Roger Ebert Reviews

The films of the prolific South Korean writer-director Hong Sang Soo are for the most part set in the contemporary world, but they rarely depict the bustle of our times. His characters interact in settings that are quiet, sometimes practically deserted. When a character ventures out into a location of potential action and disorder—in this […]

It’s an odd sensation to balance a series that at once works but doesn’t wholly meet your expectations. In the moment, as you’re clearly enjoying yourself, you can’t help but feel a nagging, pestering pull for more. Jim Hecht’s Apple TV+ miniseries “The Big Cigar,” based on Joshuah Bearman’s same-titled book, concerns Huey P. Newton’s

“The Blue Angels,” a nonfiction film about the Navy’s flight demonstration team, was made for IMAX, in two senses of the phrase.  First, technically: according to Cineworld’s website, “‘The Blue Angels’ was shot with Sony’s Venice 2 IMAX-certified digital cameras and features IMAX exclusive Expanded Aspect Ratio (EAR) throughout.”  Second: it’s mainly, perhaps almost exclusively, a spectacle, and as much

J.K. Simmons knows how to do sociopath. There’s something so fascinating about a performer like Simmons who can pivot from a guy who looks like your average suburban neighbor to a total lunatic with a perfectly timed malevolent smile. He’s having a blast in most of “You Can’t Run Forever,” and the fact that it

The foundation of most comedy is the gulf between our belief that we can control our bodies, words, and relationships and the reality that, most of the time, they’re uncontrollable messes. “Babes” explores that gulf with exuberant joy, endearingly vulnerable characters, and performances filled with heart and charisma. Also with every possible bodily function and

Director Sam Taylor-Johnson’s “Back to Black” invokes a single question, one fans of Amy Winehouse are sure to recognize: What kind of f*ckery is this? The Camden-bred superstar, played by Marisa Abela, was famously “just one of the girls.” Down to earth, charming, witty, and, when she opened her mouth, a dazzling performer with an

2008’s “The Strangers” didn’t seem like the kind of film that would produce a series when it was released. But it’s about to explode into precisely that with the release of “The Strangers Trilogy,” three films directed by Renny Harlin that serve as sort of a remake but also a prequel to the Bryan Bertino

Whatever impulse prompted Francis Ford Coppola to combine elements of Virgil, Livy, Shakespeare, “Vertigo,” “The Fountainhead,” the career of Robert Moses, film noir, and science fiction into a single feature—well, it clearly wasn’t the most actionable impulse. The extremely long-in–the-making “Megalopolis” has been on his brain for 40 years or more. The reportedly self-financed movie

Far out in the west passage of a Wyoming cattle ranch, dark and looming and as elusive as Brigadoon, lies a hole. A vast, black chasm surrounded by swirling energy, which sends anything and everything that falls down it through the obsidian abyss of time. Where it might end up, nobody knows; but most of

Editor’s note: Every spring we say farewell to the latest trio of University of Illinois College of Media Roger Ebert Fellows, whose work includes reports filed for rogerebert.com. The 2023-24 Fellows–Hanna Brazas-Mata, Caroline Tadla and Stephanie Wayda—talked to Ebertfest participants late last month about what the Virginia Theatre-located festival, a 25-year tradition, offers that others