Editing Roger Ebert

{{Short description|American film critic and author (1942–2013)}}
{{For|the website named after Ebert|RogerEbert.com{{!}}''RogerEbert.com''}}
{{Good article}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=January 2024}}
{{Infobox writer
| name             = Roger Ebert
| image            = Roger Ebert cropped.jpg
| caption          = Ebert in 2006
| birth_name       = Roger Joseph Ebert
| birth_date       = {{birth date|1942|6|18|mf=y}}
| birth_place      = [[Urbana, Illinois]], U.S.
| death_date       = {{death date and age|2013|4|4|1942|6|18|mf=y}}
| death_place      = [[Chicago, Illinois]], U.S.
| occupation       = {{hlist|Film critic|journalist|screenwriter|film historian|author}}
| alma_mater       = [[University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign]] ([[Bachelor of Arts|BA]])
| years_active     = 1967–2013
| subject          = Film
| notableworks     = {{flatlist|
* ''[[Sneak Previews]]''
* ''[[At the Movies (1986 TV program)|At the Movies]]''
* ''[[The Great Movies]]''
* ''[[Beyond the Valley of the Dolls]]''
* ''Life Itself: A Memoir''
}}
| spouse           = {{marriage|[[Chaz Ebert|Chaz Hammel-Smith]]|July 18, 1992}}
| awards           = [[Pulitzer Prize for Criticism]] (1975)
| signature        = Roger Ebert signature.png
| website          = {{URL|https://rogerebert.com}}
| portaldisp       = 
}}

'''Roger Joseph Ebert''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|iː|b|ər|t}} {{respell|EE|bərt}}; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American [[Film criticism|film critic]], film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter and author. He was the film critic for the ''[[Chicago Sun-Times]]'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. Ebert was known for his intimate, Midwestern [[writing style]] and critical views informed by values of [[populism]] and [[humanism]].<ref>{{cite news |last=Zak |first=Dan |date=April 5, 2013 |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/roger-ebert-lover-of-life-taught-me-to-write/2013/04/05/131daa82-9d76-11e2-a2db-efc5298a95e1_story.html |title=Roger Ebert, lover of life, taught me to write |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |access-date=April 29, 2020 |archive-date=November 5, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201105235654/https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/roger-ebert-lover-of-life-taught-me-to-write/2013/04/05/131daa82-9d76-11e2-a2db-efc5298a95e1_story.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Writing in a prose style intended to be entertaining and direct, he made sophisticated cinematic and analytical ideas more accessible to non-specialist audiences.<ref>{{cite news |last=Zeitchik |first=Steven |date=April 5, 2013 |url=https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-xpm-2013-apr-05-la-et-mn-roger-ebert-reviews-film-newspapers-changed-20130405-story.html |title=Five unexpected ways Roger Ebert changed film journalism |newspaper=[[Los Angeles Times]] |access-date=April 29, 2020 |archive-date=August 6, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200806203342/https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-xpm-2013-apr-05-la-et-mn-roger-ebert-reviews-film-newspapers-changed-20130405-story.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Ebert endorsed foreign and independent films he believed would be appreciated by mainstream viewers, championing filmmakers like [[Werner Herzog]], [[Errol Morris]] and [[Spike Lee]], as well as [[Martin Scorsese]], whose first published review he wrote. In 1975, Ebert became the first film critic to win the [[Pulitzer Prize for Criticism]]. [[Neil Steinberg]] of the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' said Ebert "was without question the nation's most prominent and influential film critic,"<ref name=SunTimesObit>{{cite news |last=Steinberg |first=Neil |authorlink=Neil Steinberg|title=Roger Ebert dies at 70 after battle with cancer |url=http://www.suntimes.com/17320958-761/roger-ebert-dies-at-70-after-battle-with-cancer.html |newspaper=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] |date=April 4, 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141216070113/http://www.suntimes.com/17320958-761/roger-ebert-dies-at-70-after-battle-with-cancer.html |archive-date=December 16, 2014}}</ref> and [[Kenneth Turan]] of the ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'' called him "the best-known film critic in America."<ref name="LA Times death Turan">{{cite news |last=Turan |first=Kenneth |authorlink=Kenneth Turan |title=Remembrance: Roger Ebert, film's hero to the end |url=http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la-et-mn-roger-ebert-appreciation-20130405,0,669989.story |newspaper=[[Los Angeles Times]] |date=April 4, 2013 |access-date=April 5, 2013 |archive-date=April 27, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130427071136/http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la-et-mn-roger-ebert-appreciation-20130405,0,669989.story |url-status=live }}</ref> Per ''[[The New York Times]]'', "The force and grace of his opinions propelled film criticism into the mainstream of American culture. Not only did he advise moviegoers about what to see, but also how to think about what they saw."<ref name=NYTObit>{{cite news| author=Douglas Martin| title=Roger Ebert Dies at 70; a Critic for the Common Man| date=April 4, 2013| work=[[The New York Times]]| url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/05/movies/roger-ebert-film-critic-dies.html}}</ref>

Early in his career, Ebert co-wrote the [[Russ Meyer]] film ''[[Beyond the Valley of the Dolls]]'' (1970). Starting in 1975 and continuing for decades, Ebert and ''[[Chicago Tribune]]'' critic [[Gene Siskel]] helped popularize nationally televised film reviewing when they co-hosted the [[PBS]] show ''[[Sneak Previews]]'', followed by several variously named ''[[At the Movies (1986 TV program)|At the Movies]]'' programs on commercial TV [[broadcast syndication]]. The two verbally sparred and traded humorous barbs while discussing films. They created and trademarked the phrase "two thumbs up," used when both gave the same film a positive review. After Siskel died from a [[brain tumor]] in 1999, Ebert continued hosting the show with various co-hosts and then, starting in 2000, with [[Richard Roeper]]. In 1996, Ebert began publishing essays on great films of the past; the first hundred were published as ''The Great Movies''. He published two more volumes, and a fourth was published posthumously. In 1999, he founded the [[Ebertfest|Overlooked Film Festival]] in his hometown of [[Champaign, Illinois]].

In 2002, Ebert was diagnosed with cancer of the [[Papillary thyroid cancer|thyroid]] and [[salivary gland cancer|salivary glands]]. He required treatment that included removing a section of his lower jaw in 2006, leaving him severely disfigured and unable to speak or eat normally. However, his ability to write remained unimpaired and he continued to publish frequently online and in print until his death in 2013. His ''[[RogerEbert.com]]'' website, launched in 2002, remains online as an archive of his published writings. [[Richard Corliss]] wrote, "Roger leaves a legacy of indefatigable connoisseurship in movies, literature, politics and, to quote the title of his 2011 autobiography, ''Life Itself''."<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Corliss |first=Richard |date=April 4, 2013 |title=Roger Ebert: Farewell to a Film Legend and Friend |url=https://entertainment.time.com/2013/04/04/roger-ebert-farewell-to-a-film-legend-and-friend/ |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] |access-date=February 12, 2023 |archive-date=February 12, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230212155437/https://entertainment.time.com/2013/04/04/roger-ebert-farewell-to-a-film-legend-and-friend/ |url-status=live }}</ref> In 2014, ''Life Itself'' was adapted as a [[Life Itself (2014 film)|documentary of the same title]], released to positive reviews.

== Early life and education ==
Roger Joseph Ebert<ref name=NYTObit/><ref name=YouTubeInterview>{{YouTube|kTYVnuKnJNo|"Roger Ebert – Archive Interview Part 1 of 3 "}}. May 20, 2008. Retrieved June 7, 2012.</ref> was born on June 18, 1942, in [[Urbana, Illinois]], the only child of Annabel (née Stumm),<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3069000035.html |title=Ebert, Roger (R. Hyde, Reinhold Timme) |website=encyclopedia.com |date=April 4, 2013 |access-date=August 31, 2012 |archive-date=December 15, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121215122957/http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3069000035.html |url-status=live }}</ref> a bookkeeper,<ref name=SunTimesObit /><ref name=bookref1>{{cite book |title=Life Itself: A Memoir |url=https://archive.org/details/lifeitselfmemoir00eber |url-access=registration |last=Ebert |first=Roger |year=2011 |publisher=Grand Central Publishing |location=New York City |isbn=9780446584975}}</ref> and Walter Harry Ebert, an electrician.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-company-men-2011 |first=Roger |last=Ebert |title=What do you make at work, Daddy? |newspaper=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] |via=[[RogerEbert.com]] |date=January 19, 2011 |access-date=April 23, 2022 |archive-date=April 24, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220424123531/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-company-men-2011 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name=ChicagoMag /> He was raised [[Roman Catholic]], attending St. Mary's elementary school and serving as an [[altar boy]] in Urbana.<ref name=ChicagoMag />

His paternal grandparents were German immigrants<ref>{{cite web |url=http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20020412/REVIEWS/204120305/1023 |title=Maryam Movie Review & Film Summary |date=April 12, 2002 |last=Ebert |first=Roger | website=[[RogerEbert.com]] |access-date=January 2, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170316065612/http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/maryam-2002 |archive-date=March 16, 2017}}</ref> and his maternal ancestry was Irish and Dutch.<ref name=bookref1 /><ref>{{cite web|first=Roger|last=Ebert|url=http://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/oh-say-can-you-wear|date=May 13, 2010|website=[[RogerEbert.com]]|title=Oh, say, can you wear?|access-date=January 3, 2017|archive-date=January 3, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170103094319/http://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/oh-say-can-you-wear|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2013/02/what_was_my_aunt_martha_trying.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130226041411/http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2013/02/what_was_my_aunt_martha_trying.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=February 26, 2013 |title=What was my Aunt Martha trying to ask me? |author=Ebert, Roger |date=February 22, 2013 |website=Roger Ebert's Journal }}</ref> His first movie memory was of his parents taking him to see the [[Marx Brothers]] in [[A Day at the Races (film)| ''A Day at the Races'']] (1937).<ref name=NPR>{{cite news| title=Roger Ebert: A 'Life' Still Being Lived, and Fully| author=Melissa Block | work=[[National Public Radio]]| url=https://www.npr.org/2011/09/13/140437328/ebert-a-life-still-being-lived-and-fully}}</ref> He wrote that ''[[Adventures of Huckleberry Finn]]'' was "the first real book I ever read, and still the best."<ref>{{cite book| title=Life Itself: A Memoir| author=Roger Ebert| page=11}}</ref> He began his writing career with his own newspaper, ''The Washington Street News'', printed in his basement.<ref name=NYTObit/> He wrote letters of comment to the [[science-fiction fanzine]]s of the era and founded his own, ''Stymie''.<ref name=NYTObit/> At age 15, he was a sportswriter for ''[[The News-Gazette (Champaign–Urbana)|The News-Gazette]]'' covering [[Urbana High School (Illinois)|Urbana High School]] sports.<ref>{{cite book |title=Life Itself: A Memoir |last=Ebert |first=Roger |location=New York |publisher=Grand Central Publishing |page=30}}</ref> He attended Urbana High School, where in his senior year he was class president and co-editor of his [[Student newspaper|high school newspaper]], ''The Echo''.<ref name=ChicagoMag /><ref name="Ebert My old man">{{cite web |last1=Ebert |first1=Roger |title=My old man |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/my-old-man |access-date=July 11, 2019 |date=March 18, 2010 |quote=I always worked on newspapers. Harold Holmes, the father of my best friend Hal, was an editor at The News-Gazette, and took us down to the paper. A linotype operator set my byline in lead, and I used a stamp pad to imprint everything with "By Roger Ebert." I was electrified. I wrote for the St. Mary's grade school paper. Nancy Smith and I were co-editors of the Urbana High School Echo. At Illinois, I published "Spectator," a liberal weekly, my freshman year, and then sold it and went over to The Daily Illini. But that was after my father's death. |archive-date=July 11, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190711003048/https://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/my-old-man |url-status=live }}</ref> In 1958, he won the [[Illinois High School Association]] state [[Individual events (speech)|speech]] championship in "radio speaking," an event that simulates radio newscasts.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ihsa.org/SportsActivities/IndividualEvents/RecordsHistory.aspx?url=/data/ie/records/index.htm |title=Roger Ebert in the IHSA list of state speech champions, 1957–58 |publisher=Ihsa.org |access-date=April 5, 2013 |archive-date=February 16, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120216235334/http://ihsa.org/SportsActivities/IndividualEvents/RecordsHistory.aspx?url=/data/ie/records/index.htm |url-status=live }}</ref>

{{quote box
| align = right
| width = 25em
| bgcolor = Bisque
| quote = "I learned to be a movie critic by reading ''[[Mad (magazine)|Mad]]'' magazine&nbsp;... ''Mad''{{'s}} parodies made me aware of the machine inside the skin&nbsp;– of the way a movie might look original on the outside, while inside it was just recycling the same old dumb formulas. I did not read the magazine, I plundered it for clues to the universe. [[Pauline Kael]] [[I Lost It at the Movies|lost it at the movies]]; I lost it at ''Mad'' magazine"
| source = — Roger Ebert, ''Mad About the Movies'' (1998 parody collection)<ref>{{cite book |editor1-first=Nick |editor1-last=Meglin |editor2-first=John |editor2-last=Ficarra |title=Mad About the Movies |year=1998 |publisher=Mad Books |location=New York City |isbn=1-56389-459-9 |url=https://archive.org/details/madaboutmovies00edit}}</ref>
}}

Ebert began taking classes at the [[University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign]] as an early-entrance student, completing his high school courses while also taking his first university class. After graduating from Urbana High School in 1960,<ref>{{cite news |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |title=Milestones in the life of Roger Ebert |url=http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2013-04-05/milestones-life-roger-ebert.html |work=The News-Gazette |location=Champaign, IL |date=April 5, 2013 |access-date=January 20, 2019 |archive-date=January 21, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190121064858/http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2013-04-05/milestones-life-roger-ebert.html |url-status=live }}</ref> he attended the University of Illinois and received his undergraduate degree in journalism in 1964.<ref name=NYTObit/> While there, Ebert worked as a reporter for ''[[The Daily Illini]]'' and served as its editor during his senior year while continuing to work for the ''News-Gazette''.

His college mentor was [[Daniel Curley]], who "introduced me to many of the cornerstones of my life's reading: '[[The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock]]', ''[[Crime and Punishment]]'', ''[[Madame Bovary]]'', ''[[The Ambassadors]]'', ''[[Nostromo]]'', ''[[The Professor's House]]'', ''[[The Great Gatsby]]'', ''[[The Sound and the Fury]]'' ...  He approached these works with undisguised admiration. We discussed patterns of symbolism, felicities of language, motivation, revelation of character. This was ''appreciation'', not the savagery of deconstruction, which approaches literature as pliers do a rose."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ebert |first=Roger |title=Life Itself |year=2011 |pages=94}}</ref> One of his classmates was [[Larry Woiwode]], who went on to be the Poet Laureate of North Dakota. At ''The'' ''Daily Illini'' Ebert befriended [[William Nack]], who as a sportswriter would cover [[Secretariat (horse)|Secretariat]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=October 17, 2010 |title=The Storyteller and the Stallion |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/the-storyteller-and-the-stallion |access-date=January 30, 2023 |archive-date=January 30, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230130044333/https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/the-storyteller-and-the-stallion |url-status=live }}</ref> As an undergraduate, he was a member of the [[Phi Delta Theta]] fraternity and president of the [[United States Student Press Association]].<ref>{{cite book |title=Life Itself: A Memoir |last=Ebert |first=Roger |location=New York |publisher=Grand Central Publishing |pages=92, 96}}</ref> One of the first reviews he wrote was of ''[[La Dolce Vita]]'', published in ''The Daily Illini'' in October 1961.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/la-dolce-vita |title=La Dolce Vita Movie Review & Film Summary |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=October 4, 1961 |newspaper=The Daily Illini |via=[[RogerEbert.com]] |access-date=January 3, 2017 |archive-date=June 12, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160612112023/http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/la-dolce-vita |url-status=live }}</ref>

As a graduate student, he "had the good fortune to enroll in a class on [[Shakespeare]]'s [[Shakespearean tragedy| tragedies]] taught by [[G. Blakemore Evans]] ... It was then that Shakespeare took hold of me, and it became clear he was the nearest we have come to a voice for what it means to be human."<ref>{{cite book |title=Life Itself: A Memoir |last=Ebert |first=Roger |location=New York City |publisher=Grand Central Publishing |page=99}}</ref> Ebert spent a semester as a master's student in the department of English there before attending the [[University of Cape Town]] on a Rotary fellowship for a year.<ref>{{cite book |title=Life Itself: A Memoir |last=Ebert |first=Roger |location=New York |publisher=Grand Central Publishing |page=96}}</ref> He returned from Cape Town to his graduate studies at Illinois for two more semesters and then, after being accepted as a PhD student at the [[University of Chicago]], he prepared to move to Chicago. He needed a job to support himself while he worked on his doctorate and so applied to the ''[[Chicago Daily News]]'', hoping that, as he had already sold freelance pieces to the ''Daily News'', including an article on the death of writer [[Brendan Behan]], he would be hired by editor [[Herman Kogan]].<ref name="auto">{{cite book |title=Life Itself: A Memoir |last=Ebert |first=Roger |location=New York |publisher=Grand Central Publishing |page=139}}</ref>

Instead, Kogan referred Ebert to the city editor at the ''[[Chicago Sun-Times]]'', [[James F. Hoge Jr.|Jim Hoge]], who hired him as a reporter and feature writer in 1966.<ref name="auto"/> He attended doctoral classes at the University of Chicago while working as a general reporter for a year. After movie critic Eleanor Keane left the ''Sun-Times'' in April 1967, editor Robert Zonka gave the job to Ebert.<ref>{{cite news |title=Ebert named film critic |newspaper=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] |date=April 5, 1967 |page=57}}</ref> The paper wanted a young critic to cover movies like ''[[The Graduate]]'' and films by [[Jean-Luc Godard]] and [[François Truffaut]].<ref name=NYTObit/> The load of graduate school and being a film critic proved too much, so Ebert left the University of Chicago to focus his energies on film criticism.<ref>{{cite book |title=Life Itself: A Memoir |last=Ebert |first=Roger |location=New York |publisher=Grand Central Publishing |page=142}}</ref>

==Career==
===1967–1974: Early writings ===
[[File:Russ Meyer and Roger Ebert by Roger Ebert.jpg|thumb|right|Ebert (right) with [[Russ Meyer]] in 1970|alt=A black and white photograph of two men in suits. The man on the right is wearing glasses.]]
Ebert's first review for the ''[[Chicago Sun-Times]]'' began: "[[Georges Lautner]]’s ''Galia'' opens and closes with arty shots of the ocean, mother of us all, but in between it’s pretty clear that what is washing ashore is the [[French New Wave]]."<ref>{{cite news| author=Roger Ebert| date=April 7, 1967| title=Gaila| work=[[Chicago Sun Times]]| url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/galia-1967}}</ref> He recalls that "Within a day after Zonka gave me the job, I read ''The Immediate Experience'' by [[Robert Warshow]]", from which he gleaned that "the critic has to set aside theory and ideology, theology and politics, and open himself to—well, the immediate experience."<ref name=ImmediateExperience>{{cite book| author=Roger Ebert| title=Life Itself: A Memoir| date=2011| page=154}}</ref> That same year, he met film critic [[Pauline Kael]] for the first time at the [[New York Film Festival]]. After he sent her some of his columns, she told him they were "the best film criticism being done in American newspapers today."<ref name=ChicagoMag /> He recalls her telling him how she worked: "I go into the movie, I watch it, and I ask myself what happened to me."<ref name=ImmediateExperience/> A formative experience was reviewing [[Ingmar Bergman]]'s ''[[Persona (1966 film)|Persona]]'' (1966).<ref>{{cite news| last=Ebert| first=Roger| date=November 7, 1967| title=Persona| work=Chicago Sun-Times| url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-persona-1966| access-date=April 8, 2024| archive-date=November 16, 2016| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161116124240/http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-persona-1966| url-status=live}}</ref> He told his editor he wasn't sure how to review it when he didn't feel he could explain it. His editor told him he didn't have to explain it, just describe it.<ref>{{cite news| last=Ebert| first=Roger| date=January 7, 2001| title=Great Movies: Persona| work=Chicago Sun-Times| url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-persona-1966| access-date=April 8, 2024| archive-date=November 16, 2016| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161116124240/http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-persona-1966| url-status=live}}</ref>

He was one of the first critics to champion [[Arthur Penn]]'s ''[[Bonnie and Clyde (film)|Bonnie and Clyde]]'' (1967), calling it "a milestone in the history of American movies, a work of truth and brilliance. It is also pitilessly cruel, filled with sympathy, nauseating, funny, heartbreaking and astonishingly beautiful. If it does not seem that those words should be strung together, perhaps that is because movies do not very often reflect the full range of human life." He concluded: "The fact that the story is set 35 years ago doesn't mean a thing. It had to be set some time. But it was made now and it's about us."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=September 25, 1967 |title=Bonnie and Clyde |work=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/bonnie-and-clyde-1967 |access-date=July 30, 2022 |archive-date=November 11, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171111205357/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/bonnie-and-clyde-1967 |url-status=live }}</ref> Thirty-one years later, he wrote "When I saw it, I had been a film critic for less than six months, and it was the first masterpiece I had seen on the job. I felt an exhilaration beyond describing. I did not suspect how long it would be between such experiences, but at least I learned that they were possible."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=August 3, 1998 |title=Great Movies: Bonnie and Clyde |work=[[Chicago Sun Times]] |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-bonnie-and-clyde-1967 |access-date=February 11, 2023 |archive-date=February 11, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230211222807/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-bonnie-and-clyde-1967 |url-status=live }}</ref> He wrote [[Martin Scorsese]]'s first review, for ''[[Who's That Knocking at My Door]]'' (1967, then titled ''I Call First''), and predicted the young director could become "an American [[Federico Fellini| Fellini]]."<ref name=Who'sThat>{{Cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=November 17, 1967 |title=I Call First/ Who's That Knocking at My Door? |work=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/i-call-first--whos-that-knocking-at-my-door-1967 |access-date=July 30, 2022 |archive-date=December 27, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201227045136/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/i-call-first--whos-that-knocking-at-my-door-1967 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Ebert co-wrote the screenplay for [[Russ Meyer]]'s ''[[Beyond the Valley of the Dolls]]'' (1970) and sometimes joked about being responsible for it. It was poorly received on its release yet has become a [[cult film]].<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/beyond-the-valley-of-the-dolls-1980 |title=Beyond the Valley of the Dolls |work=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] |first=Roger |last=Ebert |access-date=September 3, 2012 |date=January 1, 1970 |archive-date=December 30, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181230054847/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/beyond-the-valley-of-the-dolls-1980 |url-status=live }}</ref> Ebert and Meyer also made ''[[Up! (1976 film)|Up!]]'' (1976), ''[[Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens]]'' (1979) and other films, and were involved in the ill-fated [[Sex Pistols]] film ''[[Who Killed Bambi? (unfinished film)|Who Killed Bambi?]]'' In April 2010, Ebert posted his screenplay of ''Who Killed Bambi?'', also known as ''Anarchy in the UK'', on his blog.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/04/who_killed_bambi_-_a_screenpla.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100429015727/http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/04/who_killed_bambi_-_a_screenpla.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=April 29, 2010 |last=Ebert |first=Roger |title='Who Killed Bambi?'&nbsp;– A screenplay |website=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] |date=April 25, 2010 }}</ref>

Beginning in 1968, Ebert worked for the [[University of Chicago]] as an adjunct lecturer, teaching a night class on film at the [[Graham School of Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://news.uchicago.edu/article/2013/04/05/roger-ebert-x-70-film-critic-and-longtime-graham-school-lecturer-1942-2013 |title=Roger Ebert, X'70, film critic and longtime Graham School lecturer, 1942–2013 |date=April 5, 2013 |access-date=December 26, 2016 |website=UChicagoNews |publisher=[[University of Chicago]] |location=Chicago, Illinois |archive-date=December 27, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161227130527/https://news.uchicago.edu/article/2013/04/05/roger-ebert-x-70-film-critic-and-longtime-graham-school-lecturer-1942-2013 |url-status=live }}</ref>

=== 1975–1999: Stardom with ''Siskel & Ebert'' ===
[[File:Gene Siskel at the 61st Academy Awards cropped.jpg|alt=Color photo of a man in a tuxedo.|thumb|left|upright|Co-host [[Gene Siskel]] at the [[1989 Academy Awards]]]]
In 1975, Ebert received the [[Pulitzer Prize for Criticism]].<ref name="Salt Lake Tribune death" /> In the aftermath of his win, he was offered jobs at ''[[The New York Times]]'' and ''[[The Washington Post]]'', but he declined them both, as he did not wish to leave Chicago.{{sfn|Singer|2023|p=28}} That same year, he and [[Gene Siskel]] of the ''[[Chicago Tribune]]'' began co-hosting a weekly film-review television show, ''Opening Soon at a Theater Near You'',<ref name=NYTObit/> later ''[[Sneak Previews]]'', which was locally produced by the Chicago [[public broadcasting]] station [[WTTW]].<ref name="s&e mbc">{{cite web|url=http://www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=siskelandeb|title=Siskel and Ebert|website=[[Museum of Broadcast Communications]]|first=Joel|last=Steinberg|access-date=June 17, 2022|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101204224136/http://museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=siskelandeb|archive-date=December 4, 2010}}</ref> The series was later picked up for national syndication on [[PBS]].<ref name="s&e mbc"/> The duo became well known for their "thumbs up/thumbs down" reviews.<ref name="s&e mbc"/><ref>{{cite magazine |url=http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20129634,00.html |last=Gliatto |first=Tom |title=Despite the Loss of Film-Critic Buddy Gene Siskel, Roger Ebert Gives Life a Thumbs-Up |magazine=[[People (magazine)|People]] |date=November 1, 1999 |access-date=April 20, 2010 |archive-date=February 5, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090205021101/http://people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20129634,00.html |url-status=live }}</ref> They trademarked the phrase "Two Thumbs Up."<ref name="s&e mbc"/><ref name=Statement />

In 1982, they moved from PBS to launch a similar [[Broadcast syndication|syndicated]] commercial television show, ''[[At the Movies (1982 TV program)|At the Movies With Gene Siskel & Roger Ebert]]''.<ref name="s&e mbc"/> In 1986, they again moved the show to new ownership, creating ''[[At the Movies (1986 TV program)|Siskel & Ebert & the Movies]]'' through [[Disney-ABC Domestic Television|Buena Vista Television]], part of the [[Walt Disney Company]].<ref name="s&e mbc"/> Ebert and Siskel made many appearances on late night talk shows, appearing on ''[[The Late Show with David Letterman]]'' sixteen times and ''[[The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson]]'' fifteen times. They also appeared together on ''[[The Oprah Winfrey Show]]'', ''[[The Arsenio Hall Show]]'', ''[[The Howard Stern Show]]'', ''[[The Tonight Show with Jay Leno]]'' and ''[[Late Night with Conan O'Brien]]''.

Siskel and Ebert were sometimes accused of trivializing film criticism. [[Richard Corliss]], in ''[[Film Comment]]'', called the show "a sitcom (with its own noodling, toodling theme song) starring two guys who live in a movie theater and argue all the time".<ref>{{Cite news |last=Corliss |first=Richard |date=March–April 1990 |title=All Thumbs: Or, Is There a Future For Film Criticism? |work=[[Film Comment]] |url=https://www.filmcomment.com/article/richard-corliss-all-thumbs-or-is-there-a-future-for-film-criticism/}}</ref> Ebert responded that "I am the first to agree with Corliss that the Siskel and Ebert program is not in-depth film criticism" but that "When we have an opinion about a movie, that opinion may light a bulb above the head of an ambitious youth who then understands that people can make up their own minds about movies." He also noted that they did "theme shows" condemning [[film colorization| colorization]] and showing the virtues of [[letterboxing (filming)|letterboxing]]. He argued that "good criticism is commonplace these days. ''Film Comment'' itself is healthier and more widely distributed than ever before. ''[[Film Quarterly]]'' is, too; it even abandoned eons of tradition to increase its page size. And then look at ''[[Cineaste (magazine)| Cinéaste]]'' and [[American Film (magazine)|''American Film'']] and the specialist film magazines (you may not read ''[[Fangoria]]'', but if you did, you would be amazed at the erudition its writers bring to the horror and special effects genres.)"<ref>{{Cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |title=All Stars: Or, Is There a Cure For Criticism? |work=[[Film Comment]]| date=May–June 1990 |url=https://www.filmcomment.com/article/roger-ebert-richard-corliss-cure-for-criticism-of-film-criticism/}}</ref> Corliss wrote that "I do think the program has other merits, and said so in a sentence of my original article that didn't make it into type: 'Sometimes the show does good: in spotlighting foreign and independent films, and in raising issues like censorship and colorization.' The stars' recent excoriation of the MPAA's X rating was salutary to the max."<ref>{{cite news| last=Corliss| first=Richard| title=Then Again| date=May–June 1990| work=Film Comment| url= https://www.filmcomment.com/article/richard-corliss-roger-ebert-cure-for-criticism-of-film-criticism/}}</ref>

In 1996, [[W. W. Norton & Company]] asked Ebert to edit an anthology of film writing. This resulted in ''Roger Ebert's Book of Film: From Tolstoy to Tarantino, the Finest Writing From a Century of Film''. The selections are eclectic, ranging from [[Louise Brooks]]'s autobiography to [[David Thomson (film critic)| David Thomson]]'s novel ''Suspects''.<ref>{{cite news| work=[[Publishers Weekly]]| title=Roger Ebert's Book of Film: Fromm Tolstoy to Tarantino, the Finest Writing From a Century of Film| url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780393040005}}</ref> Ebert "wrote to Nigel Wade, then the editor of the ''Chicago Sun-Times'', and proposed a biweekly series of longer articles great movies of the past. He gave his blessing ... Every other week I have revisited a great movie, and the response has been encouraging."<ref>{{cite book| last=Ebert| first=Roger| title=The Great Movies| date=2002| page=xvii}}</ref> The first film he wrote about for the series was [[Casablanca (film)|''Casablanca'']] (1942).<ref>{{cite news| author=Roger Ebert| title=Great Movies: Casablanca| date=September 15, 1996| url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-casablanca-1942}}</ref> A hundred of these essays were published as ''The Great Movies'' (2002); he released two more volumes, and a fourth was published posthumously. In 1999, Ebert founded The Overlooked Film Festival (later [[Ebertfest]]), in his hometown, [[Champaign, Illinois]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ebertfest.com/about.html |title=About EbertFest |website=[[Ebertfest: Roger Ebert's Film Festival|Roger Ebert's Film Festival]] |access-date=January 2, 2017 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161229103019/http://www.ebertfest.com/about.html |archive-date=December 29, 2016 }}</ref>

In May 1998, Siskel took a leave of absence from the show to undergo brain surgery. He returned to the show, although viewers noticed a change in his physical appearance. Despite appearing sluggish and tired, Siskel continued reviewing films with Ebert and would appear on ''Late Show with David Letterman''. In February 1999, Siskel died of a brain tumor.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://newspapers.com/clip/58107353/in-tribute-legendary-film-reviewer/|title=In tribute: Legendary film reviewer leaves thumbprint on a nation of moviegoers|date=March 27, 1999|work=[[The Star Press]]|access-date=June 17, 2022|via=Newspapers.com|archive-date=May 5, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220505132306/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/58107353/in-tribute-legendary-film-reviewer/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=February 21, 1999 |title=Gene Siskel, Half of a Famed Movie-Review Team, Dies at 53 |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1999/02/21/nyregion/gene-siskel-half-of-a-famed-movie-review-team-dies-at-53.html |access-date=June 17, 2022 |archive-date=September 4, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210904210034/https://www.nytimes.com/1999/02/21/nyregion/gene-siskel-half-of-a-famed-movie-review-team-dies-at-53.html |url-status=live }}</ref> The producers renamed the show ''Roger Ebert & the Movies'' and used rotating co-hosts including [[Martin Scorsese]],<ref name=Scorsese>{{Cite web|last=Ebert & Scorsese|title=Best films of the 90s|date=February 27, 2000|url=http://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/ebert-and-scorsese-best-films-of-the-1990s|access-date=June 17, 2022|archive-date=August 28, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180828102353/https://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/ebert-and-scorsese-best-films-of-the-1990s|url-status=live}}</ref>[[Janet Maslin]]<ref>{{cite web|last=Perrone|first=Pierre|title=Obituary: Gene Siskel|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary-gene-siskel-1072625.html|website=[[The Independent]] |date=February 23, 1999|access-date=June 17, 2022|archive-date=August 11, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190811003221/https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary-gene-siskel-1072625.html|url-status=live}}</ref> and [[A.O. Scott]].<ref name=Scott>{{cite news| last=Scott| first=A.O.| title=Roger Ebert, The Critic Behind The Thumb| newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|pages=Arts & Leisure, 1, 22|date=April 13, 2008|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/13/13scot.html?ex=1365652800&en=f8c0d5eab2237088&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink|access-date=June 17, 2022}}</ref> Ebert wrote of his late colleague: "For the first five years that we knew one another, Gene Siskel and I hardly spoke. Then it seemed like we never stopped." He wrote of Siskel's work ethic, of how quickly he returned to work after surgery: "Someone else might have taken a leave of absence then and there, but Gene worked as long as he could. Being a film critic was important to him. He liked to refer to his job as 'the national dream beat,' and say that in reviewing movies he was covering what people hoped for, dreamed about, and feared."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=February 22, 1999 |title=Farewell, my friend |work=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/farewell-my-friend |access-date=October 22, 2023 |archive-date=September 29, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230929043129/https://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/farewell-my-friend |url-status=live }}</ref> Ebert recalled, "Whenever he interviewed someone for his newspaper or for television, Gene Siskel liked to end with the same question: 'What do you know for sure?' OK Gene, what do I know for sure about you? You were one of the smartest, funniest, quickest men I've ever known and one of the best reporters...I  know for sure that seeing a truly great movie made you so happy that you'd tell me a week later your spirits were still high."<ref>{{cite web| title=Siskel & Ebert: Remembering Gene Siskel| website=[[YouTube]]| date=February 27, 1999| url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvlTSxhWGqY}}</ref> Ten years after Siskel's death, Ebert blogged about his colleague: "We once spoke with Disney and CBS about a sitcom to be titled ''Best Enemies''. It would be about two movie critics joined in a love/hate relationship. It never went anywhere, but we both believed it was a good idea. Maybe the problem was that no one else could possibly understand how meaningless was the hate, how deep was the love."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=February 17, 2009 |title=Remembering Gene |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/remembering-gene |access-date=October 22, 2023 |archive-date=February 7, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130207203819/http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2009/02/i_remember_gene.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

=== 2000–2006: ''Ebert & Roeper'' ===
In September 2000, ''Chicago Sun-Times'' columnist [[Richard Roeper]] became the permanent co-host and the show was renamed ''At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper'' and later ''Ebert & Roeper''.<ref name=NYTObit/><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/88631117/tampa-bay-times/ |title=Columnist to become foil to Roger Ebert |work=[[Tampa Bay Times]] |date=July 14, 2000 |access-date=May 18, 2022 |via=Newspapers.com |archive-date=May 18, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220518173243/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/88631117/tampa-bay-times/ |url-status=live }}</ref> In 2000, Ebert interviewed President [[Bill Clinton]] about movies at [[The White House]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://siskelebert.org/?p=7506 |title=The Bill Clinton Interview 2000 |website=siskelebert.org |access-date=July 17, 2020 |archive-date=July 12, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200712032728/https://siskelebert.org/?p=7506 |url-status=live }}</ref>

In 2002, Ebert was diagnosed with cancer of the salivary glands. In 2006, cancer surgery resulted in his losing his ability to eat and speak. In 2007, prior to his Overlooked Film Festival, he posted a picture of his new condition. Paraphrasing a line from ''[[Raging Bull]]'' (1980), he wrote, "I ain’t a pretty boy no more. (Not that I ever was. The original appeal of ''Siskel & Ebert'' was that we didn’t look like we belonged on TV.)" He added that he would not miss the festival: "At least, not being able to speak, I am spared the need to explain why every film is 'overlooked', or why I wrote ''Beyond the Valley of the Dolls''."<ref>{{cite web |title=Roger Ebert: I ain't a pretty boy no more and so what? |date=April 24, 2007 |url=https://signalvnoise.com/posts/391-roger-ebert-i-aint-a-pretty-boy-no-more-and-so-what}}</ref>

===2007–2013: ''RogerEbert.com''===
Ebert ended his association with ''At The Movies'' in July 2008,<ref name=Statement>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/22/arts/22arts-EBERTANDROEP_BRF.html |title=Ebert and Roeper No Longer at the Movies |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=July 22, 2008 |access-date=August 30, 2013 |first=Julie |last=Bloom |archive-date=November 28, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181128004935/https://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/22/arts/22arts-EBERTANDROEP_BRF.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name=Jones>{{cite web| title=Roger Ebert: The Essential Man| author=Chris Jones| date=February 16, 2010| work=[[Esquire (magazine)| Esquire]] | url=https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a6945/roger-ebert-0310/}}</ref> after Disney indicated it wished to take the program in a new direction. As of 2007, his reviews were [[print syndication|syndicated]] to more than 200 newspapers in the United States and abroad.<ref name="Corliss2007">{{cite magazine |url=http://content.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1636520,00.html |title=Thumbs Up for Roger Ebert |last=Corliss |first=Richard |author-link=Richard Corliss |date=June 23, 2007 |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] |access-date=January 2, 2017 |archive-date=January 3, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170103165323/http://content.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1636520,00.html |url-status=live }}</ref> His ''[[RogerEbert.com]]'' website, launched in 2002 and originally underwritten by the ''Chicago Sun-Times'',<ref name=Guernica>{{cite magazine |last=Miller |first=Quenton |title=Roger Ebert, Wikipedia Editor |url=https://www.guernicamag.com/roger-ebert-wikipedia-editor/ |magazine=[[Guernica (magazine)|Guernica]] |date=February 23, 2017 |access-date=May 20, 2021 |archive-date=April 26, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220426010832/https://www.guernicamag.com/roger-ebert-wikipedia-editor/ |url-status=live }}</ref> remains online as an archive of his published writings and reviews while also hosting new material written by a group of critics who were selected by Ebert before his death. Even as he used TV (and later the Internet) to share his reviews, Ebert continued to write for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' until he died.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LQKhAwAAQBAJ&q=write+for+the+Chicago+Sun-Times+until+he+died+in+2013&pg=PA101 |title=Obituaries in the Performing Arts, 2013 |first=Harris M. III |last=Lentz |date=May 16, 2014 |publisher=[[McFarland (publisher)|McFarland]] |location=Jefferson, North Carolina |isbn=9780786476657 |language=en |access-date=November 2, 2020 |archive-date=May 6, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240506050940/https://books.google.com/books?id=LQKhAwAAQBAJ&q=write+for+the+Chicago+Sun-Times+until+he+died+in+2013&pg=PA101 |url-status=live }}</ref>{{Circular reference|date=May 2025}} On February 18, 2009, Ebert reported that he and Roeper would soon announce a new movie-review program,<ref name=NewShow>{{cite news |url=http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=ANSWERMAN |title=Roger Ebert. "By the time we get to Phoenix, he'll be laughing" February 18, 2009 |work=Chicago Sun-Times |date=October 13, 2004 |access-date=July 24, 2011 |archive-date=April 5, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130405095701/http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=ANSWERMAN |url-status=dead }}</ref> and reiterated this plan after Disney announced that the program's last episode would air in August 2010.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/03/see_you_at_the_movies.html|title=See you at the movies|date=March 25, 2010|first=Roger|last=Ebert|work=Roger Ebert's Journal|accessdate=June 22, 2022|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20100326033808/http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/03/see_you_at_the_movies.html|archivedate=March 26, 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/towerticker/2010/03/disneyabc-to-cancel-at-the-movies-siskel-and-eberts-old-show.html|title=Tower Ticker: Disney-ABC cancels 'At the Movies,' Siskel and Ebert's old show|work=[[Chicago Tribune]]|date=March 24, 2010|first=Phil|last=Rosenthal|accessdate=July 29, 2022|archive-date=July 3, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220703092520/https://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/towerticker/2010/03/disneyabc-to-cancel-at-the-movies-siskel-and-eberts-old-show.html|url-status=live}}</ref> In 2008, having lost his voice, he turned to blogging to express himself.<ref name=Jones/> Peter Debruge writes that "Ebert was one of the first writers to recognize the potential of discussing film online."<ref name=Variety>{{cite magazine |last=Debruge |first=Peter |date=April 4, 2013 |url=https://variety.com/2013/film/opinion/roger-ebert-dead-variety-critic-tribute-1200333350/ |title=Variety's Peter Debruge Remembers Roger Ebert: A Champion Among Men |magazine=[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]] |access-date=April 29, 2020 |archive-date=August 6, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200806184552/https://variety.com/2013/film/opinion/roger-ebert-dead-variety-critic-tribute-1200333350/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

His final television series, ''[[Ebert Presents: At the Movies]]'', premiered on January 21, 2011, with Ebert contributing a review voiced by [[Bill Kurtis]] in a brief segment called "Roger's Office,"<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700101980/Roger-Ebert-returns-with-new-PBS-review-show.html |title=Roger Ebert returns with new PBS review show |first=Caryn |last=Rousseau |agency=[[Associated Press]] |work=[[Deseret News]] |date=January 19, 2010 |access-date=January 20, 2011 |archive-date=January 22, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110122013235/http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700101980/Roger-Ebert-returns-with-new-PBS-review-show.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> as well as traditional film reviews in the ''At the Movies'' format by [[Christy Lemire]] and [[Ignatiy Vishnevetsky]].<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/2011/01/23/ebert-presents-at-the-movies-a-work-in-progress/|work=[[Chicago Tribune]]|title='Ebert Presents At the Movies' a work in progress|date=January 23, 2011|access-date=June 17, 2022|first=Phil|last=Rosenthal|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110125023903/http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-01-23/business/ct-biz-0123-phil-20110123_1_sun-times-ebert-tribune-s-siskel-roger-ebert|archive-date=January 25, 2011}}</ref> The program lasted one season, before being cancelled due to funding constraints.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2011/11/so_long_for_awhile.html|title=So long for awhile|date=November 30, 2011|work=[[Chicago Sun-Times]]|first=Roger|last=Ebert|access-date=June 17, 2022|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111203034611/http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2011/11/so_long_for_awhile.html|archive-date=December 3, 2011}}</ref><ref name=NYTObit/>

In 2011, he published his memoir, ''Life Itself'', in which he describes his childhood, his career, his struggles with alcoholism and cancer, his loves and friendships.<ref name=NPR/> On March 7, 2013, Ebert published his last Great Movies essay, for ''[[The Ballad of Narayama (1958 film)|The Ballad of Narayama]]'' (1958).<ref>{{cite news| author=Roger Ebert| title=The elderly are left on a mountain to die| date=March 7, 2013| url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-the-ballad-of-narayama-1958}}</ref> The last review Ebert published during his lifetime was for [[The Host (2013 film)|''The Host'']], on March 27, 2013.<ref>{{cite web| url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-host-2013| title=Don't listen to inner voices from other planets| work=[[Chicago Sun-Times]]| date=March 27, 2013| first=Roger|last=Ebert| accessdate=June 22, 2022|via=[[RogerEbert.com]]|archive-date=June 22, 2022| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220622133900/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-host-2013|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Sperling |first=Nicole |date=April 4, 2013 |title=Roger Ebert's last review: A lukewarm assessment of 'The Host' |url=https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-xpm-2013-apr-04-la-et-mn-roger-eberts-last-review-the-host-20130404-story.html |access-date=January 1, 2022 |newspaper=[[Los Angeles Times]] |language=en-US |archive-date=January 1, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220101105436/https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-xpm-2013-apr-04-la-et-mn-roger-eberts-last-review-the-host-20130404-story.html |url-status=live }}</ref> The last review Ebert filed, published posthumously on April 6, 2013, was for ''[[To the Wonder]]''.<ref>{{cite web |author=Ebert, Roger |url=http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/to-the-wonder-2013 |date=April 6, 2013 |publisher=[[RogerEbert.com]] |title=To the Wonder (2013) |access-date=April 24, 2013 |archive-date=May 13, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130513215811/http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/to-the-wonder-2013 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news| title=Roger Ebert's last thumbs up: Terrence Malick's 'To The Wonder'| author=Mark Olson| date=April 9, 2013| work=[[Los Angeles Times]]| url=https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-xpm-2013-apr-09-la-et-mn-roger-ebert-last-review-to-the-wonder-20130409-story.html}}</ref> In July 2013, a previously unpublished review of ''[[Computer Chess (film)|Computer Chess]]'' appeared on ''RogerEbert.com''.<ref>{{cite web |author=Ebert, Roger |url=http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/computer-chess-2013 |date=July 18, 2013 |publisher=[[RogerEbert.com]] |title=Computer Chess (2013) |access-date=July 20, 2013 |archive-date=July 21, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130721034138/http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/computer-chess-2013 |url-status=live }}</ref> The review had been written in March but had remained unpublished until the film's wide-release date.<ref name="compslate">{{cite web |author=Shetty, Sharan |url=http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/07/18/roger_ebert_reviews_computer_chess.html| date=July 18, 2013| work=[[Slate (magazine)| Slate]]| title=A New Review From Roger Ebert| access-date=July 20, 2013| archive-date=July 20, 2013| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130720225127/http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/07/18/roger_ebert_reviews_computer_chess.html| url-status=live }}</ref> [[Matt Zoller Seitz]], the editor of ''RogerEbert.com'', confirmed that there were other unpublished reviews that would eventually be posted.<ref name="compslate" /> A second review, for ''[[The Spectacular Now]]'', was published in August 2013.<ref>{{cite web |author=Ebert, Roger |url=http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-spectacular-now-2013 |date=August 2, 2013 |publisher=[[RogerEbert.com]] |title=The Spectacular Now (2013) |access-date=October 6, 2013 |archive-date=November 28, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131128064048/http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-spectacular-now-2013 |url-status=live }}</ref>

In his last blog entry, posted two days before his death, Ebert wrote that his cancer had returned and he was taking "a leave of presence."<ref>{{cite news| title=Announcing a 'Leave of Presence,' Ebert Says He's Reducing His Workload| date=April 3, 2013| author=[[Dave Itzkoff]]| work=[[The New York Times]]}}</ref> "What in the world is a leave of presence? It means I am not going away. My intent is to continue to write selected reviews but to leave the rest to a talented team of writers handpicked and greatly admired by me. What’s more, I’ll be able at last to do what I’ve always fantasized about doing: reviewing only the movies I want to review." He signed off, "So on this day of reflection I say again, thank you for going on this journey with me. I’ll see you at the movies."<ref>{{cite web| author=Roger Ebert| title=A Leave of Presence| date=April 2, 2013| publisher=RogerEbert.com| url=https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/a-leave-of-presence}}</ref>

==Critical style==
[[File:Pauline Kael (1968).jpg|thumb|left|160px|Ebert cited [[Pauline Kael]] as an influence.]] 
Ebert cited [[Andrew Sarris]] and [[Pauline Kael]] as influences, and often quoted [[Robert Warshow]], who said: "A man goes to the movies. A critic must be honest enough to admit he is that man."<ref>{{cite web| title=Roger Ebert, In His Own Words, On the Education of a Film Critic| author=Matt Singer| date=April 5, 2013| work=Indiewire| url=https://www.indiewire.com/news/general-news/roger-ebert-in-his-own-words-on-the-education-of-a-film-critic-128145/}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=October 22, 2011 |title=Knocked up at the movies |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/knocked-up-at-the-movies |access-date=February 19, 2023 |archive-date=December 19, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191219194552/https://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/knocked-up-at-the-movies |url-status=live }}</ref> His own credo was: "Your intellect may be confused, but your emotions never lie to you."<ref name=NYTObit/> He tried to judge a movie on its style rather than its content, and often said "It's not what a movie is about, it's how it's about what it's about."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=November 26, 2003 |title=Bad Santa |work=[[Chicago Sun Times]] |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/bad-santa-2003 |access-date=February 11, 2023 |archive-date=March 10, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220310015703/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/bad-santa-2003 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news| last=Ebert| first=Roger| date=November 18, 2009| title=The man who stares at iguanas| work=Chicago Sun Times| url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/bad-lieutenant-port-of-call-new-orleans-2009| access-date=December 5, 2023| archive-date=June 22, 2021| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210622204552/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/bad-lieutenant-port-of-call-new-orleans-2009| url-status=live}}</ref>

He awarded four stars to films of the highest quality, and generally a half star to those of the lowest, unless he considered the film to be "artistically inept and morally repugnant", in which case it received no stars, as with ''[[Death Wish II]]''.<ref>{{cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=January 1, 1982 |title=Death Wish II |work=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/death-wish-ii-1982 |access-date=November 24, 2020 |via=[[RogerEbert.com]] |archive-date=November 11, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201111190006/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/death-wish-ii-1982 |url-status=live }}</ref> He explained that his star ratings had little meaning outside the context of the review:

{{cquote|When you ask a friend if ''[[Hellboy (2004 film)|Hellboy]]'' is any good, you're not asking if it's any good compared to ''[[Mystic River (film)|Mystic River]]'', you're asking if it's any good compared to ''[[The Punisher (2004 film)|The Punisher]]''. And my answer would be, on a scale of one to four, if ''[[Superman (1978 film)|Superman]]'' is four, then ''Hellboy'' is three and ''The Punisher'' is two. In the same way, if ''[[American Beauty (1999 film)|American Beauty]]'' gets four stars, then ''[[The United States of Leland]]'' clocks in at about two.<ref>{{cite web |first=Roger |last=Ebert |url=http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040423/REVIEWS/404230305/1023 |title=Shaolin Soccer |newspaper=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] |via=[[RogerEbert.com]] |date=April 23, 2004 |access-date=March 8, 2005 |archive-date=October 23, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121023024220/http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040423/REVIEWS/404230305/1023 |url-status=dead }}</ref>}}

Although Ebert rarely wrote outright scathing reviews, he had a reputation for writing memorable ones for the films he really hated, such as ''[[North (1994 film)|North]]''.<ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://time.com/2957019/roger-ebert-life-itself-brutal-reviews/ |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] |title=7 of Roger Ebert's most brutal movie reviews |date=July 4, 2014 |access-date=October 20, 2017 |archive-date=October 20, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171020115438/http://time.com/2957019/roger-ebert-life-itself-brutal-reviews/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Of that film, he wrote "I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=July 22, 1994 |title=North |work=[[Chicago Sun Times]] |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/north-1994 |access-date=October 10, 2021 |archive-date=June 9, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210609150838/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/north-1994 |url-status=live }}</ref> He wrote that ''[[Mad Dog Time]]'' "is the first movie I have seen that does not improve on the sight of a blank screen viewed for the same length of time. Oh, I've seen bad movies before. But they usually made me ''care'' about how bad they were. Watching ''Mad Dog Time'' is like waiting for the bus in a city where you're not sure they have a bus line" and concluded that the film "should be cut up to provide free ukulele picks for the poor."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=November 26, 1996 |title=Mad Dog Time |work=[[Chicago Sun Times]] |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/mad-dog-time-1996 |access-date=February 14, 2023 |archive-date=February 14, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230214170859/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/mad-dog-time-1996 |url-status=live }}</ref> Of ''[[Caligula (film)|Caligula]]'', he wrote "It is not good art, it is not good cinema, and it is not good porn" and approvingly quoted the woman in front of him at the drinking fountain, who called it "the worst piece of shit I have ever seen."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=September 22, 1980 |title=Caligula |work=[[Chicago Sun Times]] |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/caligula-1980 |access-date= |archive-date=October 7, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201007010030/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/caligula-1980 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Ebert's reviews were also characterized by "dry wit."<ref name=SunTimesObit /> He often wrote in a deadpan style when discussing a movie's flaws; in his review of ''[[Jaws: The Revenge]]'', he wrote that Mrs. Brody's "friends pooh-pooh the notion that a shark could identify, follow or even care about one individual human being, but I am willing to grant the point, for the benefit of the plot. I believe that the shark wants revenge against Mrs. Brody. I do. I really do believe it. After all, her husband was one of the men who hunted this shark and killed it, blowing it to bits. And what shark wouldn't want revenge against the survivors of the men who killed it? Here are some things, however, that I do not believe", going on to list the other ways the film strained credulity.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=June 27, 1987 |title=Jaws: The Revenge |work=[[Chicago Sun Times]] |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/jaws-the-revenge-1987 |access-date=February 14, 2023 |archive-date=August 22, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210822222928/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/jaws-the-revenge-1987 |url-status=live }}</ref> He wrote "[[Pearl Harbor (film)|''Pearl Harbor'']] is a two-hour movie squeezed into three hours, about how on Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese staged a surprise attack on an American love triangle. Its centerpiece is 40 minutes of redundant special effects, surrounded by a love story of stunning banality. The film has been directed without grace, vision, or originality, and although you may walk out quoting lines of dialog, it will not be because you admire them."<ref>{{cite news| title=Pearl Harbor| author=Roger Ebert| date=May 25, 2001| work=[[Chicago Sun Times]]| url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/pearl-harbor-2001}}</ref>

{{quote box
| align = right
| width = 25em
| bgcolor = LightCyan
| quote = "[Ebert's prose] had a plain-spoken Midwestern clarity...a genial, conversational presence on the page...his criticism shows a nearly unequaled grasp of film history and technique, and formidable intellectual range, but he rarely seems to be showing off. He's just trying to tell you what he thinks, and to provoke some thought on your part about how movies work and what they can do".
| source = — [[A.O. Scott]], film critic for ''[[The New York Times]]''<ref name=Scott/>
}}
Ebert often included personal anecdotes in his reviews; reviewing ''[[The Last Picture Show]]'', he recalls his early days as a moviegoer: "For five or six years of my life (the years between when I was old enough to go alone, and when TV came to town) Saturday afternoon at the Princess was a descent into a dark magical cave that smelled of Jujubes, melted Dreamsicles and Crisco in the popcorn machine. It was probably on one of those Saturday afternoons that I formed my first critical opinion, deciding vaguely that there was something about [[John Wayne]] that set him apart from ordinary cowboys."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=December 21, 1971 |title=The Last Picture Show |work=[[Chicago Sun Times]] |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-last-picture-show-1971 |access-date=February 7, 2023 |archive-date=December 12, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171212015438/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-last-picture-show-1971 |url-status=live }}</ref> Reviewing [[Star Wars (film)|''Star Wars'']], he wrote: "Every once in a while I have what I think of as an out-of-the-body experience at a movie. When the ESP people use a phrase like that, they’re referring to the sensation of the mind actually leaving the body and spiriting itself off to China or Peoria or a galaxy far, far away. When I use the phrase, I simply mean that my imagination has forgotten it is actually present in a movie theater and thinks it’s up there on the screen. In a curious sense, the events in the movie seem real, and I seem to be a part of them...My list of other out-of-the-body films is a short and odd one, ranging from the artistry of [[Bonnie and Clyde (film)|''Bonnie and Clyde'']] or ''[[Cries and Whispers]]'' to the slick commercialism of [[Jaws (film)|''Jaws'']] and the brutal strength of ''[[Taxi Driver]]''. On whatever level (sometimes I’m not at all sure) they engage me so immediately and powerfully that I lose my detachment, my analytical reserve. The movie’s ''happening'', and it’s happening to me."<ref>{{cite news| title=Star Wars| author=Roger Ebert| date=1977| work=[[Chicago Sun-Times]]| url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/star-wars-1977}}</ref> He sometimes wrote reviews in the forms of stories, poems, songs,<ref>{{cite news| author=Roger Ebert| title=Wet Hot American Summer| date=August 31, 2001| url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/wet-hot-american-summer-2001}}</ref> scripts, open letters,<ref>{{cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=September 14, 1997 |title=Great Movies: E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial |work=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-et-the-extra-terrestrial-1982 |access-date=February 12, 2023 |archive-date=January 29, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160129132649/http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-et-the-extra-terrestrial-1982 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=July 16, 2004 |title=A Cinderella Story |work=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/a-cinderella-story-2004 |access-date= |archive-date=January 11, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180111134812/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/a-cinderella-story-2004 |url-status=live }}</ref> or imagined conversations.<ref>{{cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=March 25, 1994 |title=The Hudsucker Proxy |work=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/hudsucker-proxy-1994 |url-status= |access-date= |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110708005214/http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19940325/REVIEWS/403250301/1023 |archive-date=July 8, 2011}}</ref>

[[Alex Ross (music critic)|Alex Ross]], music critic for ''[[The New Yorker]]'', wrote of how Ebert had influenced his writing: "I noticed how much Ebert could put across in a limited space. He didn't waste time clearing his throat. 'They meet for the first time when she is in her front yard practicing baton-twirling,' begins his review of [[Badlands (film)|''Badlands'']]. Often, he managed to smuggle the basics of the plot into a larger thesis about the movie, so that you don't notice the exposition taking place: '[[Broadcast News (film)|''Broadcast News'']] is as knowledgeable about the TV news-gathering process as any movie ever made, but it also has insights into the more personal matter of how people use high-pressure jobs as a way of avoiding time alone with themselves.' The reviews start off in all different ways, sometimes with personal confessions, sometimes with sweeping statements. One way or another, he pulls you in. When he feels strongly, he can bang his fist in an impressive way. His review of ''[[Apocalypse Now]]'' ends thus: 'The whole huge grand mystery of the world, so terrible, so beautiful, seems to hang in the balance.'"<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Ross |first=Alex |date=April 15, 2013 |title=Learning From Ebert |magazine=[[The New Yorker]] |url=https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/learning-from-ebert |access-date=July 30, 2022 |archive-date=July 30, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220730174334/https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/learning-from-ebert |url-status=live }}</ref>

In his introduction to ''The Great Movies III'', he wrote:

{{cquote|People often ask me, "Do you ever change your mind about a movie?" Hardly ever, although I may refine my opinion. Among the films here, I've changed on ''[[The Godfather Part II]]'' and ''[[Blade Runner]]''. My original review of ''Part II'' puts me in mind of the "brain cloud" that besets [[Tom Hanks]] in ''[[Joe Versus the Volcano]]''. I was simply wrong. In the case of ''Blade Runner'', I think the director's cut by [[Ridley Scott]] simply plays much better. I also turned around on ''[[Groundhog Day (film)|Groundhog Day]]'', which made it into this book when I belatedly caught on that it wasn't about the weatherman's predicament but about the nature of time and will. Perhaps when I first saw it I allowed myself to be distracted by [[Bill Murray]]'s mainstream comedy reputation. But someone in film school somewhere is probably even now writing a thesis about how Murray's famous cameos represent an injection of philosophy into those pictures.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ebert |first=Roger |title=The Great Movies III |publisher=University of Chicago Press |year=2010 |pages=xvii}}</ref>}}

In the first ''Great Movies'', he wrote:
{{Blockquote |text=
Movies do not change, but their viewers do. When I first saw ''[[La Dolce Vita]]'' in 1961, I was an adolescent for whom "the sweet life" represented everything I dreamed of: sin, exotic European glamour, the weary romance of the cynical newspaperman. When I saw it again, around 1970, I was living in a version of Marcello's world; Chicago's North Avenue was not the Via Veneto, but at 3 A. M. the denizens were just as colorful, and I was about Marcello's age.}}

{{Blockquote |text=When I saw the movie around 1980, Marcello was the same age, but I was ten years older, had stopped drinking, and saw him not as role model, but as a victim, condemned to an endless search for happiness that could never be found, not that way. By 1991, when I analyzed the film a frame at a time at the [[University of Colorado]], Marcello seemed younger still, and while I had once admired and then criticized him, now I pitied and loved him. And when I saw the movie right after [[Marcello Mastroianni| Mastroianni]] died, I thought that [[Federico Fellini| Fellini]] and Marcello had taken a moment of discovery and made it immortal. There may be no such thing as the sweet life. But it is necessary to find that out for yourself.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ebert |first=Roger |title=The Great Movies |date=2002 |url=https://archive.org/details/greatmovies0000eber/page/243/mode/1up?view=theater |location=New York |edition=First |publisher=Broadway Books |page=243 |isbn=9780767910323 |oclc=47989891}}</ref>
}}

==Preferences==
===Favorites===
In an essay looking back at his first 25 years as a film critic, Ebert wrote:

{{Blockquote |text=
If I had to make a generalization, I would say that many of my favorite movies are about Good People ... ''[[Casablanca (film)|Casablanca]]'' is about people who do the right thing. ''[[The Third Man]]'' is about people who do the right thing and can never speak to one another as a result ... Not all good movies are about Good People. I also like movies about bad people who have a sense of humor. [[Orson Welles]], who does not play either of the good people in ''The Third Man'', has such a winning way, such witty dialogue, that for a scene or two we almost forgive him his crimes. Henry Hill, the hero of ''[[Goodfellas]]'', is not a good fella, but he has the ability to be honest with us about why he enjoyed being bad. He is not a hypocrite.}}

{{Blockquote |text=Of the other movies I love, some are simply about the joy of physical movement. When [[Gene Kelly]] splashes through ''[[Singin' in the Rain]]'', when [[Judy Garland]] follows the yellow brick road, when [[Fred Astaire]] dances on the ceiling, when [[John Wayne]] puts the reins in his teeth and gallops across the mountain meadow, there is a purity and joy that cannot be resisted. In ''[[Equinox Flower]]'', a Japanese film by the old master [[Yasujirō Ozu]], there is this sequence of shots: A room with a red teapot in the foreground. Another view of the room. The mother folding clothes. A shot down a corridor with a mother crossing it at an angle, and then a daughter crossing at the back. A reverse shot in the hallway as the arriving father is greeted by the mother and daughter. A shot as the father leaves the frame, then the mother, then the daughter. A shot as the mother and father enter the room, as in the background the daughter picks up the red pot and leaves the frame. This sequence of timed movement and cutting is as perfect as any music ever written, any dance, any poem.<ref name=Twenty-Five>{{Cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=April 11, 1992 |title=Reflections after 25 years at the movies |work=[[Chicago Sun-Times]]| url=https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/reflections-after-25-years-at-the-movies}}</ref>}}

Ebert credits film historian [[Donald Richie]] and the [[Hawaii International Film Festival]] for introducing him to Asian cinema through Richie's invitation to join him on the jury of the festival in 1983, which quickly became a favorite of his and would frequently attend along with Richie, lending their support to validate the festival's status as a "festival of record".<ref>{{cite web |last1=Ebert |first1=Roger |title=In memory of Donald Richie |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/far-flung-correspondents/in-memory-of-donald-richie |website=rogerebert.com |date=21 March 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Sartin |first1=Hank |title=Mahalo Roger!: The Hawaii International Film Festival pays tribute to Roger |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/chazs-blog/mahalo-roger-the-hawaiian-international-film-festival-pays-tribute-to-roger |date=11 October 2013}}</ref> He lamented the decline of campus film societies: "There was once a time when young people made it their business to catch up on the best works by the best directors, but the death of film societies and repertory theaters put an end to that, and for today's younger filmgoers, these are not well-known names: [[Luis Buñuel| Buñuel]], [[Federico Fellini| Fellini]], [[Ingmar Bergman| Bergman]], [[John Ford| Ford]], [[Akira Kurosawa| Kurosawa]], [[Satyajit Ray| Ray]], [[Jean Renoir| Renoir]], [[David Lean|  Lean]], [[Robert Bresson| Bresson]], [[Billy Wilder| Wilder]], [[Orson Welles| Welles]]. Most people still know who [[Alfred Hitchcock| Hitchcock]] was, I guess."<ref name=Twenty-Five/>

Ebert argued for the aesthetic values of [[black-and-white photography]] and against colorization, writing:

{{Blockquote|Black-and-white movies present the deliberate absence of color. This makes them less realistic than color films (for the real world is in color). They are more dreamlike, more pure, composed of shapes and forms and movements and light and shadow. Color films can simply be illuminated. Black-and-white films have to be lighted ... Black and white is a legitimate and beautiful artistic choice in motion pictures, creating feelings and effects that cannot be obtained any other way.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=1989 |title=Why I Love Black and White |work=[[Chicago Sun-Times]]}}</ref>}}

He wrote: "Black-and-white (or, more accurately, silver-and-white) creates a mysterious dream state, a simpler world of form and gesture. Most people do not agree with me. They like color and think a black-and-white film is missing something. Try this. If you have wedding photographs of your parents and grandparents, chances are your parents are in color and your grandparents are in black and white. Put the two photographs side by side and consider them honestly. Your grandparents look timeless. Your parents look goofy.

The next time you buy film for your camera, buy a roll of black-and-white. Go outside at dusk, when the daylight is diffused. Stand on the side of the house away from the sunset. Shoot some natural-light closeups of a friend. Have the pictures printed big, at least 5 x 7. Ask yourself if this friend, who has always looked ordinary in every color photograph you’ve ever taken, does not suddenly, in black and white, somehow take on an aura of mystery. The same thing happens in the movies."<ref name=Twenty-Five/>

Ebert championed animation, particularly the films of [[Hayao Miyazaki]] and [[Isao Takahata]].<ref>{{cite news |last1=Ebert |first1=Roger |title=Japanese animation unleashes the mind |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/japanese-animation-unleashes-the-mind |access-date=February 28, 2023 |work=Chicago Sun-Times |date=October 7, 1999 |language=en |archive-date=August 15, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230815114910/https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/japanese-animation-unleashes-the-mind |url-status=live }}</ref> In his review of Miyazaki's ''[[Princess Mononoke]]'', he wrote: "I go to the movies for many reasons. Here is one of them. I want to see wondrous sights not available in the real world, in stories where myth and dreams are set free to play. Animation opens that possibility, because it is freed from gravity and the chains of the possible. Realistic films show the physical world; animation shows its essence. Animated films are not copies of 'real movies,' are not shadows of reality, but create a new existence in their own right."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=October 29, 1999 |title=Princess Mononoke |work=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/princess-mononoke-1999 |access-date=August 4, 2022 |archive-date=March 6, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160306121035/http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/princess-mononoke-1999 |url-status=live }}</ref> He concluded his review of ''[[Ratatouille (film)|Ratatouille]]'' by writing: "Every time an animated film is successful, you have to read all over again about how animation isn't 'just for children' but 'for the whole family,' and 'even for adults going on their own.' No kidding!"<ref>{{Cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=August 30, 2007 |title=Waiter, there's a rat in my soup |work=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/ratatouille-2007 |access-date=August 4, 2022 |archive-date=October 13, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131013023850/http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/ratatouille-2007 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Ebert championed documentaries, notably [[Errol Morris]]'s ''[[Gates of Heaven]]'': "They say you can make a great documentary about anything, as long as you see it well enough and truly, and this film proves it. ''Gates of Heaven'', which has no connection to the unfortunate ''[[Heaven's Gate (film)|Heaven's Gate]]'', is about a couple of pet cemeteries and their owners. It was filmed in Southern California, so of course we expect a sardonic look at the peculiarities of the Moonbeam State. But then ''Gates of Heaven'' grows ever so much more complex and frightening, until at the end it is about such large issues as love, immortality, failure, and the dogged elusiveness of the American Dream."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=January 1, 1978 |title=Gates of Heaven |work=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/gates-of-heaven-1978 |access-date=April 19, 2023 |archive-date=April 19, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230419192139/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/gates-of-heaven-1978 |url-status=live }}</ref> Morris credited Ebert's review with putting him on the map.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Errol Morris On Ebert & Siskel |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8Zj_bAlyB0 |website=YouTube | date=July 21, 2011 |access-date=October 14, 2023 |archive-date=October 22, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231022003223/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8Zj_bAlyB0 |url-status=live }}</ref> He championed [[Michael Apted]]'s [[Up (film series)|''Up'' films]], calling them "an inspired, even noble use of the medium."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=1998 |title=The Up Documentaries |work=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-the-up-documentaries-1985 |access-date=April 22, 2023 |archive-date=April 22, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230422042138/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-the-up-documentaries-1985 |url-status=live }}</ref> Ebert concluded his review of ''[[Hoop Dreams]]'' by writing: "Many filmgoers are reluctant to see documentaries, for reasons I've never understood; the good ones are frequently more absorbing and entertaining than fiction. ''Hoop Dreams'', however, is not only documentary. It is also poetry and prose, muckraking and expose, journalism and polemic. It is one of the great moviegoing experiences of my lifetime."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=October 21, 1994 |title=Hoop Dreams |work=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/hoop-dreams-1994 |access-date=April 19, 2023 |archive-date=April 19, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230419192143/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/hoop-dreams-1994 |url-status=live }}</ref>{{quote box|quoted = 1|If a movie can illuminate the lives of other people who share this planet with us and show us not only how different they are but, how even so, they share the same dreams and hurts, then it deserves to be called great.|source=— Ebert, 1986<ref>{{cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=October 25, 1986 |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/A-love-story-forged-in-hell |title=Sid and Nancy |newspaper=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] |access-date=May 31, 2020 |via=[[RogerEbert.com]] |archive-date=April 5, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200405191646/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/A-love-story-forged-in-hell |url-status=live }}</ref>|width=25%|align=right|style=padding:8px;|border=1px}}

Ebert said that his favorite film was ''[[Citizen Kane]]'', joking, "That's the official answer," although he preferred to emphasize it as "the most important" film. He said seeing ''The Third Man'' cemented his love of cinema: "This movie is on the altar of my love for the cinema. I saw it for the first time in a little fleabox of a theater on the Left Bank in Paris, in 1962, during my first $5 a day trip to Europe. It was so sad, so beautiful, so romantic, that it became at once a part of my own memories — as if it had happened to me."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=April 1, 1991 |title=Ten Greatest Films of All Time |work=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/ten-greatest-films-of-all-time |access-date=July 30, 2022 |archive-date=June 5, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200605174332/https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/ten-greatest-films-of-all-time |url-status=live }}</ref> He implied that his real favorite film was ''[[La Dolce Vita]]''.<ref name="FavoriteFilm">{{cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=September 4, 2008 |title="What's your favorite movie?" |work=Chicago Sun-Times |url=http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/09/whats_your_favorite_movie.html |url-status=dead |access-date=October 17, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080905150448/http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/09/whats_your_favorite_movie.html |archive-date=September 5, 2008}}</ref>

His favorite actor was [[Robert Mitchum]] and his favorite actress was [[Ingrid Bergman]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.tv.com/roger-ebert/person/81392/biography.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120517061609/http://www.tv.com/roger-ebert/person/81392/biography.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=May 17, 2012 |title=Biography page for Ebert at |publisher=Tv.com |access-date=October 17, 2009}}</ref> He named [[Buster Keaton]], Yasujirō Ozu, [[Robert Altman]], [[Werner Herzog]] and [[Martin Scorsese]] as his favorite directors.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/meet-a-critic-roger-ebert/ |title=Meet a Critic: Roger Ebert |website=[[Rotten Tomatoes]] |access-date=January 3, 2017 |archive-date=August 30, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170830123412/http://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/meet-a-critic-roger-ebert/ |url-status=live }}</ref> He expressed his distaste for "top-10" lists, and all movie lists in general, but did make an annual list of the year's best films, joking that film critics are "required by unwritten law" to do so. He also contributed an all-time top-10 list for the decennial ''[[Sight and Sound|Sight & Sound]]'' Critics' poll in 1982, 1992, 2002 and 2012. In 1982, he chose, alphabetically, ''[[2001: A Space Odyssey]]'', ''[[Aguirre, the Wrath of God]]'', ''[[Bonnie and Clyde (film)|Bonnie and Clyde]]'', ''[[Casablanca (film)|Casablanca]]'', ''Citizen Kane'', ''La Dolce Vita'', ''[[Notorious (1946 film)|Notorious]]'', ''[[Persona (1966 film)|Persona]]'', ''[[Taxi Driver]]'' and ''The Third Man''. In 2012, he chose ''2001: A Space Odyssey'', ''Aguirre, the Wrath of God'', ''[[Apocalypse Now]]'', ''Citizen Kane'', ''La Dolce Vita'', ''[[The General (1926 film)|The General]]'', ''[[Raging Bull]]'', ''[[Tokyo Story]]'', ''[[The Tree of Life (film)|The Tree of Life]]'' and ''[[Vertigo (film)|Vertigo]]''.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://explore.bfi.org.uk/sightandsoundpolls/2012/voter/142 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120819021224/http://explore.bfi.org.uk/sightandsoundpolls/2012/voter/142 |url-status=dead |archive-date=August 19, 2012 |title=The Greatest Films Poll |author=Roger Ebert |publisher=BFI |date=September 2012 |access-date=September 12, 2012}}</ref> Several of the contributors to Ebert's website participated in a video tribute to him, featuring films that made his ''Sight & Sound'' list in 1982 and 2012.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://vimeo.com/42638994?embedded=true&source=vimeo_logo&owner=6994428 |title=The Sight and Sound Film Poll: An International Tribute to Roger Ebert and His Favorite Films |last=Lee |first=Kevin B. |date=2013 |website=Vimeo.com |access-date=February 8, 2023 |archive-date=February 6, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230206234048/https://vimeo.com/42638994?embedded=true&source=vimeo_logo&owner=6994428 |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Best films of the year===
Ebert made annual "ten best lists" from 1967 to 2012.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041215/COMMENTARY/41215001/1023 |work=Chicago Sun-Times |title=Ebert's 10 Best Lists: 1967–present |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060908200137/http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F20041215%2FCOMMENTARY%2F41215001%2F1023 |archive-date=September 8, 2006}}</ref> His choices for best film of the year were:
{{div col|colwidth=20em}}
* 1967: ''[[Bonnie and Clyde (film)|Bonnie and Clyde]]''
* 1968: ''[[The Battle of Algiers]]''
* 1969: ''[[Z (1969 film)|Z]]''
* 1970: ''[[Five Easy Pieces]]''
* 1971: ''[[The Last Picture Show]]''
* 1972: ''[[The Godfather]]''
* 1973: ''[[Cries and Whispers]]''
* 1974: ''[[Scenes from a Marriage]]''
* 1975: ''[[Nashville (film)|Nashville]]''
* 1976: ''[[Small Change (film)|Small Change]]''
* 1977: ''[[3 Women]]''
* 1978: ''[[An Unmarried Woman]]''
* 1979: ''[[Apocalypse Now]]''
* 1980: ''[[The Black Stallion (film)|The Black Stallion]]''
* 1981: ''[[My Dinner with Andre]]''
* 1982: ''[[Sophie's Choice (film)|Sophie's Choice]]''
* 1983: ''[[The Right Stuff (film)|The Right Stuff]]''
* 1984: ''[[Amadeus (film)|Amadeus]]''
* 1985: ''[[The Color Purple (1985 film)|The Color Purple]]''
* 1986: ''[[Platoon (film)|Platoon]]''
* 1987: ''[[House of Games]]''
* 1988: ''[[Mississippi Burning]]''
* 1989: ''[[Do the Right Thing]]''
* 1990: ''[[Goodfellas]]''
* 1991: ''[[JFK (film)|JFK]]''
* 1992: ''[[Malcolm X (1992 film)|Malcolm X]]''
* 1993: ''[[Schindler's List]]''
* 1994: ''[[Hoop Dreams]]''
* 1995: ''[[Leaving Las Vegas]]''
* 1996: ''[[Fargo (1996 film)|Fargo]]''
* 1997: ''[[Eve's Bayou]]''
* 1998: ''[[Dark City (1998 film)|Dark City]]''
* 1999: ''[[Being John Malkovich]]''
* 2000: ''[[Almost Famous]]''
* 2001: ''[[Monster's Ball]]''
* 2002: ''[[Minority Report (film)|Minority Report]]''
* 2003: ''[[Monster (2003 film)|Monster]]''
* 2004: ''[[Million Dollar Baby]]''
* 2005: ''[[Crash (2004 film)|Crash]]''
* 2006: ''[[Pan's Labyrinth]]''
* 2007: ''[[Juno (film)|Juno]]''
* 2008: ''[[Synecdoche, New York]]''
* 2009: ''[[The Hurt Locker]]''
* 2010: ''[[The Social Network]]''
* 2011: ''[[A Separation]]''
* 2012: ''[[Argo (2012 film)|Argo]]''
{{div col end}}

Ebert revisited and sometimes revised his opinions. After ranking ''[[E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial]]'' third on his 1982 list, it was the only movie from that year to appear on his later "Best Films of the 1980s" list (where it also ranked third).<ref name = ListArchive>{{cite web |url=http://alumnus.caltech.edu/~ejohnson/critics/ebert.html#best80s |title=Roger Ebert's Top Ten Lists, 1967-2006 |website=Eric C. Johnson's archive |publisher=[[California Institute of Technology]] |access-date=January 2, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071231063216/http://alumnus.caltech.edu/~ejohnson/critics/ebert.html#best80s |archive-date=December 31, 2007 |url-status=dead}}</ref> He made similar reevaluations of ''[[Raiders of the Lost Ark]]'' (1981) and ''[[Ran (film)|Ran]]'' (1985).<ref name = ListArchive/> The ''[[Three Colours trilogy]]'' (''[[Three Colors: Blue|Blue]]'' (1993), ''[[Three Colors: White|White]]'' (1994), and ''[[Three Colors: Red|Red]]'' (also 1994), and ''[[Pulp Fiction]]'' (1994) originally ranked second and third on Ebert's 1994 list; both were included on his "Best Films of the 1990s" list, but their order had reversed.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.innermind.com/misc/s_e_top.htm |title=Siskel and Ebert Top Ten Lists (1969–1998) |website=innermind.com |access-date=November 11, 2011 |archive-date=November 8, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201108124328/http://www.innermind.com/misc/s_e_top.htm |url-status=live }}</ref>

In 2006, Ebert noted his own "tendency to place what I now consider the year's best film in second place, perhaps because I was trying to make some kind of point with my top pick,"<ref>{{cite book |last=Ebert |first=Roger |title=Awake in the Dark |url=https://archive.org/details/awakedarkbestrog00eber |url-access=limited |publisher=University of Chicago Press |date=2006 |page=[https://archive.org/details/awakedarkbestrog00eber/page/n139 103]}}</ref> adding, "In 1968, I should have ranked ''[[2001: A Space Odyssey|2001]]'' above ''The Battle of Algiers''. In 1971, ''[[McCabe & Mrs. Miller]]'' was better than ''The Last Picture Show''. In 1974, ''[[Chinatown (1974 film)|Chinatown]]'' was probably better, in a different way, than ''Scenes from a Marriage''. In 1976, how could I rank ''Small Change'' above ''[[Taxi Driver]]''? In 1978, I would put ''[[Days of Heaven]]'' above ''An Unmarried Woman''. And in 1980, of course, ''[[Raging Bull]]'' was a better film than ''The Black Stallion''&nbsp;... although I later chose ''Raging Bull'' as the best film of the entire decade of the 1980s, it was only the second-best film of 1980&nbsp;... am I the same person I was in 1968, 1971, or 1980? I hope not."

Ebert's ten best lists resumed in 2014, the first full year after his death, as a [[Borda count]] system by his writers.

{{div col|colwidth=20em}}
* 2014: ''[[Under the Skin (2013 film)|Under the Skin]]''
* 2015: ''[[Mad Max: Fury Road]]''
* 2016: ''[[Moonlight (2016 film)|Moonlight]]''
* 2017: ''[[Lady Bird (film)|Lady Bird]]''
* 2018: ''[[Roma (2018 film)|Roma]]''
* 2019: ''[[The Irishman]]''
* 2020: ''[[Lovers Rock (2020 film)|Lovers Rock]]''
* 2021: ''[[The Power of the Dog (film)|The Power of the Dog]]''
* 2022: ''[[The Banshees of Inisherin]]''
* 2023: ''[[Killers of the Flower Moon (film)|Killers of the Flower Moon]]''
* 2024: ''[[The Brutalist]]''
{{div col end}}

===Best films of the decade===
Ebert compiled "best of the decade" movie lists in the 2000s for the 1970s to the 2000s, thereby helping provide an overview of his critical preferences. Only three films for this listing were named by Ebert as the best film of the year, ''Five Easy Pieces'' (1970), ''Hoop Dreams'' (1994), and ''Synecdoche, New York'' (2008).  In 2019, the editors of RogerEbert.com continued the tradition as a joint review of the RogerEbert.com writers.

* ''[[Five Easy Pieces]]'' (1970s)<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-five-easy-pieces-1970|title=Five Easy Pieces|work=RogerEbert.com|date=March 16, 2003|access-date=March 22, 2023|archive-date=July 28, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200728051330/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-five-easy-pieces-1970|url-status=live}}</ref>
* ''[[Raging Bull]]'' (1980s)<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.rogerebert.com/chazs-blog/rogers-top-ten-lists-best-films-of-the-1980s|title=Roger's Top Ten Lists: Best Films of the 1980s|date=April 19, 2022|access-date=March 22, 2023|archive-date=March 23, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230323002708/https://www.rogerebert.com/chazs-blog/rogers-top-ten-lists-best-films-of-the-1980s|url-status=live}}</ref>
* ''[[Hoop Dreams]]'' (1990s)<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/the-best-10-movies-of-1990s|title=The Best 10 Movies of 1990s|work=RogerEbert.com|date=February 23, 2000|access-date=March 22, 2023|archive-date=March 9, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230309150029/https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/the-best-10-movies-of-1990s|url-status=live}}</ref>
* ''[[Synecdoche, New York]]'' (2000s)<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/the-best-films-of-the-decade|title=The best films of the decade|work=RoberEbert.com|date=December 30, 2009|access-date=March 22, 2023|archive-date=April 13, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230413024222/https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/the-best-films-of-the-decade|url-status=live}}</ref>
* ''[[The Tree of Life (film)|The Tree of Life]]'' (2010s) <REF> {{cite web|url=https://www.rogerebert.com/features/the-best-films-of-the-2010s|work=RogerEbert.com|date=November 3, 2019|accessdate=December 17, 2024 |title=The Best Films of the 2010s &#124; Features &#124; Roger Ebert }} </REF>

===Genres and content===
Ebert was often critical of the [[Motion Picture Association of America film rating system]] (MPAA). His main arguments were that they were too strict on sex and profanity, too lenient on violence, secretive with their guidelines, inconsistent in applying them and not willing to consider the wider context and meaning of the film.<ref name="uglyreality">{{cite web |last=Ebert |first=Roger |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/ugly-reality-in-movie-ratings |title=Ugly reality in movie ratings |publisher=[[RogerEbert.com]] |date=September 24, 2000 |access-date=May 1, 2018 |archive-date=May 1, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180501225754/https://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/ugly-reality-in-movie-ratings |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703766704576009343432436296 |title=Getting Real About Movie Ratings |newspaper=[[The Wall Street Journal]] |date=December 11, 2010 |access-date=April 5, 2013 |archive-date=July 6, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150706203750/http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703766704576009343432436296 |url-status=live }}</ref> He advocated replacing the [[NC-17]] rating with separate ratings for pornographic and nonpornographic adult films.<ref name="uglyreality"/> He praised ''[[This Film Is Not Yet Rated|This Film is Not Yet Rated]]'', a documentary critiquing the MPAA, adding that their rules are "[[Franz Kafka|Kafkaesque]]."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=September 14, 2006 |title=How do the ratings rate? |work=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/this-film-is-not-yet-rated-2006 |access-date=April 19, 2023 |archive-date=April 19, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230419192140/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/this-film-is-not-yet-rated-2006 |url-status=live }}</ref> He signed off on his review of ''[[Almost Famous]]'' by asking, "Why did they give an R rating to a movie so perfect for teenagers?"<ref>{{Cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=September 15, 2000 |title=Almost Famous |work=[[Chicago Sun Times]] |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/almost-famous-2000 |access-date=February 7, 2023 |archive-date=February 24, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230224142345/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/almost-famous-2000 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Ebert also frequently lamented that cinemas outside major cities are "booked by computer from Hollywood with no regard for local tastes," making high-quality independent and foreign films virtually unavailable to most American moviegoers.<ref>{{cite web |first=Roger |last=Ebert |url=http://www.suntimes.com/output/oscars/ebert27.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040604184449/http://www.suntimes.com/output/oscars/ebert27.html |archive-date=June 4, 2004 |date=June 4, 2004 |title=They got it right |website=[[Chicago Sun-Times]]}}</ref>

He wrote that "I've always preferred generic approach to film criticism; I ask myself how good a movie is of its type."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=December 26, 1973 |title=The Exorcist |work=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-exorcist-1973 |access-date=August 4, 2022 |archive-date=November 2, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191102153840/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-exorcist-1973 |url-status=live }}</ref> 
He gave ''[[Halloween (1978 film)|Halloween]]'' four stars: "Seeing it, I was reminded of the favorable review I gave a few years ago to ''Last House on the Left'', another really terrifying thriller. Readers wrote to ask how I could possibly support such a movie. But I wasn't supporting it so much as describing it: You don't want to be scared? Don't see it. Credit must be paid to directors who want to really frighten us, to make a good thriller when quite possibly a bad one would have made as much money. Hitchcock is acknowledged as a master of suspense; it's hypocrisy to disapprove of other directors in the same genre who want to scare us too."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=October 31, 1978 |title=Halloween |work=[[Chicago Sun Times]]}}</ref>

Ebert did not believe in grading children's movies on a curve, as he thought children were smarter than given credit for and deserved quality entertainment. He began his review of ''[[Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory]]'': "Kids are not stupid. They are among the sharpest, cleverest, most eagle-eyed creatures on God's green Earth, and very little escapes their notice. You may not have observed that your neighbor is still using his snow-tires in mid-July, but every four-year-old on the block has, and kids pay the same attention when they go to the movies. They don't miss a thing, and have an instinctive contempt for shoddy and shabby work. I make this observation because nine out of ten kids' movies are stupid, witless and display contempt for their audiences. Is that all parents want from kids' movies? That they not have anything bad in them? Shouldn't they have something good in them — some life, imagination, fantasy, inventiveness, something to tickle the imagination? If a movie isn't going to do your kids any good, why let them watch it? Just to kill a Saturday afternoon? That shows a subtle contempt for a child's mind, I think." He went on to say he thought ''Willy Wonka'' was the best movie of its kind since ''[[The Wizard of Oz (1939 film)|The Wizard of Oz]]''.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=1971 |title=Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory |work=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/willy-wonka-and-the-chocolate-factory-1971 |access-date=April 22, 2023 |archive-date=September 30, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230930233251/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/willy-wonka-and-the-chocolate-factory-1971 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Ebert tried not to judge a film on its ideology. Reviewing ''[[Apocalypse Now]]'', he writes: "I am not particularly interested in the 'ideas' in Coppola's film...Like all great works of art about war, ''Apocalypse Now'' essentially contains only one idea or message, the not-especially-enlightening observation that war is hell. We do not go to see Coppola's movie for that insight — something Coppola, but not some of his critics, knows well. Coppola also well knows (and demonstrated in ''The Godfather'' films) that movies aren't especially good at dealing with abstract ideas — for those you'd be better off turning to the written word — but they are superb for presenting moods and feelings, the look of a battle, the expression on a face, the mood of a country. ''Apocalypse Now'' achieves greatness not by analyzing our 'experience in Vietnam,' but by re-creating, in characters and images, something of that experience."<ref>{{cite news| last=Ebert| first=Roger| date=June 1, 1979| title=Apocalypse Now| work=Chicago Sun-Times| url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/apocalypse-now-1979| access-date=April 27, 2024| archive-date=November 14, 2020| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201114145551/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/apocalypse-now-1979| url-status=live}}</ref> Ebert commented on films using his [[Catholic Church|Catholic]] upbringing as a point of reference,<ref name=ChicagoMag>{{cite magazine |first=Carol |last=Felsenthal |date=December 2005 |url=http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/December-2005/A-Life-in-the-Movies/index.php?cp=1&si=0 |title=A Life In The Movies |magazine=[[Chicago Magazine]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110823172045/http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/December-2005/A-Life-in-the-Movies/index.php?cp=1&si=0 |archive-date=August 23, 2011 |access-date=April 6, 2013}}</ref> and was critical of films he believed were grossly ignorant of or insulting to Catholicism, such as ''[[Stigmata (film)|Stigmata]]'' (1999)<ref>{{cite web |first=Roger |last=Ebert |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/stigmata-1999 |title=Stigmata |date=January 1, 1999 |newspaper=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] |via=[[RogerEbert.com]] |access-date=April 23, 2022 |archive-date=June 9, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220609203034/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/stigmata-1999 |url-status=live }}</ref> and ''[[Priest (1994 film)|Priest]]'' (1994).<ref>{{cite news |first=Roger |last=Ebert |url=http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19950407/REVIEWS/504070308/1023 |title=Priest |newspaper=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] |date=April 7, 1995 |access-date=July 24, 2011 |archive-date=November 26, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101126181317/http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19950407/REVIEWS/504070308/1023 |url-status=dead}}</ref> He also gave favorable reviews of controversial films relating to [[Jesus Christ]] or Catholicism, including ''[[The Last Temptation of Christ (film)|The Last Temptation of Christ]]'' (1988),<ref>{{cite news| last=Ebert| first=Roger| date=August 12, 1988| title=The Last Temptation of Christ| work=Chicago Sun-Times| url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-last-temptation-of-christ-1998| access-date=May 3, 2024| archive-date=February 23, 2024| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240223153806/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-last-temptation-of-christ-1998| url-status=live}}</ref> ''[[The Passion of the Christ]]'' (2004), and [[Kevin Smith]]'s religious satire ''[[Dogma (film)|Dogma]]'' (1999).<ref>{{cite news |first=Roger |last=Ebert |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/dogma-1999 |title=Dogma |date=November 12, 1999 |newspaper=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] |via=[[RogerEbert.com]] |access-date=April 23, 2022 |archive-date=April 23, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220423230809/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/dogma-1999 |url-status=live }}</ref> He defended [[Spike Lee]]'s ''[[Do the Right Thing]]'': "Some of the advance articles about this movie have suggested that it is an incitement to racial violence. Those articles say more about their authors than about the movie. I believe that any good-hearted person, white or black, will come out of this movie with sympathy for all of the characters. Lee does not ask us to forgive them, or even to understand everything they do, but he wants us to identify with their fears and frustrations. ''Do the Right Thing'' doesn't ask its audiences to choose sides; it is scrupulously fair to both sides, in a story where it is our society itself that is not fair."<ref>{{cite news| last=Ebert| first=Roger| date=June 30, 1989| title=Do the Right Thing| work=Chicago Sun-Times}}</ref>

===Contrarian reviews===
[[Metacritic]] later noted that Ebert tended to give more lenient ratings than most critics. His average film rating was 71%, if translated into a percentage, compared to 59% for the site as a whole. Of his reviews, 75% were positive and 75% of his ratings were better than his colleagues.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.metacritic.com/feature/remembering-roger-ebert |website=[[Metacritic]] |title=Remembering Roger Ebert: His reviews |access-date=October 20, 2017 |archive-date=November 23, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171123140724/http://www.metacritic.com/feature/remembering-roger-ebert |url-status=dead }}</ref> Ebert had acknowledged in 2008 that he gave higher ratings on average than other critics, though he said this was in part because he considered a rating of 3 out of 4 stars to be the general threshold for a film to get a "thumbs up."<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/you-give-out-too-many-stars |title=You give out too many stars |first=Roger |last=Ebert |website=www.rogerebert.com/ |date=December 14, 2012 |access-date=July 15, 2021 |archive-date=August 16, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210816125632/https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/you-give-out-too-many-stars |url-status=live }}</ref>

Writing in ''[[Random House of Canada|Hazlitt]]'' about Ebert's reviews, Will Sloan argued that "[t]here were inevitably movies where he veered from consensus, but he was not provocative or idiosyncratic by nature."<ref name="sloan-hazlitt">{{cite web |url=https://hazlitt.net/feature/roger-eberts-zero-star-movies |title=Roger Ebert's Zero-Star Movies |website=[[Random House of Canada|Hazlitt]] |last=Sloan |first=Will |date=February 21, 2017 |access-date=March 10, 2019 |archive-date=September 4, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180904192043/https://hazlitt.net/feature/roger-eberts-zero-star-movies |url-status=live }}</ref> Examples of Ebert dissenting from other critics include his negative reviews of such celebrated films as [[Blue Velvet (film)|''Blue Velvet'']] ("marred by sophomoric satire and cheap shots"),<ref>{{cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |title=Blue Velvet |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/blue-velvet-1986 |newspaper=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] |access-date=January 2, 2021 |date=September 19, 1986 |via=[[RogerEbert.com]] |archive-date=April 27, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210427124003/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/blue-velvet-1986 |url-status=live }}</ref> ''[[A Clockwork Orange (film)|A Clockwork Orange]]'' ("a paranoid right-wing fantasy masquerading as an [[Orwellian]] warning"),<ref>{{cite news |first=Roger |last=Ebert |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/a-clockwork-orange-1972 |title=A Clockwork Orange |newspaper=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] |date=February 2, 1972 |access-date=April 23, 2022 |archive-date=July 1, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190701195957/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/a-clockwork-orange-1972 |url-status=live }}</ref> and ''[[The Usual Suspects]]'' ("To the degree that I do understand, I don't care").<ref>{{cite news |first=Roger |last=Ebert |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-usual-suspects-1995 |title=The Usual Suspects |newspaper=[[The Chicago Sun-Times]] |date=August 18, 1995 |access-date=April 23, 2022 |archive-date=April 26, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200426171724/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-usual-suspects-1995 |url-status=live }}</ref> He gave only two out of four stars to the widely acclaimed ''[[Brazil (1985 film)|Brazil]]'', calling it "very hard to follow"<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/brazil-1986 | title=Brazil movie review & film summary (1986) &#124; Roger Ebert | access-date=July 28, 2023 | archive-date=February 13, 2021 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210213230759/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/brazil-1986 | url-status=live }}</ref> and is the only critic on [[RottenTomatoes]] to not like it.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1003033-brazil | title=Brazil - Rotten Tomatoes | website=[[Rotten Tomatoes]] | access-date=July 28, 2023 | archive-date=November 7, 2023 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231107110259/https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1003033-brazil | url-status=live }}</ref>

He gave a one-star review to the critically acclaimed [[Abbas Kiarostami]] film ''[[Taste of Cherry]]'', which won the ''[[Palme d'Or]]'' at the [[1997 Cannes Film Festival]].<ref>{{cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |title=Taste of Cherry |newspaper=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] |date=February 27, 1998 |url=http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/taste-of-cherry-1998 |access-date=July 31, 2017 |via=[[RogerEbert.com]] |archive-date=April 27, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210427124019/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/taste-of-cherry-1998 |url-status=live }}</ref> Ebert later added the film to a list of his most-hated movies of all time.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/eberts-most-hated |work=[[RogerEbert.com]] |title=Ebert's Most Hated |access-date=July 31, 2017 |archive-date=August 2, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130802044414/http://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/eberts-most-hated |url-status=live }}</ref> He was dismissive of the 1988 [[Bruce Willis]] action film ''[[Die Hard]]'', stating that "inappropriate and wrongheaded interruptions reveal the fragile nature of the plot".<ref>{{cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |title=Die Hard |url=http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19880715/REVIEWS/807150301/1023 |access-date=September 4, 2009 |work=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] |date=July 15, 1988 |archive-date=March 2, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110302012747/http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19880715/REVIEWS/807150301/1023 |url-status=dead |via=[[RogerEbert.com]]}}</ref> His positive 3 out of 4 stars review of 1997's ''[[Speed 2: Cruise Control]]'', "Movies like this embrace goofiness with an almost sensual pleasure"<ref>{{cite web |last1=Ebert |first1=Roger |title=Speed 2: Cruise Control movie review (1997) {{!}} Roger Ebert |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/speed-2-cruise-control-1997 |website=[[RogerEbert.com]] |access-date=February 14, 2023 |language=en |archive-date=July 23, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130723055317/http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/speed-2-cruise-control-1997 |url-status=live }}</ref> is one of only three positive reviews accounting for that film's 4% approval rating on the reviewer aggregator website [[Rotten Tomatoes]], one of the two others having been written by his ''At the Movies'' co-star Gene Siskel.<ref>{{cite web |title=Speed 2 - Cruise Control (1997) |url=http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/speed_2_cruise_control/ |website=[[Rotten Tomatoes]] |access-date=March 3, 2019 |archive-date=April 30, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190430074753/https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/speed_2_cruise_control |url-status=live }}</ref>

Ebert reflected on his ''Speed 2'' review in 2013, and wrote that it was "Frequently cited as an example of what a lousy critic I am," but defended his opinion, and noted, "I'm grateful to movies that show me what I haven't seen before, and ''Speed 2'' had a cruise ship plowing right up the main street of a Caribbean village."<ref name="speed3">{{cite web |last1=Ebert |first1=Roger |title="Speed 3"--Winner of my 1999 contest {{!}} Roger Ebert {{!}} Roger Ebert |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/speed-3-winner-of-my-1999-contest |website=[[RogerEbert.com]] |date=February 11, 2013 |access-date=February 14, 2023 |language=en |archive-date=February 14, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230214211237/https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/speed-3-winner-of-my-1999-contest |url-status=live }}</ref> In 1999, Ebert held a contest for [[University of Colorado Boulder]] students to create short films with a ''Speed 3'' theme about an object that could not stop moving.<ref name="speed3"/> The winning entrant was set on a roller coaster and was screened at Ebertfest that year.<ref name="speed3"/>

===Other interests===
In addition to film, Ebert occasionally wrote about other topics for the ''Sun-Times'', such as music. In 1970, Ebert wrote the first published concert review of singer-songwriter [[John Prine]], who at the time was working as a mailman and performing at Chicago folk clubs.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Ebert |first1=Roger |title=John Prine: American Legend {{!}} Balder and Dash {{!}} Roger Ebert |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/balder-and-dash/john-prine-american-legend |website=www.rogerebert.com |date=November 14, 2010 |access-date=March 30, 2020 |language=en |archive-date=March 31, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200331072627/https://www.rogerebert.com/balder-and-dash/john-prine-american-legend |url-status=live }}</ref>

Ebert was a lifelong reader, and said he had "more or less every book I have owned since I was seven, starting with ''[[Adventures of Huckleberry Finn|Huckleberry Finn]]''." Among the authors he considered indispensable were [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare]], [[Henry James]], [[Willa Cather]], [[Colette]] and [[Georges Simenon|Simenon]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=October 5, 2009 |title=Books do furnish a life |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/books-do-furnish-a-life |access-date=February 12, 2023 |archive-date=February 12, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230212233554/https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/books-do-furnish-a-life |url-status=live }}</ref> He writes of his friend [[William Nack]]: "He approached literature like a gourmet. He relished it, savored it, inhaled it, and after memorizing it rolled it on his tongue and spoke it aloud. It was Nack who already knew in the early 1960s, when he was a very young man, that [[Vladimir Nabokov|Nabokov]] was perhaps the supreme stylist of modern novelists. He recited to me from ''[[Lolita]],'' and from ''[[Speak, Memory]]'' and [[Pnin (novel)|''Pnin'']]. I was spellbound." Every time Ebert saw Nack, he'd ask him to recite the last lines of ''[[The Great Gatsby]]''.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=October 17, 2010 |title=The storyteller and the stallion |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/the-storyteller-and-the-stallion |access-date=January 30, 2023 |archive-date=January 30, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230130044333/https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/the-storyteller-and-the-stallion |url-status=live }}</ref> Reviewing ''[[Stone Reader]]'', he wrote: "get me in conversation with another reader, and I'll recite titles, too. Have you ever read ''[[The Quincunx]]''? ''[[The Raj Quartet]]''? ''[[A Fine Balance]]''? Ever heard of that most despairing of all travel books, ''The Saddest Pleasure'', by Moritz Thomsen? Does anybody hold up better than [[Joseph Conrad]] and Willa Cather? Know any [[Yeats]] by heart? Surely [[P. G. Wodehouse]] is as great at what he does as Shakespeare was at what he did."<ref>{{cite news| last=Ebert| first=Roger| title=Stone Reader| date=July 11, 2003| work=Chicago Sun Times| url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/stone-reader-2003| access-date=April 10, 2024| archive-date=June 2, 2023| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230602122346/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/stone-reader-2003| url-status=live}}</ref> Among contemporary authors he admired [[Cormac McCarthy]], and credited ''[[Suttree]]'' with reviving his love of reading after his illness.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=October 24, 2008 |title=I think I'm musing my mind |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/i-think-im-musing-my-mind |access-date=February 25, 2023 |archive-date=February 25, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230225160338/https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/i-think-im-musing-my-mind |url-status=live }}</ref> He also loved [[audiobooks]], particularly praising [[Sean Barrett (actor)|Sean Barrett]]'s reading of [[Perfume (novel)|''Perfume'']].<ref>{{cite web| last=Ebert| first=Roger| title=My new job. In his own words.| date=December 14, 2012| url=https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/my-new-job-in-his-own-words| access-date=April 10, 2024| archive-date=December 5, 2023| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231205093341/https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/my-new-job-in-his-own-words| url-status=live}}</ref> He was a fan of [[Hergé]]'s ''[[The Adventures of Tintin]]'', which he read in French.<ref>{{cite news| last=Ebert| first=Roger| title=Tintin! Tonnere de Brest! Mille sebords!| date=December 20, 2011| work=Chicago Sun-Times| url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-adventures-of-tintin-2011| access-date=April 8, 2024| archive-date=May 7, 2013| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130507121446/http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-adventures-of-tintin-2011| url-status=live}}</ref>

Ebert first visited [[London]] in 1966 with his professor [[Daniel Curley]], who "started me on a lifelong practice of wandering around London. From 1966 to 2006, I visited London never less than once a year and usually more than that. Walking the city became a part of my education, and in this way I learned a little about architecture, British watercolors, music, theater and above all people. I felt a freedom in London I've never felt elsewhere. I made lasting friends. The city lends itself to walking, can be intensely exciting at eye level, and is being eaten alive block by block by brutal corporate leg-lifting." Ebert and Curley coauthored ''The Perfect London Walk''.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Engelhart |first=Katie |date=July 12, 2013 |title=Roger Ebert's Pilgrimage |work=[[Slate (magazine)|Slate]] |url=https://slate.com/culture/2013/07/roger-eberts-lost-book-the-perfect-london-walk-reviewed.html |access-date=January 30, 2023 |archive-date=January 30, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230130044333/https://slate.com/culture/2013/07/roger-eberts-lost-book-the-perfect-london-walk-reviewed.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

Ebert attended the [[Conference on World Affairs]] at the [[University of Colorado Boulder]] for many years. It was there that he coined the Boulder Pledge: "Under no circumstances will I ever purchase anything offered to me as the result of an unsolicited e-mail message. Nor will I forward chain letters, petitions, mass mailings, or virus warnings to large numbers of others. This is my contribution to the survival of the online community."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.panix.com/~tbetz/boulder.shtml |title=Critical eye by Roger Ebert&nbsp;– Enough! A Modest Proposal to End the Junk Mail Plague |website=Panix.com |access-date=October 17, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090916074641/http://www.panix.com/~tbetz/boulder.shtml |archive-date=September 16, 2009 |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.lumbercartel.ca/glossary/boulderpledge.pl |publisher=The Lumber Cartel, local 42 |title=Roger Ebert gets 'two thumbs up' from the Lumber Cartel for this distinct, well-written pledge |access-date=November 14, 2006 |archive-date=July 6, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110706185005/http://www.lumbercartel.ca/glossary/boulderpledge.pl |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |first=Bill |last=Weiman |url=http://bw.org/ube/boulder.html |title=Bill Weinman · Why I Keep The Boulder Pledge |website=Bw.org |access-date=January 27, 2017 |archive-date=December 27, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161227194551/http://bw.org/ube/boulder.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Starting in 1975, he hosted a program called Cinema Interruptus, where would analyze a film with an audience, and anyone could say "Stop!" to point out anything they found interesting. He wrote "[[Boulder, Colorado|Boulder]] is my hometown in an alternate universe. I have walked its streets by day and night, in rain, snow, and sunshine. I have made life-long friends there. I was in my twenties when I first came to the Conference on World Affairs and was greeted by [[Howard Higman]], its choleric founder, with 'Who invited you back?' Since then I have appeared on countless panels where I have learned and rehearsed debatemanship, the art of talking to anybody about anything." In 2009, Ebert invited [[Ramin Bahrani]] to join him in analyzing Bahrani's film [[Chop Shop (film)|''Chop Shop'']] a frame at a time. The next year, they invited Werner Herzog to join them in analyzing ''[[Aguirre, the Wrath of God]]''. After that, Ebert announced that he would not return to the conference: "It is fueled by speech, and I'm out of gas ... But I went there for my adult lifetime and had a hell of a good time."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ebert |first=Roger |title=Life Itself |year=2011 |pages=189–191}}</ref>

===Relations with filmmakers===
Ebert wrote [[Martin Scorsese]]'s first review, for ''[[Who's That Knocking at My Door]]'', and predicted the director could be "an American Fellini someday."<ref name=Who'sThat/> He later wrote, "Of the directors who started making films since I came on the job, the best is Martin Scorsese. His camera is active, not passive. It doesn’t regard events, it participates in them. There is a sequence in ''[[GoodFellas]]'' that follows Henry Hill’s last day of freedom, before the cops swoop down. Scorsese uses an accelerating pacing and a paranoid camera that keeps looking around, and makes us feel what Hill feels. It is easy enough to make an audience feel basic emotions ('Play them like a piano,' Hitchcock advised), but hard to make them share a state of mind. Scorsese can do it."<ref name=Twenty-Five/> In 2000, Scorsese joined Ebert on his show in choosing the best films of the 1990s.<ref name=Scorsese/>

Ebert was an admirer of [[Werner Herzog]], and conducted a Q&A session with him at the [[Walker Art Center|Walker Arts Center]] in 1999. It was there that Herzog read his "Minnesota Declaration" which defined his idea of "ecstatic truth."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=April 30, 1999 |title=Herzog's Minnesota Declaration: Defining 'ecstatic truth' |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/herzogs-minnesota-declaration-defining-ecstatic-truth |website=RogerEbert.com |access-date=April 18, 2023 |archive-date=April 18, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230418224831/https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/herzogs-minnesota-declaration-defining-ecstatic-truth |url-status=live }}</ref> Herzog dedicated his ''[[Encounters at the End of the World]]'' to Ebert, and Ebert responded with an open letter of gratitude.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F20071117%2FPEOPLE%2F71117002 |title=Roger Ebert. "A letter to Werner Herzog: In praise of rapturous truth" rogerebert.com November&nbsp;17, 2007 |work=Chicago Sun-Times |date=November 17, 2007 |access-date=October 17, 2009 |archive-date=December 31, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081231100314/http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071117/PEOPLE/71117002 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Ebert often quoted something Herzog told him: "our civilization is starving for new images."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=August 28, 2005 |title=A conversation with Werner Herzog |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/a-conversation-with-werner-herzog |access-date=April 18, 2023 |archive-date=April 18, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230418224832/https://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/a-conversation-with-werner-herzog |url-status=live }}</ref>

When [[Vincent Gallo]]'s ''[[The Brown Bunny]]'' (2003) premiered at [[Cannes Film Festival | Cannes]], Ebert called it the worst film in the history of the festival. Gallo responded by putting a curse on his colon and a hex on his prostate. Ebert replied, "I had a colonoscopy once, and they let me watch it on TV. It was more entertaining than ''The Brown Bunny.''" Gallo called Ebert a "fat pig". Ebert replied: "It is true that I am fat, but one day I will be thin, and he will still be the director of ''The Brown Bunny.''"<ref>{{cite news| author=Roger Ebert| title=Gallo goes on the offensive after 'Bunny' flop| work=Chicago Sun Times| url=https://www.rogerebert.com/festivals/gallo-goes-on-the-offensive-after-bunny-flop}}</ref> Ebert gave the director's cut a positive review, writing that Gallo "is not the director of the same ''Brown Bunny'' I saw at Cannes, and the film now plays so differently that I suggest the original Cannes cut be included as part of the eventual DVD, so that viewers can see for themselves how 26 minutes of aggressively pointless and empty footage can sink a potentially successful film...Make no mistake: The Cannes version was a bad film, but now Gallo's editing has set free the good film inside."<ref>{{cite news| author=Roger Ebert| title=Revised editing releases a much improved 'Brown Bunny'| work=Chicago Sun-Times| date=September 3, 2004| url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-brown-bunny-2004}}</ref> 

In 2005, ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'' critic [[Patrick Goldstein]] wrote that the year’s Best Picture Nominees were "ignored, unloved and turned down flat by most of the same studios that … bankroll hundreds of sequels, including a follow-up to ''Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo,'' a film that was sadly overlooked at Oscar time because apparently nobody had the foresight to invent a category for Best Running Penis Joke Delivered by a Third-Rate Comic." Rob Schneider responded in an open letter: "Well, Mr. Goldstein, I decided to do some research to find out what awards you have won. I went online and found that you have won nothing. Absolutely nothing. No journalistic awards of any kind … Maybe you didn’t win a Pulitzer Prize because they haven’t invented a category for Best Third-Rate, Unfunny Pompous Reporter Who’s Never Been Acknowledged by His Peers." Reviewing ''[[Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo]]'', Ebert responded: "Reading this, I was about to observe that Schneider can dish it out but he can’t take it. Then I found he’s not so good at dishing it out, either. I went online and found that Patrick Goldstein has won a National Headliner Award, a Los Angeles Press Club Award, a RockCritics.com award, and the Publicists’ Guild award for lifetime achievement ... Schneider is correct, and Patrick Goldstein has not yet won a Pulitzer Prize. Therefore, Goldstein is not qualified to complain that Columbia financed ''Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo'' while passing on the opportunity to participate in ''[[Million Dollar Baby]],'' ''[[Ray (film)| Ray]]'', ''[[The Aviator (2004 film) |The Aviator]],'' ''[[Sideways]]'' and ''[[Finding Neverland (film)| Finding Neverland]].'' As chance would have it, I ''have'' won the Pulitzer Prize, and so I am qualified. Speaking in my official capacity as a Pulitzer Prize winner, Mr. Schneider, your movie sucks."<ref>{{cite news| title='Bigalow' reaches new giga-low| author=Roger Ebert| date=August 11, 2005| work=[[Chicago Sun Times]]| url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/deuce-bigalow-european-gigolo-2005}}</ref> After Ebert's cancer surgery, he received a bouquet from "Your Least Favorite Movie Star, Rob Schneider". Ebert wrote of the flowers, "They were a reminder, if I needed one, that although Rob Schneider might (in my opinion) have made a bad movie, he is not a bad man, and no doubt tried to make a wonderful movie, and hopes to again. I hope so, too."<ref>{{cite news| title=A bouquet arrives...| work=Roger Ebert's Journal| url=https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/a-bouquet-arrives}}</ref>

===Views on technology===
Ebert was a strong advocate for [[Maxivision]] 48, in which the movie projector runs at 48 frames per second, as compared to the usual 24 frames per second. He was opposed to the practice whereby theaters lower the intensity of their projector bulbs in order to extend the life of the bulb, arguing that this has little effect other than to make the film harder to see.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060219/ANSWERMAN/602190302/1023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070420012335/http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060219/ANSWERMAN/602190302/1023 |url-status=dead |archive-date=April 20, 2007 |title=Ebert's "Movie Answer Man column", February&nbsp;19, 2006 |work=Chicago Sun-Times |access-date=October 17, 2009 }}</ref> Ebert was skeptical of the resurgence of [[3D film|3D effects in film]], which he found unrealistic and distracting.<ref>{{cite news |first=Roger |last=Ebert |url=http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/08/dminus_for_3d.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080817035951/http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/08/dminus_for_3d.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=August 17, 2008 |title=D-minus for 3-D |newspaper=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] |date=August 16, 2008 |access-date=October 17, 2009 }}</ref>

===Views on video games as an art form===

In 2005, Ebert opined that video games are not art, and are inferior to media created through authorial control, such as film and literature, stating, "video games can be elegant, subtle, sophisticated, challenging and visually wonderful," but "the nature of the medium prevents it from moving beyond craftsmanship to the stature of art."<ref>{{cite web |first=Roger |last=Ebert |url=http://www.rogerebert.com/answer-man/why-did-the-chicken-cross-the-genders |title=Why did the chicken cross the genders? |website=[[RogerEbert.com]] |date=November 27, 2005 |access-date=December 19, 2013 |archive-date=December 20, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131220104729/http://www.rogerebert.com/answer-man/why-did-the-chicken-cross-the-genders |url-status=live }}</ref> This resulted in negative reaction from video game enthusiasts,<ref>{{cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=December 6, 2005 |title=Gamers fire flaming posts, e-mails |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/gamers-fire-flaming-posts-e-mails |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120622031553/http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051206/COMMENTARY/51206002 |archive-date=June 22, 2012 |access-date=February 22, 2025 |website=[[RogerEbert.com]]}}</ref> such as writer [[Clive Barker]],<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.gamesindustry.biz/games-are-indeed-art-says-barker |first=Androvich |last=Mark |title=Games are indeed art, says Barker
 |publisher=gamesindustry.biz |date=June 27, 2007 |access-date=February 22, 2025}}</ref> who defended [[video games as an art form]]. Responding to Barker, Ebert wrote, "I believe art is created by an artist. If you change it, you become the artist," and said that the main attributes of video games "have more in common with sports" than they do with arts.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070721/COMMENTARY/70721001 |first=Roger |last=Ebert |title=Games vs. Art: Ebert vs. Barker |publisher=[[RogerEbert.com]] |date=July 21, 2007 |access-date=March 8, 2022 |archive-date=February 11, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130211235435/http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070721/COMMENTARY/70721001 |url-status=dead}}</ref> Ebert maintained his position in 2010, but conceded that he should not have expressed this skepticism without being more familiar with the actual experience of playing them. He admitted that he barely played video games: "I have played ''[[Cosmology of Kyoto]]'' which I enormously enjoyed, and ''[[Myst]]'' for which I lacked the patience."<ref name="lawn">{{cite web |author=Ebert, Roger |date=July 1, 2010 |url=http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/07/okay_kids_play_on_my_lawn.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100703023952/http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/07/okay_kids_play_on_my_lawn.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=July 3, 2010 |title=Okay, Kids, Play on my Lawn |website=Roger Ebert's Journal }}</ref> In the article, Ebert wrote, "It is quite possible a game could someday be great art."<ref name="lawn"/>

Ebert had reviewed ''Cosmology of Kyoto'' for ''[[Wired (magazine)|Wired]]'' in 1994, and had praised the exploration, depth, and graphics found in the game, writing "This is the most beguiling computer game I have encountered, a seamless blend of information, adventure, humor, and imagination — the gruesome side-by-side with the divine."<ref name="cosmo1">{{cite magazine |last1=Ebert |first1=Roger |title=Cosmology of Kyoto |url=https://www.wired.com/1994/09/cosmology-of-kyoto/ |magazine=Wired |access-date=February 14, 2023 |archive-date=February 14, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230214204358/https://www.wired.com/1994/09/cosmology-of-kyoto/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Ebert filed one other video game-related article for ''Wired'' in 1994, in which he described his visit to [[Sega]]'s [[Joypolis]] arcade in Tokyo.<ref name="wired2">{{cite magazine |last1=Ebert |first1=Roger |title=Sega's Tokyo Joypolis |url=https://www.wired.com/1994/12/segas-tokyo-joypolis/ |magazine=Wired |access-date=February 14, 2023 |archive-date=February 14, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230214204358/https://www.wired.com/1994/12/segas-tokyo-joypolis/ |url-status=live }}</ref>


=== Appearances in other media ===
Ebert provided DVD [[audio commentary|audio commentaries]] for ''[[Citizen Kane]]'' (1941), [[Casablanca (film)|''Casablanca'']] (1942), ''[[Beyond the Valley of the Dolls]]'' (1970) and ''[[Dark City (1998 film)|Dark City]]'' (1998). For the [[Criterion Collection]], he recorded commentaries for ''[[Floating Weeds]]'' (1959) and [[Crumb (film)|''Crumb'']] (1994), the latter with director [[Terry Zwigoff]]. Ebert was also interviewed by [[Central Park Media]] for an extra feature on the DVD release of ''[[Grave of the Fireflies]]'' (1988).

In 1982, 1983 and 1985, [[Gene Siskel]] and Ebert appeared as themselves on ''[[Saturday Night Live]]''.<ref>{{cite episode|title=Chevy Chase|series=[[Saturday Night Live]]|air-date=September 25, 1982|season=8|number=1}}</ref><ref>{{cite episode|title=Brandon Tartikoff|series=[[Saturday Night Live]]|air-date=October 8, 1983|season=9|number=1}}</ref> For their first two appearances, they reviewed sketches from that night's telecast; for their last, they reviewed sketches from the "SNL Film Festival".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://vulture.com/2015/11/the-night-siskel-and-ebert-took-over-snl.html|title=The Night Siskel and Ebert Took Over 'SNL'|work=[[Vulture (website)|Vulture]] |date=November 18, 2015|first=Joe|last=Blevins|accessdate=July 19, 2022|archive-date=July 1, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220701192453/https://www.vulture.com/2015/11/the-night-siskel-and-ebert-took-over-snl.html|url-status=live}}</ref> In 1991, Siskel and Ebert appeared in the ''[[Sesame Street]]'' segment "Sneak Peek Previews" (a parody of ''Sneak Previews'').<ref name="Sesame Street">{{Cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMlioyKsaQg|title=Sesame Street - "Sneak Peek Previews" with SISKEL & EBERT!|date=December 12, 2006 |via=www.youtube.com|access-date=August 12, 2023|archive-date=August 15, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230815115636/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMlioyKsaQg|url-status=live}}</ref> That year, the two were in the show's celebrity version of "[[Monster in the Mirror]]".<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maYnqbdo2jw|title=Sesame Street - Monster in the Mirror (celebrity version)|date=March 26, 2007 |via=www.youtube.com|access-date=August 12, 2023|archive-date=August 12, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230812195853/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maYnqbdo2jw|url-status=live}}</ref> In 1995, Siskel and Ebert guest-starred on an episode of the animated sitcom ''[[The Critic]]''. In the episode, a parody of ''[[Sleepless in Seattle]],'' Siskel and Ebert split and each wants protagonist Jay Sherman, a fellow film critic, as his new partner.<ref name="The Critic">{{cite web|url=https://siskelebert.org/?p=6377|title=The Critic (cartoon) with the Voices of Gene and Roger, 1995|website=Siskel And Ebert Movie Reviews|accessdate=June 21, 2022|archive-date=July 2, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220702013558/https://siskelebert.org/?p=6377|url-status=live}}</ref>

In 1997, Ebert appeared in [[Pitch (film)| ''Pitch'']], a documentary by [[Spencer Rice]] and [[Kenny Hotz]]<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0125459/fullcredits?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm |title=Pitch (1997) Full cast & crew |website=IMDb |access-date=January 27, 2017 |archive-date=March 16, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160316044758/http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0125459/fullcredits?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm |url-status=live }}</ref> and the Chicago-set television series ''[[Early Edition]]'',<ref name="The Cat">{{cite episode|title=The Cat|series=[[Early Edition]]|airdate=April 13, 1997|season=1|number=19}}</ref> where consoles a young boy who is depressed after he sees the character Bosco the Bunny die in a movie.<ref name=Questions>{{cite book |title=Questions for the Movie Answer Man |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=June 1, 1997 |publisher=Andrews McMeel Publishing |location=Kansas City, Missouri |page=[https://archive.org/details/questionsformovi00eber/page/99 99] |isbn=0-8362-2894-4 |quote=In the Spring of 1997, I did a guest appearance on the show, consoling a little boy who was depressed that Bosco the Bunny had died. |url=https://archive.org/details/questionsformovi00eber/page/99}}</ref> Ebert made a [[cameo appearance|cameo]] in ''[[Abby Singer (film)|Abby Singer]]'' (2003).<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.hometheatersound.com/dvd/abby_singer.htm |title=Abby Singer |website=Home Theater & Sound |date=November 2007 |access-date=January 2, 2017 |archive-date=March 22, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190322165726/http://www.hometheatersound.com/dvd/abby_singer.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> In 2004, Ebert appeared in ''Sesame Street'''s direct-to-video special ''A Celebration of Me, Grover'', delivering a review of the ''[[Monsterpiece Theater]]'' segment "The King and I".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://imdb.com/title/tt31224538/|title=Sesame Street: A Celebration of Me, Grover (Video 2004)|website=[[IMDb]]|accessdate=July 19, 2022|archive-date=May 6, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240506050941/https://www.imdb.com/title/tt31224538/|url-status=live}}</ref> Ebert was one of the principal critics featured in [[Gerald Peary]]'s 2009 documentary ''[[For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism]]''. He discusses the dynamics of appearing with Gene Siskel on the 1970s show ''Coming to a Theatre Near You'', the predecessor of ''Sneak Previews'' on Chicago PBS station WTTW, and expresses approval of the proliferation of young people writing film reviews today on the internet.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/775058/for-the-love-of-movies-the-story-of-american-film-criticism |title=For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism |website=[[Turner Classic Movies|TCM Movie Database]] |access-date=December 16, 2012 |archive-date=May 16, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200516023321/http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/775058/For-the-Love-of-Movies-The-Story-of-American-Film-Criticism/ |url-status=live }}</ref> On October 22, 2010, Ebert appeared with [[Robert Osborne]] on [[Turner Classic Movies]] during their "The Essentials" series. Ebert selected ''[[Sweet Smell of Success]]'' (1957) and ''[[The Lady Eve]]'' (1941).<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/339775%7c0/Critic-s-Choice-TCM-Spotlight-.html |title=Critic's Choice Introduction |author=Fristoe, Roger |publisher=TCM Film Article |access-date=April 30, 2015 |archive-date=September 4, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150904052102/http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/339775%7c0/Critic-s-Choice-TCM-Spotlight-.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>

A "Mayor Ebert" ([[Michael Lerner (actor)|Michael Lerner]]) appeared in the [[Godzilla (1998 film)|1998 remake of]] ''[[Godzilla (1954 film)|Godzilla]]''. In his review, Ebert wrote: "Now that I've inspired a character in a Godzilla movie, all I really still desire is for several [[Ingmar Bergman]] characters to sit in a circle and read my reviews to one another in hushed tones."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/godzilla-1998 |last=Ebert |first=Roger |title=Godzilla movie review & film summary (1998) &#124; Roger Ebert |access-date=April 8, 2024 |archive-date=April 4, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200404101113/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/godzilla-1998 |url-status=live }}</ref>

==Personal life==
[[File:Chaz Hammel-Smith, Roger Ebert, and Nancy Kwan at the Hawaii International Film Festival in October 2010.jpg|thumb|left|Ebert and his wife [[Chaz Ebert|Chaz Hammelsmith Ebert]] (left) giving the thumbs up to [[Nancy Kwan]] (right) at the [[Hawaii International Film Festival]] in 2010|alt=Three people are smiling with Hawaiian leis around their necks.]]

=== Marriage ===
At age 50, Ebert married trial attorney [[Chaz Ebert|Charlie "Chaz" Hammel-Smith]]<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/67702842/1991-roger-ebert-to-marry-chaz/ |title=Roger Ebert getting married |work=Messenger-Inquirer |date=July 9, 1991 |access-date=June 2, 2022 |archive-date=June 2, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220602133320/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/67702842/1991-roger-ebert-to-marry-chaz/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/67703511/1992-ebert-marries-hammelsmith/ |title=Clipping from Public Opinion |work=Public Opinion |date=July 20, 1992 |access-date=June 2, 2022 |archive-date=June 2, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220602133321/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/67703511/1992-ebert-marries-hammelsmith/ |url-status=live }}</ref> in 1992.<ref name=ChicagoMag/><ref>{{Cite news |last=Lewine |first=Edward |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/13/magazine/a-film-critics-windy-city-home.html |title=A Film Critic's Windy City Home |date=February 13, 2005 |work=The New York Times |access-date=May 2, 2022 |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331 |archive-date=May 3, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220503214300/https://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/13/magazine/a-film-critics-windy-city-home.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Hunt |first1=Drew |url=http://people2014.chicagoreader.com/chaz-ebert/ |title=Chaz Ebert: The Media Mogul |work=The Chicago Reader |access-date=May 2, 2022 |archive-date=May 26, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220526202531/http://people2014.chicagoreader.com/chaz-ebert/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Chaz Ebert became vice president of the Ebert Company and has [[master of ceremonies|emceed]] Ebertfest.<ref>{{cite news |last=Merli |first=Melissa |date=April 25, 2007 |title=Ebert will have best seat in the house |newspaper=News-Gazette |location=Champaign, Illinois |url=http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2007-04-25/ebert-will-have-best-seat-house.html |access-date=May 15, 2022 |archive-date=May 6, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240506051111/https://www.news-gazette.com/news/ebert-will-have-best-seat-in-the-house/article_7cb8efcf-daef-501d-9cd3-678867a58307.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Esquire">{{cite web |last=Jones |first=Chris |date=February 16, 2010 |title=Roger Ebert: The Essential Man |url=http://www.esquire.com/features/roger-ebert-0310 |website=[[Esquire (magazine)|Esquire]] |access-date=February 16, 2010 |archive-date=September 23, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110923172438/http://www.esquire.com/features/roger-ebert-0310 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Caruso |first=Michael |date=January 21, 2020 |title=New year, new semester: what's in store for Spring 2020 |url=https://dailyillini.com/news/2020/01/21/spring-2020-campus-events/ |access-date=April 27, 2022 |website=The Daily Illini |archive-date=May 18, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210518211801/https://dailyillini.com/news/2020/01/21/spring-2020-campus-events/ |url-status=live }}</ref> He explained in his memoir, ''Life Itself'', that he did not want to marry before his mother died, as he was afraid of displeasing her.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://rogerebert.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130404/MEMORY/130409989 |title=Roger Ebert (1942–2013) |first=Neil |last=Steinberg |newspaper=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] |via=[[RogerEbert.com]] |date=April 4, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130407034401/http://rogerebert.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130404/MEMORY/130409989 |archive-date=April 7, 2013 |url-status=dead |access-date=May 16, 2022}}</ref> In a July 2012 blog entry, Ebert wrote about Chaz, "She fills my horizon, she is the great fact of my life, she has my love, she saved me from the fate of living out my life alone, which is where I seemed to be heading... She has been with me in sickness and in health, certainly far more sickness than we could have anticipated. I will be with her, strengthened by her example. She continues to make my life possible, and her presence fills me with love and a deep security. That's what a marriage is for. Now I know."<ref name="Chicago Sun-Times Roger Loves Chaz">{{cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |title=Roger loves Chaz |url=http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2012/07/roger_loves_chaz.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120719072437/http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2012/07/roger_loves_chaz.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=July 19, 2012 |newspaper=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] |date=July 17, 2012}}</ref>

=== Alcoholism recovery ===
Ebert was a recovering alcoholic, having quit drinking in 1979. He was a member of [[Alcoholics Anonymous]] and had written some blog entries on the subject.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/my-name-is-roger-and-im-an-alcoholic |title=My Name is Roger, and I'm an alcoholic |date=August 25, 2009 |access-date=August 25, 2009 |first=Roger |last=Ebert |archive-date=April 27, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210427123959/https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/my-name-is-roger-and-im-an-alcoholic |url-status=live }}</ref> Ebert was a longtime friend of [[Oprah Winfrey]], and Winfrey credited him with persuading her to syndicate ''[[The Oprah Winfrey Show]]'',<ref>{{cite web |url=http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051116/COMMENTARY/511160301 |title=How I gave Oprah her start |first=Roger |last=Ebert |newspaper=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] |date=November 16, 2005 |access-date=March 8, 2022 |archive-date=June 21, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080621204816/http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051116/COMMENTARY/511160301 |url-status=dead}}</ref> which became the highest-rated talk show in American television history.<ref name="Forbes Oprah">{{cite news |last=Rose |first=Lacey |title=America's Top-Earning Black Stars |url=https://www.forbes.com/2009/01/29/oprah-will-smith-business-media-0129_black_stars.html |website=[[Forbes]] |date=January 29, 2009 |access-date=September 11, 2017 |archive-date=June 20, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120620041722/http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/29/oprah-will-smith-business-media-0129_black_stars.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Health===
[[File:Boutte and Ebert.jpg|thumb|Ebert (right) at the [[Conference on World Affairs]] in September 2002, shortly after his cancer diagnosis|alt=An image of a woman in a red dress speaking with a man, both sitting down.]]

In February 2002, Ebert was diagnosed with [[papillary thyroid cancer]] which was successfully removed.{{sfn|Singer|2023|p=243}} In 2003, he underwent surgery for [[salivary gland cancer]], which was followed up by [[radiation therapy]]. He was again diagnosed with cancer in 2006. In June of that year, he had a [[mandibulectomy]] to remove cancerous tissue in the right side of his jaw.<ref name="email">{{cite web |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=August 17, 2006 |title=Email from Roger |url=http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060817/PEOPLE/60817001 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060820123705/http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060817/PEOPLE/60817001 |archive-date=August 20, 2006 |access-date=January 18, 2024 |website=RogerEbert.com}}</ref> A week later he had a life-threatening complication when his [[carotid artery]] burst near the surgery site.<ref>{{cite web |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=June 29, 2007 |title=Sicko Movie Review & Film Summary |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/sicko-2007 |access-date=February 9, 2021 |website=[[RogerEbert.com]] |archive-date=February 9, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210209054957/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/sicko-2007 |url-status=live }}</ref> He was confined to bed rest and was unable to speak, eat, or drink for a time, necessitating the use of a [[feeding tube]].<ref name="blogs.suntimes.com">{{cite web |author=Ebert, Roger |date=January 6, 2010 |url=http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/01/nil_by_mouth.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100109083637/http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/01/nil_by_mouth.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=January 9, 2010 |title=Nil by mouth |website=Roger Ebert's Journal }}</ref>

The complications kept Ebert off the air for an extended period. Ebert made his first public appearance since mid-2006 at Ebertfest on April 25, 2007. He was unable to speak, instead communicating through his wife.<ref>{{cite news |author=Jim Emerson |date=March 29, 2007 |title=Ebertfest '07: 'It's his happening and it freaks him out!' |url=http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F20070329%2FFILMFESTIVALS06%2F70329001 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111114140735/http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070329/FILMFESTIVALS06/70329001 |archive-date=November 14, 2011 |access-date=September 4, 2009 |work=Chicago Sun-Times}}</ref> He returned to reviewing on May 18, 2007, when three of his reviews were published in print.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage |title=RogerEbert.com Front Page |author=Ebert, Roger |access-date=May 22, 2007 |work=Chicago Sun-Times |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070521015959/http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage/ |archive-date=May 21, 2007}}</ref> In July 2007, he revealed that he was still unable to speak.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070721/COMMENTARY/70721001 |title=RogerEbert.com commentary |access-date=July 23, 2007 |work=Chicago Sun-Times |archive-date=February 11, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130211235435/http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070721/COMMENTARY/70721001 |url-status=dead}}</ref> Ebert adopted a computerized voice system to communicate, eventually using a copy of his own voice created from his recordings by [[CereProc]].<ref>{{cite news |last=Lund |first=Jordan |url=http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2009/08/finding_my_own_voice.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090815000910/http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2009/08/finding_my_own_voice.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=August 15, 2009 |title=Roger Ebert's Journal: Finding my own voice 8 December 2009 |work=Chicago Sun-Times |access-date=October 17, 2009 }}</ref>

In March 2010, his health trials and new computerized voice were featured on ''[[The Oprah Winfrey Show]]''.<ref>{{cite web |author=Ebert, Roger |date=February 26, 2010 |url=http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100226/PEOPLE/100229986 |title=Hello, this is me speaking |website=Roger Ebert's Journal |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100309081208/http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100226/PEOPLE/100229986 |archive-date=March 9, 2010 |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name=KenTucker>{{cite magazine |author=[[Ken Tucker|Tucker, Ken]] |date=March 2, 2010 |url=http://watching-tv.ew.com/2010/03/02/oprah-roger-ebert-oscars/ |title=Roger Ebert predicts the Oscars, movingly: 'No more surgery for me.' |magazine=[[Entertainment Weekly]] |access-date=March 3, 2010 |archive-date=March 5, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100305081546/http://watching-tv.ew.com/2010/03/02/oprah-roger-ebert-oscars/ |url-status=live }}</ref> In 2011, Ebert gave a [[TED (conference)|TED talk]] assisted by his wife, Chaz, and friends [[Dean Ornish]] and John Hunter, called "Remaking my voice"<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=2011 |title=Remaking my voice |url=https://www.ted.com/talks/roger_ebert_remaking_my_voice |access-date=February 25, 2023 |archive-date=February 25, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230225022026/https://www.ted.com/talks/roger_ebert_remaking_my_voice |url-status=live }}</ref> in which, he [[Ebert test|proposed a test]] to determine the verisimilitude of a synthesized voice.<ref>{{cite news |title=Roger Ebert Tests His Vocal Cords, and Comedic Delivery |url=http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/07/roger-ebert-tests-his-vocal-cords-and-comedic-delivery/ |newspaper=The New York Times |date=March 7, 2011 |access-date=April 4, 2013 |archive-date=April 5, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130405012559/http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/07/roger-ebert-tests-his-vocal-cords-and-comedic-delivery/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

Ebert underwent further surgery in January 2008 to try to restore his voice and address the complications from his previous surgeries.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F20080125%2FEDITOR%2F795706793 |author=Emerick, Laura |title=Ebert doing well after surgery |publisher=[[RogerEbert.com]]/Chicago Sun-Times |date=January 25, 2008 |access-date=January 26, 2008 |archive-date=June 22, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120622015139/http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080125/EDITOR/795706793 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/thumbs-up-for-roger-ebert-after-latest-bout-of-surgery-lawyer-reports-1.695384 |title=Thumbs up for Roger Ebert after latest bout of surgery, lawyer reports |publisher=Canadian Broadcasting Corporation |date=January 25, 2008 |access-date=October 17, 2009 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080605081213/http://www.cbc.ca/arts/film/story/2008/01/25/ebert-roger-surgery.html |archive-date=June 5, 2008}}</ref> On April 1, Ebert announced his speech had not been restored.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/870571,ebert040108.article |title="Roger Ebert: Let's go to the movies"; ''Chicago Sun-Times''; April 1, 2008 |work=Chicago Sun-Times |access-date=October 17, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080404034550/http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/870571,ebert040108.article |archive-date=April 4, 2008}}</ref> Ebert underwent further surgery in April 2008 after fracturing his hip in a fall.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=April 18, 2008 |title=Ebert recovering from hip surgery |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/ebert-recovering-from-hip-surgery |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210209033027/https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/ebert-recovering-from-hip-surgery |archive-date=February 9, 2021 |access-date=February 9, 2021 |website=[[RogerEbert.com]] |language=en}}</ref> By 2011, Ebert had a prosthetic chin made to hide some of the damage done by his many surgeries.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=January 19, 2011 |title=Leading with my chin |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/leading-with-my-chin |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210209032815/https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/leading-with-my-chin |archive-date=February 9, 2021 |access-date=February 9, 2021 |website=[[RogerEbert.com]] |language=en}}</ref>

In December 2012, Ebert was hospitalized due to the fractured hip, which was subsequently determined to be the [[Bone metastasis|result of cancer]].<ref>{{cite web |last1=Ebert |first1=Roger |date=April 2, 2013 |title=A Leave of Presence |url=http://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/a-leave-of-presence |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210209032510/https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/a-leave-of-presence |archive-date=February 9, 2021 |access-date=February 9, 2021 |website=[[RogerEbert.com]]}}</ref>

Ebert wrote that "what's sad about not eating" was:<blockquote>The loss of dining, not the loss of food. It may be personal, but for me, unless I'm alone, it doesn't involve dinner if it doesn't involve talking. The food and drink I can do without easily. The jokes, gossip, laughs, arguments and shared memories I miss. Sentences beginning with the words, "Remember that time?" I ran in crowds where anyone was likely to break out in a poetry recitation at any time. Me too. But not me anymore. So yes, it's sad. Maybe that's why I enjoy this blog. You don't realize it, but we're at dinner right now.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=January 6, 2010 |title=Nil by mouth |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/nil-by-mouth |website=RogerEbert.com |access-date=February 13, 2023 |archive-date=February 13, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230213232804/https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/nil-by-mouth |url-status=live }}</ref></blockquote>

=== Politics ===
A supporter of the [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic Party]],<ref>{{Cite web |last=Cooke |first=Rachel |date=November 6, 2011 |title=Roger Ebert: 'I'm an optimistic person' |url=http://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/nov/06/roger-ebert-cancer-life-cinema |access-date=February 13, 2022 |website=[[The Guardian]] |language=en |archive-date=February 13, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220213093759/https://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/nov/06/roger-ebert-cancer-life-cinema |url-status=live }}</ref> he wrote of how his [[Catholic]] schooling led him to his politics: "Through a mental process that has by now become almost instinctive, those nuns guided me into supporting [[universal health care]], the rightness of [[labor unions]], fair taxation, prudence in warfare, kindness in peacetime, help for the hungry and homeless, and equal opportunity for the races and genders. It continues to surprise me that many who consider themselves religious seem to tilt away from me."<ref name="EbertCatholic"/>

Ebert was critical of [[political correctness]], "a rigid feeling that you have to keep your ideas and your ways of looking at things within very narrow boundaries, or you'll offend someone. Certainly one of the purposes of journalism is to challenge that kind of thinking. And certainly one of the purposes of criticism is to break boundaries. It's also one of the purposes of art."<ref>{{cite video| title=Siskel & Ebert Advise Young Movie Critics| url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__L9DzZIkwI}}</ref> He lamented that ''[[Adventures of Huckleberry Finn]]'' "has regrettably been under fire in recent years from myopic advocates of Political Correctness, who do not have a bone of irony (or humor) in their bodies, and cannot tell the difference between what is said or done in the novel, and what Twain means by it."<ref>{{cite news| author=Roger Ebert| title=The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn| date=April 2, 1993| work=Chicago Sun Times| url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-adventures-of-huck-finn-1993}}</ref> Ebert defended the cast and crew of [[Justin Lin]]'s ''[[Better Luck Tomorrow]]'' (2002) during a [[Sundance Film Festival]] screening when a white member of the audience asked “Why, with the talent yup there and yourself, make a film so empty and amoral for Asian Americans and for Americans?” Ebert responded that "What I find very offensive and condescending about your statement is nobody would say to a bunch of white filmmakers, ‘How could you do this to 'your people'?...Asian-American characters have the right to be whoever the hell they want to be. They do not have to represent 'their people'!"<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.filmthreat.com/festivals/737/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150311235020/http://www.filmthreat.com/festivals/737/ |archive-date=March 11, 2015 |date=January 19, 2012 |website=[[Film Threat]] |title=When Audiences Attack at Sundance}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Davis |first=Erik |url=http://www.movies.com/movie-news/about-that-time-roger-ebert-fought-heckler-over-justin-lin39s-39better-luck-tomorrow39/11338?wssac=164&wssaffid=news |title=About That Time Roger Ebert Fought a Heckler over Justin Lin's 'Better Luck Tomorrow |website=Movies.com |access-date=January 27, 2017 |archive-date=October 19, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171019215808/http://www.movies.com/movie-news/about-that-time-roger-ebert-fought-heckler-over-justin-lin39s-39better-luck-tomorrow39/11338?wssac=164&wssaffid=news |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Harris |first=Dana |url=http://www.indiewire.com/article/this-video-shows-exactly-what-we-lost-with-the-death-of-roger-ebert |title=This Video Shows Exactly What We Lost With the Death of Roger Ebert |website=[[IndieWire]] |date=April 4, 2013 |access-date=April 4, 2013 |archive-date=April 6, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130406061932/http://www.indiewire.com/article/this-video-shows-exactly-what-we-lost-with-the-death-of-roger-ebert |url-status=live }}</ref> He was a supporter of the film after the incident at Sundance.

Ebert opposed the [[Iraq War]], writing: "Am I against the war? Of course. Do I support our troops? Of course. They were sent to endanger their lives by zealots with occult objectives."<ref>{{cite news| last=Ebert| first=Roger| date=November 4, 2008| title=This land was made for you and me| url=https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/this-land-was-made-for-you-and-me| access-date=May 6, 2024| archive-date=March 27, 2023| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230327045924/https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/this-land-was-made-for-you-and-me| url-status=live}}</ref> He endorsed [[Barack Obama]] for re-election in [[2012 United States presidential election|2012]], citing the [[Affordable Care Act]] as one important reason for his support of Obama.<ref name=90days90reasons>{{cite web |first=Roger |last=Ebert |title=Reason 02: President Obama faced down the GOP and the health industry to finally reform American healthcare |url=http://90days90reasons.com/02.php |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120813211002/http://90days90reasons.com/02.php |url-status=dead |archive-date=August 13, 2012 |publisher=90days90reasons.com |access-date=October 25, 2012}}</ref> He was concerned about income inequality, writing: "I have no objection to financial success. I've had a lot of it myself. All of my income came from paychecks from jobs I held and books I published. I have the quaint idea that wealth should be obtained by legal and conventional means–by working, in other words–and not through the manipulation of financial scams. You're familiar with the ways bad mortgages were urged upon people who couldn't afford them, by banks who didn't care that the loans were bad. The banks made the loans and turned a profit by selling them to investors while at the same time betting against them on their own account. While Wall Street was knowingly trading the worthless paper that led to the financial collapse of 2008, executives were being paid huge bonuses."<ref>{{cite news| last=Ebert| first=Roger| title=The One Percenters| date=April 9, 2011| url=https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/the-one-percenters}}</ref> He voiced tentative support for the [[Occupy Wall Street]] movement: "I believe the Occupiers are opposed to the lawless and destructive greed in the financial industry, and the unhealthy spread in this country between the rich and the rest." Referring to the [[subprime mortgage crisis]], he wrote: "I have also felt despair at the way financial instruments were created and manipulated to deliberately defraud the ordinary people in this country. At how home buyers were peddled mortgages they couldn't afford, and civilian investors were sold worthless 'securities' based on those bad mortgages. Wall Street felt no shame in backing paper that was intended to fail, and selling it to customers who trusted them. This is clear and documented. It is theft and fraud on a staggering scale."<ref>{{cite news| last=Ebert| first=Roger| title=Where I stand on the Occupy movement| date=December 7, 2011| url=https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/where-i-stand-on-the-occupy-movement}}</ref> He was also sympathetic to [[Ron Paul]], noting that he "speaks directly and clearly without a lot of hot air and lip flap".<ref>{{Cite web |last=Mcdevitt |first=Caitlin |title=Roger Ebert gives Ron Paul a thumbs up |url=https://www.politico.com/blogs/click/2012/01/roger-ebert-gives-ron-paul-a-thumbs-up-112544 |access-date=November 14, 2022 |website=POLITICO |date=January 27, 2012 |language=en |archive-date=November 14, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221114000613/https://www.politico.com/blogs/click/2012/01/roger-ebert-gives-ron-paul-a-thumbs-up-112544 |url-status=live }}</ref> In a review of the 2008 documentary ''[[I.O.U.S.A.]]'', he credited Paul with being "a lonely voice talking about the [[National debt of the United States|debt]]", proposing based on the film that the US government was "already broke".<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ebert |first=Roger |title=I.O.U.S.A. movie review & film summary (2008) {{!}} Roger Ebert |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/iousa-2008 |access-date=November 14, 2022 |website=www.rogerebert.com/ |language=en |archive-date=November 14, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221114002113/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/iousa-2008 |url-status=live }}</ref> He opposed the [[war on drugs]]<ref>{{cite news| last=Ebert| first=Roger| title=Traffic| date=2001| work=Chicago Sun-Times| url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/traffic-2001| access-date=May 3, 2024| archive-date=April 19, 2008| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080419071411/http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F20010101%2FREVIEWS%2F101010301%2F1023| url-status=live}}</ref> and [[capital punishment]].<ref>{{cite web| last=Ebert| first=Roger| date=January 12, 2012| title="Nobody has the right to take another life"| url=https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/nobody-has-the-right-to-take-another-life| access-date=May 3, 2024| archive-date=May 3, 2024| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240503172535/https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/nobody-has-the-right-to-take-another-life| url-status=live}}</ref>

Laura Emerick, his ''Sun Times'' editor, recalled: “His union sympathies began at an early age. His father, Walter, worked as an electrician, and Roger remained a member of the [[Newspaper Guild]] throughout his career — though after he became an independent contractor, he probably could have opted out. He famously stood with the Guild in 2004, when he wrote to then publisher John Cruickshank that ‘it would be with a heavy heart that I would go on strike against my beloved Sun-Times, but strike I will if a strike is called.'”<ref>{{cite web| title=Remembrances of Roger| date=April 9, 2012| url=https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/remembrances-of-roger}}</ref> He lamented that "Most Americans don’t understand the [[First Amendment]], don’t understand the idea of freedom of speech, and don’t understand that it’s the responsibility of the citizen to speak out." Regarding his own freedom of speech, he said: "I write op-ed columns for the Chicago Sun-Times, and people send me e-mails saying, 'You're a movie critic. You don't know anything about politics.' Well, you know what, I'm 60 years old, and I've been interested in politics since I was on my daddy's knee.... I know a lot about politics."<ref>{{cite magazine| title=Roger Ebert Remembered| last=Rothschild| first=Matthew| date=April 4, 2013| magazine=[[The Progressive]]| url=https://progressive.org/op-eds/roger-ebert-remembered/}}</ref>

=== Beliefs ===
Ebert was critical of [[intelligent design]],<ref>{{cite news| last=Ebert| first=Roger| date=December 3, 2008| title=Win Ben Stein's Mind| url=https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/win-ben-steins-mind| access-date=May 3, 2024| archive-date=May 3, 2024| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240503204052/https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/win-ben-steins-mind| url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=Evolves>{{cite news |url=http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2009/09/the_longest_thread_evolves.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090908043144/http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2009/09/the_longest_thread_evolves.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=September 8, 2009 |title=The Longest Thread Evolves |access-date=September 4, 2009 |author=Roger Ebert |date=September 4, 2009 |work=Chicago Sun-Times }}</ref> and stated that people who believe in either [[creationism]] or [[New Age]] beliefs such as [[crystal healing]] or [[astrology]] should not be president.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/new-agers-and-creationists-should-not-be-president |title=New Agers and Creationists should not be President |access-date=May 9, 2021 |author=Ebert, Roger |date=December 2, 2009 |work=Roger Ebert's Journal |archive-date=May 10, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210510045630/https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/new-agers-and-creationists-should-not-be-president |url-status=live }}</ref> He wrote that in Catholic school he learned of the "[[Theory of Evolution]], which in its elegance and blinding obviousness became one of the pillars of my reasoning, explaining so many things in so many ways. It was an introduction not only to logic but to symbolism, thus opening a window into poetry, literature and the arts in general. All my life I have deplored those who interpret something only on its most simplistic level."<ref name="EbertCatholic">{{cite web| title=How I am a Roman Catholic| author=Roger Ebert| date=March 1, 2013| url=https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/how-i-am-a-roman-catholic| access-date=April 23, 2024| archive-date=March 9, 2024| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240309193226/https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/how-i-am-a-roman-catholic| url-status=live}}</ref>

Ebert described himself as an agnostic on at least one occasion,<ref name=ChicagoMag /> but at other times explicitly rejected that designation; biographer Matt Singer wrote that Ebert opposed any categorization of his beliefs.{{sfn|Singer|2023|p=265}} In 2009, Ebert wrote that he did not "want [his] convictions reduced to a word," and stated, "I have never said, although readers have freely informed me I am an atheist, an agnostic, or at the very least a [[secular humanism|secular humanist]]&nbsp;– which I am."<ref name="EbertGod">{{cite news |url=http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2009/04/how_i_believe_in_g.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090420132015/http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2009/04/how_i_believe_in_g.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=April 20, 2009 |title=How I believe in God |access-date=November 5, 2009 |first=Roger |last=Ebert |date=April 17, 2009 |work=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] }}</ref> He wrote of his [[Catholic Church|Catholic]] upbringing: "I believed in the basic Church teachings because I thought they were correct, not because God wanted me to. In my mind, in the way I interpret them, I still live by them today. Not by the rules and regulations, but by the principles. For example, in the matter of abortion, I am pro-choice, but my personal choice would be to have nothing to do with an abortion, certainly not of a child of my own. I believe in free will, and believe I have no right to tell anyone else what to do. Above all, the state does not." He wrote "I am not a believer, not an atheist, not an agnostic. I am still awake at night, asking ''how''?{{efn|The question ''how'' in these last sentences of the blog entry refers back to its first paragraph in which Ebert writes that as a second-grader he would lie awake at night asking himself the questions "''But how could God have no beginning? And how could he have no end?''".<ref name="EbertGod" />}} I am more content with the question than I would be with an answer."<ref name="EbertGod" /> He writes: "I was asked at lunch today who or what I worshiped. The question was asked sincerely, and in the same spirit I responded that I worshiped whatever there might be outside knowledge. I worship the void. The mystery. And the ability of our human minds to perceive an unanswerable mystery. To reduce such a thing to simplistic names is an insult to it, and to our intelligence."<ref>{{cite web| last=Ebert| first=Roger| date=August 13, 2010| title=Traveler to the undiscovere'd country| url=https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/traveler-to-the-undiscovered-country| access-date=May 3, 2024| archive-date=May 3, 2024| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240503204051/https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/traveler-to-the-undiscovered-country| url-status=live}}</ref>

He wrote: "I drank for many years in a tavern that had a photograph of [[Brendan Behan]] on the wall, and under it is this quotation, which I memorized: '''I respect kindness in human beings first of all, and kindness to animals. I don't respect the law; I have a total irreverence for anything concerned with society except that which makes the roads safer, the beer stronger, the food cheaper and the old men and the old women warmer in the winter and happier in the summer.''<nowiki/>' For 57 words, that does a pretty good job of summing it up."<ref name="GoGently"> {{Cite web |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=May 2, 2009 |title=Go Gentle Into That Good Night |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/go-gentle-into-that-good-night |access-date=May 16, 2022 |archive-date=May 16, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220516161102/https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/go-gentle-into-that-good-night |url-status=live }}</ref> Summarizing his beliefs, Ebert wrote:

<blockquote>I believe that if, at the end of it all, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn't always know this, and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.<ref name="GoGently" /></blockquote>

He wrote: "I correspond with a dear friend, the wise and gentle Australian director [[Paul Cox (director)| Paul Cox]]. Our subject sometimes turns to death. In 2010 he came very close to dying before receiving a liver transplant. In 1988 he made a documentary named ''[[Vincent (1987 film)|Vincent: The Life and Death of Vincent Van Gogh]]''. Paul wrote that in his [[Arles]] days, van Gogh called himself 'a simple worshiper of the external [[Buddha]].' Paul told me that in those days, Vincent wrote: 

 <blockquote>Looking at the stars always makes me dream, as simply as I dream over the black dots representing towns and villages on a map. 

Why, I ask myself, shouldn't the shining dots of the sky be as accessible as the black dots on the map of France? 

Just as we take a train to get to [[Tarascon]] or [[Rouen]], we take death to reach a star. We cannot get to a star any more when we are alive than we can take the train when we are dead. So to me it seems possible that cholera, tuberculosis and cancer are the celestial means of locomotion. Just as steamboats, buses and railways are the terrestrial means. 

To die simply of old age would be to go there on foot. </blockquote>

That is a lovely thing to read, and a relief to find I will probably take the celestial locomotive. Or, as the little dog, [[Milou]], says whenever [[Tintin (character)| Tintin]] proposes a journey, 'Not by foot, I hope!'"<ref>{{cite book| last=Ebert| first=Roger| title=Life Itself: A Memoir| page=415}}</ref>

==Death and legacy ==
On April 4, 2013, Ebert died at age 70 at a hospital in [[Chicago]], shortly before he was set to return to his home and enter [[hospice]] care.<ref name="SunTimesObit" /><ref name="NPR death">{{cite news |last=Corely |first=Cheryl |title=For Pulitzer-Winning Critic Roger Ebert, Films Were A Journey |url=https://www.npr.org/2013/04/04/176194903/for-pulitzer-winner-critic-roger-ebert-films-were-a-journey |publisher=NPR |date=April 4, 2013 |access-date=April 4, 2018 |archive-date=March 30, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180330075840/https://www.npr.org/2013/04/04/176194903/for-pulitzer-winner-critic-roger-ebert-films-were-a-journey |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/04/showbiz/roger-ebert-obituary/index.html|title=Roger Ebert, renowned film critic, dies at age 70|publisher=[[CNN]]|date=April 4, 2013|accessdate=June 24, 2022|first=Alan|last=Duke|archive-date=June 24, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220624134933/https://www.cnn.com/2013/04/04/showbiz/roger-ebert-obituary/index.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://esquire.com/entertainment/tv/news/a26606/roger-ebert-final-moments/|title=Oral Histories of 2013: Roger Ebert's Wife, Chaz, on His Final Moments|work=[[Esquire (magazine)|Esquire]]|date=December 24, 2013|first=Chris|last=Jones|accessdate=July 19, 2022|archive-date=July 19, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220719135046/https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/news/a26606/roger-ebert-final-moments/|url-status=live}}</ref>

President [[Barack Obama]] wrote, "For a generation of Americans — and especially Chicagoans — Roger was the movies... [he could capture] the unique power of the movies to take us somewhere magical.&nbsp;... The movies won't be the same without Roger."<ref>{{cite web |last=Obama |first=Barack |author-link=Barack Obama |date=April 4, 2013 |title=Statement by the President on the Passing of Roger Ebert |url=https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2013/04/04/statement-president-passing-roger-ebert |access-date=February 9, 2021 |website=The White House |archive-date=March 14, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210314144719/https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2013/04/04/statement-president-passing-roger-ebert |url-status=live }}</ref> [[Martin Scorsese]] released a statement saying, "The death of Roger Ebert is an incalculable loss for movie culture and for film criticism. And it's a loss for me personally... there was a professional distance between us, but then I could talk to him much more freely than I could to other critics. Really, Roger was my friend. It's that simple."<ref>{{Cite web |date=April 4, 2014 |title=Filmmakers and Film Critics on Roger Ebert |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/filmmakers-on-roger-ebert |access-date=February 9, 2021 |website=[[RogerEbert.com]] |language=en |archive-date=February 14, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210214234337/https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/filmmakers-on-roger-ebert |url-status=live }}</ref>

[[Steven Spielberg]] stated that Ebert's "reviews went far deeper than simply thumbs up or thumbs down. He wrote with passion through a real knowledge of film and film history, and in doing so, helped many movies find their audiences... [He] put television criticism on the map."<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Child |first=Ben |date=April 5, 2013 |title=Roger Ebert dies at 70: 'Roger was the movies,' says Obama |url=http://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/apr/05/roger-ebert-obama-spielberg-tributes |access-date=February 13, 2022 |website=[[The Guardian]] |language=en |archive-date=February 13, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220213085242/https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/apr/05/roger-ebert-obama-spielberg-tributes |url-status=live }}</ref> Numerous celebrities paid tribute including [[Christopher Nolan]], [[Oprah Winfrey]], [[Steve Martin]], [[Albert Brooks]], [[Jason Reitman]], [[Ron Howard]], [[Darren Aronofsky]], [[Larry King]], [[Cameron Crowe]], [[Werner Herzog]], [[Howard Stern]], [[Steve Carell]], [[Stephen Fry]], [[Diablo Cody]], [[Anna Kendrick]], [[Jimmy Kimmel]], and [[Patton Oswalt]].<ref>{{cite web|url= https://www.businessinsider.com/roger-ebert-death-twitter-reactions-2013-4|title= Hollywood Mourns The Loss Of Roger Ebert|website= [[Business Insider]]|accessdate= June 9, 2023|archive-date= June 10, 2023|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20230610004037/https://www.businessinsider.com/roger-ebert-death-twitter-reactions-2013-4|url-status= live}}</ref>

[[Michael Phillips (critic)|Michael Phillips]] of the ''[[Chicago Tribune]]'' recalled that "I came late to film criticism in Chicago, after writing about the theater. Roger loved the theater. His was a theatrical personality: a raconteur, a spinner of dinner-table stories, a man who was not shy about his accomplishments. But he made room in that theatrical, improbable, outsized life for others."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Philipps |first=Michael |date=April 3, 2013 |title=Farewell to a generous colleague and friend |work=[[Chicago Tribune]] |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/ct-xpm-2013-04-04-chi-roger-ebert-talking-pictures-20130404-story.html |access-date=February 28, 2023 |archive-date=February 28, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230228000918/https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/ct-xpm-2013-04-04-chi-roger-ebert-talking-pictures-20130404-story.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Andrew O'Hehir of ''[[Salon.com|Salon]]'' wrote that "He's up there with [[Will Rogers]], [[H. L. Mencken]], [[A. J. Liebling]] and not too far short of [[Mark Twain]] as one of the great plainspoken commentators on American life."<ref>{{Cite web |last=O'Hehir |first=Andrew |date=April 5, 2013 |title=RIP Roger Ebert: Movie criticism's Great Communicator |url=https://www.salon.com/2013/04/05/rip_roger_ebert_movie_criticisms_great_communicator/ |website=Salon.com |access-date=February 28, 2023 |archive-date=February 28, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230228000915/https://www.salon.com/2013/04/05/rip_roger_ebert_movie_criticisms_great_communicator/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

Peter Debruge wrote "Ebert’s negative reviews were invariably his most entertaining, and yet, he never insulted those who found something to admire in lesser films. Instead, he hoped to enlighten readers, challenging them to think, while whetting their appetite for stronger work ... It’s a testament to Ebert’s gift that, after a life spent writing about film, he made us love the movies all the more. ...I’ve always suspected the reason he settled into this profession is that film reviews, as he wrote them, served as a Trojan horse for the delivery of bigger philosophical ideas, of which he had an inexhaustible supply to share."<ref name=Variety/>

{{quote box
| align = right
| width = 25em
| bgcolor = LightCyan
| quote = "No one has done as much as Roger to connect the creators of movies with their consumers. He has immense power, and he’s used it for good, as an apostle of cinema. Reading his work, or listening to him parse the shots of some notable film, the movie lover is also engaged with an alert mind constantly discovering things — discovering them to share them. That’s what a great teacher does, and what Roger’s done as a writer, public personality and friend to film for all these years. And, dammit, keep on doing."
| source = — [[Richard Corliss]], film critic for ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]''<ref name="Corliss2007"/>
}}

''[[The Onion]]'' paid tribute to Ebert: "Calling the overall human existence 'poignant,' 'thought-provoking,' and 'a complete tour de force,' film critic Roger Ebert praised existence as 'an audacious and thrilling triumph.'...'At times brutally sad, yet surprisingly funny, and always completely honest, I wholeheartedly recommend existence. If you haven't experienced it yet, what are you waiting for? It is not to be missed.' Ebert later said that while human existence's running time was 'a little on the long side' it could have gone on much, much longer and he would have been perfectly happy."<ref>{{Cite web|title=Roger Ebert Hails Human Existence As 'A Triumph'|url=https://www.theonion.com/roger-ebert-hails-human-existence-as-a-triumph-1819574774|website=The Onion|date=April 4, 2013|access-date=January 30, 2023|archive-date=January 30, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230130044333/https://www.theonion.com/roger-ebert-hails-human-existence-as-a-triumph-1819574774|url-status=live}}</ref>

Hundreds of people attended the [[funeral Mass]] held at Chicago's [[Holy Name Cathedral (Chicago)|Holy Name Cathedral]] on April 8, 2013, where Ebert was celebrated as a film critic, newspaperman, advocate for social justice, and husband. Father [[Michael Pfleger]] concluded the service with "the balconies of heaven are filled with angels singing 'Thumbs Up' ".<ref name="Mass">{{cite news |last=Caro |first=Mark |date=April 9, 2013 |title=Roger Ebert's funeral: 'He had a heart big enough to love all' |newspaper=[[Chicago Tribune]] |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/chi-roger-ebert-funeral-story.html |access-date=February 9, 2021 |archive-date=January 26, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210126135757/https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/chi-roger-ebert-funeral-story.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Reverend John F. Costello of Loyola University delivered a [[homily]] for Ebert.<ref>{{cite news| last=Costello| first=John F.| title=Roger Ebert Homily| date=April 8, 2013| work=Chicago Sun-Times| url=https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/roger-ebert-homily| access-date=April 15, 2024| archive-date=May 28, 2023| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230528122922/https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/roger-ebert-homily| url-status=live}}</ref> After the funeral service, he was buried at [[Graceland Cemetery]] in [[Chicago, Illinois]]<ref>{{cite web |last1=Ebert |first1=Roger |title=Chicago's most famous |url=https://wischlist.com/2013/10/30/graves-ghosts-and-chicagos-most-famous-cemeteries/ |website=wischlist |date=October 30, 2013 |access-date=November 10, 2024}}</ref>

A [[Life Itself (2014 film)|documentary adaptation of ''Life Itself'']] (2014), directed by [[Steve James (film producer)|Steve James]], premiered at the [[Sundance Film Festival]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/life_itself/ |title=Life Itself |work=[[Rotten Tomatoes]] |publisher=[[Flixster]] |access-date=September 11, 2014 |archive-date=February 15, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210215064658/http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/life_itself |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.metacritic.com/movie/life-itself |title=Life Itself Reviews |website=[[Metacritic]] |access-date=July 19, 2014 |archive-date=January 8, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210108111755/https://www.metacritic.com/movie/life-itself |url-status=live }}</ref> The film was executive produced by [[Martin Scorsese]] and includes interviews with Scorsese, [[Ava DuVernay]], [[Werner Herzog]], [[Errol Morris]] and numerous critics. The film received critical acclaim and received numerous accolades including a [[Emmy Award]], [[Producers Guild of America Award]] and [[Critics' Choice Movie Award]].

== Memorials ==
[[File:Roger Ebert Statue, Virginia Theater (Champaign).JPG|thumb|alt=An image of a bronze statue of Roger Ebert outside of a movie theater.|A [[statue of Roger Ebert]] giving his "[[thumbs up]]" outside the [[Virginia Theatre (Champaign)|Virginia Theatre]] in Champaign, Illinois]]
A nearly-three-hour public tribute, entitled ''Roger Ebert: A Celebration of Life'', was held on April 11, 2013, at the [[Chicago Theatre]]. It featured in-person remembrances, video testimonials, video and film clips, and gospel choirs, and was, according to the ''Chicago Tribune''{{'s}} Mark Caro, "a laughter- and sorrow-filled send-off from the entertainment and media worlds."<ref>{{cite news |last=Caro |first=Mark |date=April 12, 2013 |title=Roger Ebert honored by Hollywood stars for his 'tenacity', 'zest for life' |newspaper=[[Chicago Tribune]] |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/ct-xpm-2013-04-12-chi-roger-ebert-tribute-20130411-story.html |access-date=February 9, 2021 |archive-date=March 8, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210308102652/https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/ct-xpm-2013-04-12-chi-roger-ebert-tribute-20130411-story.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

In September 2013, organizers in [[Champaign, Illinois]], announced plans to raise $125,000 to build a life-size bronze [[statue of Roger Ebert]] in the town, which was unveiled in front of the [[Virginia Theatre (Champaign)|Virginia Theatre]] at Ebertfest on April 24, 2014.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Rothman |first=Lily |date=April 25, 2014 |title=Roger Ebert Statue Unveiled Outside Illinois Theater |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] |url=https://time.com/76577/roger-ebert-statue-illinois/ |access-date=February 9, 2021 |archive-date=February 24, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210224131427/https://time.com/76577/roger-ebert-statue-illinois/ |url-status=live }}</ref> The composition was selected by his widow, Chaz Ebert, and depicts Ebert sitting in the middle of three theater seats giving a "thumbs up."<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/22482627-421/story.html |title=Ebert statue planned in Champaign |work=Chicago Sun-Times |date=September 12, 2013 |access-date=September 11, 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141029235043/http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/22482627-421/story.html |archive-date=October 29, 2014}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |title=Roger Ebert Statue Unveiled Outside Illinois Theater |url=https://time.com/76577/roger-ebert-statue-illinois/ |access-date=June 1, 2015 |magazine=Time |first=Lily |last=Rothman |date=April 25, 2014 |archive-date=June 13, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150613004917/http://time.com/76577/roger-ebert-statue-illinois/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

The 2013 [[Toronto International Film Festival]] opened with a video tribute of Ebert at [[Roy Thomson Hall]] during the world premiere of the WikiLeaks-based film ''[[The Fifth Estate (film)|The Fifth Estate]]''. Ebert had been an avid supporter of the festival since its inception in the 1970s.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la-et-mn-toronto-roger-ebert-tribute-20130905-story.html |title=TIFF 2013: Roger Ebert tribute: 'He's probably ... somewhere in here' |date=September 6, 2013 |access-date=January 2, 2017 |website=[[Los Angeles Times]] |last=Whipp |first=Glenn |archive-date=January 3, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170103172051/http://articles.latimes.com/2013/sep/06/entertainment/la-et-mn-toronto-roger-ebert-tribute-20130905 |url-status=live }}</ref> Chaz was in attendance to accept a plaque on Roger's behalf.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.rogerebert.com/chazs-blog/toronto-international-film-festival-launches-with-a-tribute-to-roger |title=Toronto International Film Festival Launches with a Tribute to Roger |date=September 4, 2013 |access-date=April 30, 2015 |author= |publisher=[[RogerEbert.com]] |archive-date=April 3, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150403165915/http://www.rogerebert.com/chazs-blog/toronto-international-film-festival-launches-with-a-tribute-to-roger |url-status=live }}</ref> At the same festival, [[Errol Morris]] dedicated his film ''[[The Unknown Known]]'' to Ebert, saying "He was a really fabulous part of my life, a good friend, a champion, an inspiring writer. I loved Roger."<ref>{{Cite news |date=September 10, 2013 |title=Errol Morris dedicates his new film to Roger Ebert at TIFF |work=[[The Globe and Mail]] |url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/awards-and-festivals/tiff/errol-morris-dedicates-his-new-film-to-roger-ebert-at-tiff/article14238910/ |access-date=March 24, 2023 |archive-date=March 24, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230324212019/https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/awards-and-festivals/tiff/errol-morris-dedicates-his-new-film-to-roger-ebert-at-tiff/article14238910/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

In August 2013, the Plaza Classic Film Festival in [[El Paso, Texas]], paid homage to Ebert by screening seven films that played a role in his life: ''[[Citizen Kane]]'', ''[[The Third Man]], [[Tokyo Story]], [[La Dolce Vita]]'', ''[[Beyond the Valley of the Dolls]]'', ''[[Fitzcarraldo]]'' and ''[[Goodfellas]]''.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ebert |first=Chaz |date=August 5, 2013 |title=Ebert Everlasting: Classic Film Festival in El Paso Honors Roger Ebert |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/chazs-blog/ebert-everlasting-classic-film-festival-inel-paso-honors-roger-ebert |access-date=February 28, 2023 |archive-date=February 28, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230228000918/https://www.rogerebert.com/chazs-blog/ebert-everlasting-classic-film-festival-inel-paso-honors-roger-ebert |url-status=live }}</ref>

At the [[86th Academy Awards]] ceremony, Ebert was included in the ''in memoriam'' montage, a rare honor for a film critic.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://oscar.go.com/photos/2014-oscars-in-memoriam/media/ebert_roger_film_critic |title=Oscar Remembers – Photo Gallery, Roger Ebert, Film Critic |publisher=The Oscars |date=February 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140304190936/http://oscar.go.com/photos/2014-oscars-in-memoriam/media/ebert_roger_film_critic |archive-date=March 4, 2014 |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUgIodydDXg |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140310125649/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUgIodydDXg |url-status=dead |archive-date=March 10, 2014 |title=Oscars 2014 – In Memoriam Montage (Full) |website=YouTube |access-date=April 30, 2015 |date=March 2, 2014}}</ref>

In 2014, the documentary ''[[Life Itself (2014 film)|Life Itself]]'' was released. Director [[Steve James (producer)|Steve James]], whose films had been widely advocated by Ebert, started making the documentary while Ebert was still alive. [[Martin Scorsese]] served as an executive producer. The film studies Ebert's life and career, while also filming Ebert during his final months, and includes interviews with his family and friends. It was universally praised by critics. It has a 98% approval rating on [[Rotten Tomatoes]].<ref>{{rottentomatoes|life_itself|Life Itself}}</ref>

[[Werner Herzog]] told ''[[Entertainment Weekly]]'' that Ebert was "a soldier of the cinema": "I always loved Roger for being the good soldier, not only the good soldier of cinema, but he was a wounded soldier who for years in his affliction held out and plowed on and soldiered on and held the outpost that was given up by almost everyone: The monumental shift now is that intelligent, deep discourse about cinema has been something that has been vanishing over the last maybe two decades...I've always tried to be a good soldier of cinema myself, so of course since he's gone, I will plow on, as I have plowed on all my life, but I will do what I have to do as if Roger was looking over my shoulder. And I am not gonna disappoint him."<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Rome |first=Emily |date=April 4, 2013 |title=Werner Herzog on Roger Ebert, 'the good soldier of cinema' |magazine=[[Entertainment Weekly]] |url=https://ew.com/article/2013/04/04/roger-ebert-werner-herzog/ |access-date=August 14, 2022 |archive-date=August 14, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220814001643/https://ew.com/article/2013/04/04/roger-ebert-werner-herzog/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

Ebert was inducted as a laureate of [[The Lincoln Academy of Illinois]]. In 2001, the governor of Illinois awarded him the state's highest honor, the Order of Lincoln, in the area of performing arts.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://thelincolnacademyofillinois.org/4632-2/#toggle-id-15 |title=Laureates by Year - The Lincoln Academy of Illinois |website=The Lincoln Academy of Illinois |access-date=March 7, 2016 |archive-date=September 23, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150923204516/http://thelincolnacademyofillinois.org/4632-2/#toggle-id-15 |url-status=dead }}</ref> In 2016, Ebert was inducted into the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://chicagoliteraryhof.org/inductees/profile/roger-ebert |title=Roger Ebert |year=2016 |website=Chicago Literary Hall of Fame |access-date=October 8, 2017 |archive-date=October 8, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171008231203/https://chicagoliteraryhof.org/inductees/profile/roger-ebert |url-status=live }}</ref>

The website ''[[RogerEbert.com]]'' contains an archive of every review Ebert wrote, as well as many essays and opinion pieces. The site, operated by Ebert Digital (a partnership between Chaz and friend Josh Golden), continues to publish new material written by a group of critics who were selected by Ebert before his death.<ref name="Mashable-20130409">{{cite web |last1=Hernandez |first1=Brian Anthony |title=Roger Ebert's Website for Film Reviews Gets Makeover |url=https://mashable.com/2013/04/09/rogerebert-website-redesign |website=[[Mashable]] |access-date=March 15, 2019 |date=April 9, 2013 |archive-date=July 23, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180723122659/https://mashable.com/2013/04/09/rogerebert-website-redesign/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

== Awards and honors ==
Ebert received many awards during his long and distinguished career as a film critic and television host. He was the first film critic to ever win a [[Pulitzer Prize]], receiving the [[Pulitzer Prize for Criticism]] in 1975 while working for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'', "for his film criticism during 1974".<ref>{{cite web |title=1975 Pulitzer Prize Winners & Finalists |url=https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-year/1975 |access-date=July 8, 2021 |website=The Pulitzer Prizes |publisher=Columbia University |archive-date=July 9, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210709184318/https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-year/1975 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Ebert |first1=Roger |title=American film critic |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Roger-Ebert |access-date=July 8, 2021 |website=Encyclopaedia Britannica |publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. |archive-date=July 7, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210707173847/https://www.britannica.com/biography/Roger-Ebert |url-status=live }}</ref>

In 2003, Ebert was honored by the [[American Society of Cinematographers]], winning a Special Achievement Award. In 2005, Ebert became the first film critic to receive a star on the [[Hollywood Walk of Fame]], for his work on television. His star is located at 6834 Hollywood Boulevard.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/gallery/roger-ebert-photos-his-life-406146/1-roger-ebert-19422013 |title=Remembering Roger Ebert: The Iconic Film Critic's Life and Career in Pictures |website=[[The Hollywood Reporter]] |date=April 4, 2013 |access-date=May 21, 2020 |archive-date=August 18, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200818034346/https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/gallery/roger-ebert-photos-his-life-406146/1-roger-ebert-19422013 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Salt Lake Tribune death">{{cite news |last=Rousseau |first=Caryn |title=Roger Ebert, first movie critic to win Pulitzer, dies at 70 |url=http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/entertainment2/56107300-223/ebert-movie-siskel-chicago.html.csp |newspaper=[[The Salt Lake Tribune]] |date=April 4, 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160130005857/http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/entertainment2/56107300-223/ebert-movie-siskel-chicago.html.csp |archive-date=January 30, 2016 }}</ref> In 2009, Ebert received the [[Directors Guild of America Award]]'s for Honorary Life Member Award.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://variety.com/2008/film/awards/directors-guild-honors-roger-ebert-1117997468/ |title=Directors Guild honors Roger Ebert |website=[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]] |date=December 16, 2008 |access-date=May 21, 2020 |first=Dave |last=McNary |archive-date=August 6, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200806203342/https://variety.com/2008/film/awards/directors-guild-honors-roger-ebert-1117997468/ |url-status=live }}</ref> In 2010, Ebert received the [[Webby Award]] for Person of the Year.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.webbyawards.com/winners/2010/special-achievement/special-achievement/person-of-the-year/roger-ebert/?/ |title=Roger Ebert - The Webby Awards |website=webbyawards.com |access-date=May 21, 2020 |archive-date=November 28, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211128230242/https://www.webbyawards.com/winners/2010/special-achievement/special-achievement/person-of-the-year/roger-ebert/?/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

In 2007, Ebert was honored by the [[Gotham Awards]] receiving a tribute and award for his lifetime contributions to independent film.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.vulture.com/2007/11/last_nights_gotham_awards.html |title=Last Night's Gotham Awards Deemed Indie Enough |website=[[Vulture (website)|Vulture]] |date=November 28, 2007 |access-date=May 21, 2020 |archive-date=June 25, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200625050432/https://www.vulture.com/2007/11/last_nights_gotham_awards.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

On January 31, 2009, Ebert was made an honorary life member of the [[Directors Guild of America]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Directors Guild to honor Roger Ebert |agency=[[Reuters]] |url=https://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081217/film_nm/us_ebert |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081228051048/http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081217/film_nm/us_ebert |archive-date=December 28, 2008 |date=December 28, 2008}}</ref>,On May 15, 2009, Ebert was honored by the American Pavilion at the [[Cannes Film Festival]] by the renaming of its conference room, "The Roger Ebert Conference Center." [[Martin Scorsese]] joined Ebert and his wife Chaz at the ribbon-cutting ceremony.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.filmjerk.com/news/2009/05/18/cannes-martin-scorsese-at-dedication-of-the-roger-ebert-conference-room/ |title=Cannes: Martin Scorsese at Dedication of the Roger Ebert Conference Room |website=filmjerk.com |date=May 18, 2009 |access-date=May 20, 2020 |archive-date=August 6, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200806172719/https://www.filmjerk.com/news/2009/05/18/cannes-martin-scorsese-at-dedication-of-the-roger-ebert-conference-room/ |url-status=live }}</ref> On May 4, 2010, Ebert was announced by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences as the Webby Person of the Year, having found a voice on the Internet following his battle with cancer.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.webbyawards.com/webbys/specialachievement14.php |title=The Webby Awards |publisher=The Webby Awards |date=June 14, 2010 |access-date=April 5, 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130404205528/http://www.webbyawards.com/webbys/specialachievement14.php |archive-date=April 4, 2013}}</ref>

{| class="wikitable"
|-
!| Year
!| Award
!| Category
!| Nominated work
!| Result
|-
|1979 || [[Chicago / Midwest Emmy Awards|Chicago Emmy Awards]] || Outstanding Special Program || ''[[Sneak Previews]]'' || {{won}}
|-
|[[36th Primetime Emmy Awards|1984]] || rowspan=4|[[Primetime Emmy Award]] || rowspan=4|[[Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Hosted Nonfiction Series or Special|Outstanding Informational Series]] || rowspan=2|''[[At the Movies (1982 TV program)|At the Movies]]'' || {{nom}}
|-
|[[37th Primetime Emmy Awards|1985]] || {{nom}}
|-
|[[39th Primetime Emmy Awards|1987]] || rowspan=8|''[[Siskel & Ebert & the Movies]]'' || {{nom}}
|-
|[[40th Primetime Emmy Awards|1988]] || {{nom}}
|-
|1989 || rowspan=3|[[Daytime Emmy Awards]] || rowspan=3|[[Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Class Series|Outstanding Special Class Program]] || {{nom}}
|-
|1990 || {{nom}}
|-
|1991 || {{nom}}
|-
|[[44th Primetime Emmy Awards|1992]] || rowspan=3|[[Primetime Emmy Awards]] || rowspan=3|[[Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Hosted Nonfiction Series or Special|Outstanding Informational Series]] || {{nom}}
|-
|[[46th Primetime Emmy Awards|1994]] || {{nom}}
|-
|[[49th Primetime Emmy Awards|1997]] || {{nom}}
|-
|2005 || [[Chicago / Midwest Emmy Awards|Chicago Emmy Awards]] || Silver Circle Award || {{n/a}} || {{won}}
|-
|}

'''Honors'''
*1975 – Pulitzer Prize for Criticism
*1995 – Publicists Guild of America Press Award
*2003 – [[American Society of Cinematographers]]'s Special Achievement Award
*2004 – Savannah Film Festival's Lifetime Achievement Award
*2007 – [[Gotham Award]]'s Lifetime Achievement Award
*2009 – [[Directors Guild of America Award]]' Honorary Life Member Award
*2010 – [[Webby Award]] for Person of the Year

==Published works==
Each year from 1986 to 1998, Ebert published ''Roger Ebert's Movie Home Companion'' (retitled ''Roger Ebert's Video Companion'' for its last five installments), which collected all of his movie reviews to that point. From 1999 to 2013 (except in 2008), Ebert instead published ''Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook'', a collection of all of his movie reviews from the previous two and a half years (for example, the 2011 edition, {{ISBN|978-0-7407-9769-9}}, covers January 2008&nbsp;– July 2010.) Both series also included yearly essays, interviews, and other writings. He also wrote the following books:
* ''An Illini Century: One Hundred Years of Campus Life'' (1967) – a history of the first 100 years of the [[University of Illinois]]. (no ISBN)
* ''A Kiss Is Still a Kiss'' (1984) ({{ISBN|0-8362-7957-3}})
* ''The Perfect London Walk'' (1986), with Daniel Curley – a tour of London, Ebert's favorite foreign city. ({{ISBN|0-8362-7929-8}})
* ''Two Weeks In Midday Sun: A Cannes Notebook'' (1987) – coverage of the [[1987 Cannes Film Festival]], which was also the 40th anniversary of the festival, plus comments about the previous 12 festivals Ebert had attended. Interviews with [[John Malkovich]], [[Barbara Hershey]], and [[Isabella Rossellini]]. ({{ISBN|0-8362-7942-5}})
* ''The Future of The Movies'' (1991), with [[Gene Siskel]] – collected interviews with [[Martin Scorsese]], [[Steven Spielberg]], and [[George Lucas]] about the future of motion pictures and film preservation. It is the only book co-authored by Siskel and Ebert. ({{ISBN|978-0-8362-6216-2}})
* ''Behind the Phantom's Mask'' (1993) – Ebert's only work of fiction, which is about an on-stage murder and the resulting attention put on a previously unknown actor. ({{ISBN|0-8362-8021-0}})
* ''Ebert's Little Movie Glossary'' (1994) – a book of movie clichés. ({{ISBN|0-8362-8071-7}})
* ''Roger Ebert's Book of Film'' (1996) – a ''[[The Norton Anthology of English Literature|Norton Anthology]]'' of a century of writing about the movies. ({{ISBN|0-393-04000-3}})
* ''Questions for the Movie Answer Man'' (1997) – his responses to questions sent from his readers. ({{ISBN|0-8362-2894-4}})
* ''Ebert's Bigger Little Movie Glossary'' (1999) – a "greatly expanded" book of movie clichés. ({{ISBN|0-8362-8289-2}})
* ''I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie'' (2000) – a collection of reviews of films that received two stars or fewer, dating to the beginning of his ''Sun-Times'' career. (The title comes from his [https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/north-1994 zero-star review] of the 1994 film ''[[North (1994 film)|North]]''.) ({{ISBN|0-7407-0672-1}})
* ''The Great Movies'' (2002), ''The Great Movies II'' (2005), ''The Great Movies III'' (2010) and The Great Movies IV (2016) – four books of essays about great films. ({{ISBN|0-7679-1038-9}}, {{ISBN|0-7679-1950-5}}, {{ISBN|978-0-226-18208-7}}), and {{ISBN|978-0-226-40398-4}}
* ''Awake in the Dark: The Best of Roger Ebert'' (2006) – a collection of essays from his 40 years as a film critic, featuring interviews, profiles, essays, his initial reviews upon a film's release, as well as critical exchanges between the film critics [[Richard Corliss]] and [[Andrew Sarris]].
* ''Your Movie Sucks'' (2007) – a collection of fewer-than-two-star reviews, for movies released between 2000 and 2006. (The title comes from his [https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/deuce-bigalow-european-gigolo-2005 zero-star review] of the 2005 film ''[[Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo]]''.) ({{ISBN|0-7407-6366-0}})
* ''Roger Ebert's Four-Star Reviews 1967–2007'' (2007) ({{ISBN|0-7407-7179-5}})
* ''Scorsese by Ebert'' (2008) – covers works by director [[Martin Scorsese]] from 1967 to 2008, plus 11 interviews with the director over that period. ({{ISBN|978-0-226-18202-5}})
* ''The Pot and How to Use It: The Mystery and Romance of the Rice Cooker'' (2010) ({{ISBN|0-7407-9142-7}})<ref>{{cite news |title=Roger Ebert: No Longer an Eater, Still a Cook |first=Kim |last=Severson |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date=August 31, 2010 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/01/dining/01ebert.html |access-date=October 30, 2010 |archive-date=September 2, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100902042429/http://www.nytimes.com//2010//09//01//dining//01ebert.html |url-status=live }}</ref>
* ''Life Itself: A Memoir''. (2011) New York: [[Grand Central Publishing]]. ({{ISBN|0-446-58497-5}})
* ''A Horrible Experience of Unbearable Length'' (2012) – a third book of fewer-than-two-star reviews, for movies released in 2006 and onward. (The title comes from his [https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/transformers-revenge-of-the-fallen-2009 one-star review] of the 2009 film ''[[Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen]]''.) ({{ISBN|1-4494-1025-1}})

==See also==
* [[Ebert test]]

==Notes==
{{notelist}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

== Further reading==
* Bruce J. Evensen. "Ebert, Roger (18 June 1942–04 April 2013)" ''American National Biography'' (2015) [www.anb.org/viewbydoi/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.1603924 online]
* {{cite book|last = Singer|first = Matt|title = Opposable Thumbs: How Siskel & Ebert Changed Movies Forever|publisher = [[G. P. Putnam's Sons]]|location = New York|date = 2023|isbn = 978-0-593-54015-2}}

==External links==
{{Commons}}
{{Wikiquote}}
* {{Official website}}
* {{EmmyTVLegends name}}
* {{Rotten Tomatoes|critics/roger-ebert|title=Roger Ebert's critic page}}
* {{Rotten Tomatoes|celebrity/roger_ebert|title=Roger Ebert's celebrity page}}
* {{IMDb name}}
* {{TED speaker}}
* {{C-SPAN|39982}}
* {{Charlie Rose guest|96}}
* {{Muckrack}}

{{SiskelandEbert}}
{{PulitzerPrize Criticism}}
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