yours either—was Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson become the 21st century’s answer to Laurel and Hardy. And yet. With 2008’s “In Bruges,” and now “The Banshees of Inisherin,” the Irish actors, under the writing and directing aegis of

Sometimes I look at Harry Styles and I feel bad for him. Not because he isn’t getting a fair shake, but because someone told him he could be a leading man without warning him about the time and work needed to become one. Hot on the heels of the world premiere of his upcoming “Don’t Worry

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