Roger Ebert Reviews

Chris Pine‘s first film as a director, “Poolman,” is a character comedy about oddball Los Angelenos that doubles as a spoof of 1940s detective movies. Pine also cowrote (with Ian Gotler), co-produced, and plays the title character, Darren Barrenman. Darren is a big-bearded, long-haired, talkative, thoroughly goofy pool cleaner who lives in a tiny trailer right next to the […]

Three people sit down to dinner at a remote cabin in the woods. Before they eat, they fold their hands and say grace. But they are not thanking God; they are thanking the cabin itself, which they have given the Biblical name of Lazareth, and which Lee (Ashley Judd) describes as their source of protection,

Letitia Wright gives a quietly powerful performance in “Aisha” as a young Nigerian woman seeking asylum in Ireland and struggling to overcome one bureaucratic obstacle after another.  Writer-director Frank Berry’s film never devolves into melodrama – if anything, it may be understated to a fault – but he grounds her plight in an authentic mixture

One of the pleasures of being a critic is getting assigned to review a film you might not otherwise have seen. 2021’s “The Dry” was one of those, a taut moody drama/thriller based on Jane Harper’s best-selling novel (the first in a series). It starred Eric Bana as Melbourne cop Aaron Falk who returned to

There’s a moment in Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s 2018 film “Asako I & II” that radiates tenderness: Married couple Asako (Erika Karata) and Ryohei (Masahiro Higashide) have just returned home after helping at a fish market. Ryohei, exhausted, lays flat against the wood of the floors. Asako has spent the day watching him as he helped out,

Brothers Bill Ross IV and Turner Ross straddle the lines of documentary v. fictional storytelling with their newest “Gasoline Rainbow.” Gathering five non-acting teens to embody the story’s central friend group, we are consistently unsure how much direction has been given to the group as we follow them on the road. The precarious nature of

Police brutality is a subject that never seems to leave the news. There’s too many instances, too many stories from around the country pointing to a larger abuse of state-sanctioned power. Some headlines bubble up to national attention, even those that don’t will leave marks on the community where it happened. In “Power,” documentarian Yance

I hadn’t heard of the movie before, but couldn’t take my eyes off it. I was immersed in the counterculture heyday of San Francisco. A Black Nigerian student played by Paul Eyam Nzie Okpokam explores the strange landscape, the far-out characters, and his feelings of homesickness and culture shock in this brief but vital Cassavetes-style docu-fiction.

Over the last few years, there has been a trend of opulent destination wedding romantic comedies. Two years ago, there was “Ticket to Paradise” starring George Clooney and Julia Roberts and “Shotgun Wedding” starring Jennifer Lopez and Josh Duhamel. Most recently, “Anyone But You,” starring Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell, got rave reviews and made

Black people are the architects of American culture. The hip verbiage many young people speak, the music they consume, and even the most influential art among what could be called hipsters are derived from Black people. Our distinctive perception of the world has become a pavement for creativity, and social media is no exception. During