What Do You Know About Roger Ebert?

Many thumbs up

Roger Ebert, 1942–2013

While his thumb would occasionally shift into the "down" position, there's no getting around the fact that Roger Ebert was a lenient grader.

The longtime Chicago Lord's day-Times film critic, who died terminal week at the age of lxx after a battle with cancer, used a four-star grading scale in his written reviews (as opposed to the binary thumbs up/downward system that he and boyfriend critic Gene Siskel made famous on their At the Movies broadcasts). According to our statistics, those star grades were higher than those of his colleagues 75% of the time. Similarly, three out of every four Ebert reviews were positive—that'due south over 3,000 films in our database alone. His average grade was 71 (or nearly 3 out of 4 stars on his scale), over 12 points college than the typical critic'southward boilerplate score.

But what might be considered class aggrandizement with another critic came across, from Ebert's keyboard, as genuine enthusiasm and appreciation for the arts and crafts of movies. His tastes ran both broad and deep, and his endorsements carried more weight because his writing was always outgoing while besides revealing an extensive knowledge and love of film. He was the rare critic that was both populist and Pulitzer winner, impressed equally past stunning, effects-heavy visual spectacles and more cognitive, dialogue-heavy affairs like the works of Neil LaBute and Todd Solondz (two amidst the many indie filmmakers whose films he often praised).

Judging from the response to his death terminal week, few critics over the by 30 years have influenced equally many people. Non only was Ebert a truly invaluable supporter of smaller films that might not otherwise get noticed, but he influenced a new generation of writers to enter the field of film and tv criticism. (For reactions from the critic customs, see our roundup at the lesser of this page.)

Ebert's propensity for high review scores inevitably meant that he would champion films that were disliked (or at least, not praised) by a majority of other critics. Intriguingly, a look through our database reveals that in many of those instances, Ebert'due south opinions were much closer to scores given past Metacritic users than to those provided past other professionals. In both his grades and his writing, it seems, Ebert was able to speak both to and for the boilerplate film fan, peradventure more and then than his contemporaries. Fittingly, The New York Times obituary for Ebert is headlined A Critic for the Common Man.

Examples of cases where Ebert and his fellow critics strongly disagreed are listed below.

"Yous're a v-star site living in a 4-star world!"

—Roger Ebert, to Metacritic

Before we get there, a personal note: Roger was a friend our ours, and a great friend and supporter of Metacritic over the by dozen years. We will profoundly miss his encouraging emails. Very early in our development, Roger reached out to u.s.a. to brand a few specific recommendations on how we could better our scoring system. For example, we originally used a single-digit scoring organization for critic scores in our movies section, which forced u.s. to round his 3-star scores to viii instead of listing the much more accurate 75. This bothered Roger. "Y'all're a v-star site living in a 4-star earth!" he told the states.  Of course, he was correct on the coin, and we fabricated the modify. Roger will be missed.

Movies liked by Ebert and users, simply disliked by nearly other critics

Hither is a sampling of the many films—both mainstream crowd-pleasers and more obscure titles—where Ebert was in the minority for expressing a positive opinion: films where he graded three and a half stars (the equivalent of 88) or higher, only the Metascore was threescore or lower. All quotes come up from his reviews; notation that Metacritic user scores are on a 0-10 scale instead of a 0-100 scale. (And Ebert's scores are direct conversions of his star grades, where a total 4 stars = 100, 3 stars = 75, etc.)

Beyond the Universe (2007)				Ebert'southward total review
Metascore:	56	EBERT:	100	Users:	7.4
"Hither is a bold, beautiful, visually enchanting musical where nosotros walk into the theater humming the songs. ... The dazzler is in the execution. The experience of the moving-picture show is joyous."
The Big Kahuna (2000)				Ebert'southward full review
Metascore:	56	EBERT:	88	Users:	7.0
"Sharp-edged, perfectly timed, funny and thoughtful. Spacey and DeVito are two of the smartest actors in the movies, filled with the joy of performance, and they commutation their dialogue with the precision of racquetball players."
Blade 2 (2002)				Ebert's full review
Metascore:	52	EBERT:	88	Users:	vii.2
"You tin can sense the deviation between a movie that'southward a technical exercise ('Resident Evil') and one steamed in the dread cauldrons of the filmmaker's imagination."
A Christmas Carol (2009)				Ebert's full review
Metascore:	55	EBERT:	100	Users:	7.3
"An exhilarating visual experience and proves for the third time [Zemeckis is] i of the few directors who knows what he's doing with 3-D."
Cloud Atlas (2012)				Ebert's full review
Metascore:	55	EBERT:	100	Users:	8.2
"It fascinates in the moment. It's getting from i moment to the next that is catchy. Surely this is one of the most aggressive films ever made."
The Contender (2000)				Ebert'due south full review
Metascore:	59	EBERT:	100	Users:	6.9
"1 of those rare movies where you get out the theater having been surprised and entertained, and and so get-go arguing."
Everything Is Illuminated (2005)				Ebert'southward full review
Metascore:	58	EBERT:	88	Users:	8.0
"A film that grows in reflection. The first fourth dimension I saw information technology, I was hurtling down the tracks of a goofy ethnic one-act when all of a sudden we entered dark and dangerous territory. I admired the motion-picture show simply did not sufficiently capeesh its arc."
Field of Dreams (1989)				Ebert'south full review
Metascore:	57	EBERT:	100	Users:	8.1
"This is the kind of movie Frank Capra might have directed, and James Stewart might have starred in - a movie about dreams."
Terminal Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001)				Ebert's full review
Metascore:	49	EBERT:	88	Users:	6.five
"The story is basics-and-bolts space opera, without the intelligence and daring of, say, Steven Spielberg's 'A.I.' Just the look of the moving picture is revolutionary. Final Fantasy is a technical milestone, like the first talkies or iii-D movies."
The Golden Compass (2007)				Ebert'southward full review
Metascore:	51	EBERT:	100	Users:	6.ane
"A darker, deeper fantasy epic than the 'Rings' trilogy, 'The Chronicles of Narnia' or the 'Potter' films. It springs from the aforementioned British earth of quasi-philosophical magic, but creates more complex villains and poses more intriguing questions. As a visual experience, information technology is superb. As an escapist fantasy, it is challenging."
The Chase for Red October (1990)				Ebert'southward total review
Metascore:	58	EBERT:	88	Users:	7.7
"McTiernan, whose previous films were 'Predator' and 'Die Hard,' showed a sense of style and timing in those movies, but what he adds in 'The Chase for Red October' is something of the same detached intelligence that Clancy brought to the novel. Somehow we feel this is more than than a thriller, it'due south an practise in armed forces and diplomatic strategy in which the players are all smart enough that we can't take their deportment for granted."
Bailiwick of jersey Girl (2004)				Ebert's full review
Metascore:	43	EBERT:	88	Users:	seven.seven
"Information technology's the kind of pic Hugh Grant might brand, except for the fashion [Kevin] Smith has with his dialogue, which is truer and more direct than nosotros wait."
Kalifornia (1993)				Ebert'south total review
Metascore:	49	EBERT:	100	Users:	half dozen.5
"The suspense screws up tighter than a drum-head. The characters remain believable; we take a conflict of personalities, not stereotypes. The action coexists seamlessly with the message."
Kingpin (1996)				Ebert'southward full review
Metascore:	43	EBERT:	88	Users:	vii.5
"Some of the gags don't work, and all the same I laughed at the Farrellys' audacity in trying them. And the humor isn't just gags and dial lines, but one achieved comic operation after another."
Knowing (2009)				Ebert's full review
Metascore:	41	EBERT:	100	Users:	6.1
"Knowing is among the all-time science-fiction films I've seen -- frightening, suspenseful, intelligent and, when it needs to be, rather awesome."
La Femme Nikita (1991)				Ebert's full review
Metascore:	56	EBERT:	88	Users:	7.viii
"'La Femme Nikita' begins with the materials of a violent thriller but transcends them with the story of the heroine'due south transformation. It is a surprisingly touching moving picture with the same kind of emotional arc as 'Awakenings'."
The Concluding Samurai (2003)				Ebert's total review
Metascore:	55	EBERT:	88	Users:	vii.4
"Beautifully designed, intelligently written, acted with conviction, information technology's an exceptionally thoughtful epic. Its power is compromised merely by an ending that sheepishly backs away from what the film is actually about."
Leaves of Grass (2010)				Ebert's full review
Metascore:	58	EBERT:	100	Users:	6.9
"Some kind of sweet, wacky masterpiece."
The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000)				Ebert'due south full review
Metascore:	47	EBERT:	88	Users:	8.1
"It handles a sports movie the way Billie Holiday handled a trashy song, by finding the love and hurting beneath the story."
Life Is Cute (1998)				Ebert'southward full review
Metascore:	59	EBERT:	88	Users:	9.1
"The pic finds the right notes to negotiate its fragile subject thing. And Benigni isn't really making comedy out of the Holocaust, anyway. He is showing how Guido uses the simply gift at his control to protect his son. If he had a gun, he would shoot at the Fascists. If he had an army, he would destroy them. He is a clown, and one-act is his weapon."
Lost and Delirious (2001)				Ebert'south full review
Metascore:	53	EBERT:	88	Users:	9.4
"This is a motion picture for those who sometimes, in the stillness of the sleepless nighttime, are so filled with hope and longing that they feel like -- well, like uttering wild goat cries to the moon. You lot know who you lot are."
Honey Actually (2003)				Ebert's full review
Metascore:	55	EBERT:	88	Users:	8.1
"The film's only flaw is likewise a virtue: It'south jammed with characters, stories, warmth and laughs, until at times Curtis seems to be working from a checklist of obligatory movie love situations and doesn't want to leave anything out."
The Imperial (2001)				Ebert's full review
Metascore:	27	EBERT:	88	Users:	half dozen.9
"It makes us feel about as adept as any film made this year. ... Information technology tells a full story with three acts, information technology introduces characters we get to know and intendance most, and it has something it passionately wants to say."
Man on the Moon (1999)				Ebert's total review
Metascore:	58	EBERT:	88	Users:	8.ix
"That [Carrey] can evoke the complexities of Kaufman's comic agonies is a little astonishing. That he tin suppress his own want to please takes a kind of courage. Not merely is he working without his ain net--he's playing a guy who didn't use a net."
Mystic Pizza (1988)				Ebert's full review
Metascore:	lx	EBERT:	88	Users:	seven.5
"The characters are allowed to be smart, to react in unexpected means, and to be more concerned with doing the right thing than with doing the expedient or even the lustful thing."
The Notebook (2004)				Ebert'south full review
Metascore:	53	EBERT:	88	Users:	8.i
"The director is Nick Cassavetes, son of Gena Rowlands and John Cassavetes, and perhaps his instinctive feeling for his mother helped him find the way by lather opera in the direction of truth. "
The Passion of the Christ (2004)				Ebert's total review
Metascore:	47	EBERT:	100	Users:	six.ii
"This is non a sermon or a homily, only a visualization of the key effect in the Christian religion. Take it or leave information technology."
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006)				Ebert'south full review
Metascore:	56	EBERT:	100	Users:	seven.4
"This is a nighttime, nighttime, dark pic, focused on an obsession so complete and lone it shuts out all other human feel. You may non savor it, only yous volition not terminate watching it, in horror and fascination."
Pretty Woman (1990)				Ebert'due south full review
Metascore:	51	EBERT:	88	Users:	7.2
"It is astonishing that 'Pretty Woman' is such an innocent movie - that it's the sweetest and nearly openhearted love fable since 'The Princess Bride.' Here is a movie that could have marched us downwards mean streets into the sinks of iniquity, and it glows with romance."
Primal Fear (1996)				Ebert's full review
Metascore:	47	EBERT:	88	Users:	7.6
"The plot is every bit expert as law-breaking procedurals get, but the moving-picture show is actually better than its plot because of the iii-dimensional characters."
The Cherry Violin (1999)				Ebert'due south full review
Metascore:	57	EBERT:	88	Users:	viii.6
"There actually is a lilliputian something here for everyone: music and culture, politics and passion, crime and intrigue, history and fifty-fifty the backstage intrigue of the auction business."
Rendition (2007)				Ebert's full review
Metascore:	55	EBERT:	100	Users:	7.2
"Rendition is valuable and rare. Equally I wrote from Toronto: 'It is a picture show near the theory and practice of two things: torture and personal responsibility. And it is wise most what is right, and what is incorrect.'"
Return of the Jedi (1983)				Ebert's total review
Metascore:	52	EBERT:	100	Users:	8.2
"'Return of the Jedi' is fun, magnificent fun. The movie is a complete amusement, a feast for the eyes and a delight for the fancy. Information technology's a trivial amazing how Lucas and his associates keep topping themselves."
The Rock (1996)				Ebert's full review
Metascore:	59	EBERT:	88	Users:	vii.vi
"A first-rate, slam-bang action thriller with a lot of style and no little humor."
Spartan (2004)				Ebert's full review
Metascore:	60	EBERT:	100	Users:	7.1
"The patter is always fascinating, and at correct angles to the action. [Mamet]'s like a magician who gets you all involved in his story about the King, the Queen and the Jack, while the whole signal is that in that location's a rabbit in your pocket."
Stay (2005)				Ebert's full review
Metascore:	41	EBERT:	88	Users:	7.iii
"The ending is an explanation, only not a solution. For a solution we have to call back back through the whole film, and at present the visual style becomes a guide. It is an analogy of the fashion the materials of life tin exist shaped for the purposes of the moment."
Storytelling (2002)				Ebert's total review
Metascore:	fifty	EBERT:	88	Users:	seven.1
"I saw it a third time. Past then I had moved across the firsthand shock of the material and was able to focus on what a well-made film it was; how concisely Solondz gets the effects he's afterward."
The Sum of All Fears (2002)				Ebert's full review
Metascore:	45	EBERT:	88	Users:	half dozen.five
"Director Phil Alden Robinson and his writers, Paul Attanasio and Daniel Pyne, do a spellbinding job of cranking up the tension, they create a portrait of disarming realism, so they add the other stuff because, well, if anybody ever makes a motion-picture show like this without the obligatory Hollywood softeners, audiences might flee the theater in despair. "
Titan A.E. (2000)				Ebert'southward full review
Metascore:	48	EBERT:	88	Users:	vii.2
"Here's the blithe space adventure I've been hoping for--a pic that uses the freedom of animation to visualize the strangeness of the universe in ways live action cannot duplicate, and and then joins its vision to a rousing story."
Total Remember (1990)				Ebert's full review
Metascore:	57	EBERT:	88	Users:	seven.seven
"One of the nearly complex and visually interesting scientific discipline fiction movies in a long fourth dimension."
Trust (2011)				Ebert's full review
Metascore:	60	EBERT:	100	Users:	7.2
"David Schwimmer has fabricated one of the year's all-time films: Powerfully emotional, yep, but likewise very perceptive."
Vanity Fair (2004)				Ebert'due south full review
Metascore:	53	EBERT:	100	Users:	7.iii
"The peculiar quality of Vanity Fair, which sets it aside from the Austen adaptations such as 'Sense and Sensibility' and 'Pride and Prejudice,' is that information technology's not most very prissy people. That makes them much more than interesting."
Watchmen (2009)				Ebert'south full review
Metascore:	56	EBERT:	100	Users:	seven.6
"It's a compelling visceral pic -- audio, images and characters combined into a incomparably odd visual experience that evokes the feel of a graphic novel. It seems charged from within past its power as a fable; we sense it'south not interested in a plot and so much every bit with the dilemma of functioning in a world losing hope."
The Globe Is Not Plenty (1999)				Ebert'south full review
Metascore:	59	EBERT:	88	Users:	half dozen.7
"A splendid comic thriller, exciting and svelte, endlessly inventive."
Yep (2005)				Ebert'due south total review
Metascore:	55	EBERT:	100	Users:	7.6
"A moving-picture show different whatsoever other I take seen or heard. Some critics have treated it every bit ill-behaved, as if its originality is offensive. ... I gloat these transgressions. 'Yes' is live and daring, not a rehearsal of safe material and styles."

Movies liked past most critics, disliked past Ebert

Yeah, in that location were some (fewer, but some) cases where everyone seemed to like a picture show but Roger Ebert. Here are some notable examples from our database:

Bluish Velvet (1986)				Ebert'southward full review
Metascore:	75	EBERT:	25	Users:	7.9
"'Blue Velvet' contains scenes of such raw emotional energy that it's easy to understand why some critics have hailed it as a masterpiece. A moving-picture show this painful and wounding has to be given special consideration. And even so those very scenes of stark sexual despair are the tipoff to what'southward incorrect with the movie. They're so strong that they deserve to exist in a flick that is sincere, honest and truthful. But 'Blueish Velvet' surrounds them with a story that's marred by sophomoric satire and cheap shots. The director is either denying the strength of his cloth or trying to defuse it past pretending it'due south all role of a campy in-joke."
Dirty Dancing (1987)				Ebert's full review
Metascore:	65	EBERT:	25	Users:	8.4
"The filmmakers rely so heavily on cliches, on stock characters in quondam situations, that it's every bit if they never really had any conviction in their performers."
The Flower of My Clandestine (1996)				Ebert's full review
Metascore:	75	EBERT:	38	Users:	8.0
"The Bloom of My Hush-hush is likely to be disappointing to Almodovar'due south admirers, and inexplicable to anyone else."
Godzilla (1954) Reviewed in 2004 for its 50th anniversary release				Ebert's full review
Metascore:	78	EBERT:	38	Users:	nine.2
"Regaled for 50 years past the stupendous idiocy of the American version of Godzilla, audiences can now see the original Japanese version, which is every bit idiotic."
In Praise of Love (2001)				Ebert'southward full review
Metascore:	62	EBERT:	25	Users:	7.5
"I see so piddling there: Information technology is all remembered rote work, used to conceal old tricks, facile name-calling, the loss of promise, and emptiness."
Kick-Ass (2011)				Ebert'due south full review
Metascore:	66	EBERT:	25	Users:	8.iii
"Will I seem hopelessly foursquare if I discover Boot-Donkey morally reprehensible and will I appear to have missed the point? Permit's say y'all're a big fan of the original comic book, and you lot think the move does it justice. Yous know what? Y'all inhabit a earth I am so very non interested in."
Napoleon Dynamite (2004)				Ebert's full review
Metascore:	64	EBERT:	38	Users:	7.9
"There is a kind of studied stupidity that sometimes passes as humor, and Jared Hess' Napoleon Dynamite pushes it as far as information technology can go. ... I'one thousand told the motion picture was greeted at Sundance with lots of laughter, but then Sundance audiences are concerned with being cool, and to sit down through this movie in depressed silence would not exist cool, yet urgently information technology might be appropriate."
The Raid: Redemption (2012)				Ebert's total review
Metascore:	73	EBERT:	25	Users:	viii.i
"This pic is near violence. All violence. Wall-to-wall violence. Against many of those walls, heads are pounded over again and once more into a pulpy mass. If I estimated the film has 10 minutes of dialogue, that would be generous."
Squad America: Earth Police (2004)				Ebert'due south full review
Metascore:	64	EBERT:	25	Users:	viii.0
"Similar a cocky teenager who'south had a couple of drinks earlier the party, they don't have a plan for who they want to offend, only an intention to be as offensive as possible."
The Usual Suspects (1995)				Ebert's full review
Metascore:	77	EBERT:	38	Users:	8.8
"The story builds upwards to a blinding revelation, which shifts the nature of all that has gone before, and the surprise filled me not with delight just with the feeling that the writer, Christopher McQuarrie, and the director, Bryan Singer, would have been better off unraveling their advisedly knit sleeve of fiction and just telling u.s. a story nigh their characters - those that are real, in whatsoever result. I adopt to be amazed by motivation, not manipulation."
Zoolander (2001)				Ebert's full review
Metascore:	61	EBERT:	25	Users:	6.7
"There accept been articles lately request why the United States is so hated in some parts of the world. Equally this week's Exhibit A from Hollywood, I offer Zoolander."

Elsewhere on the web

The Chicago Sun-Times has a wealth of information about the human who spent 46 years in that location, including a tribute from Richard Roeper. The response from Ebert'due south colleagues in the critic community has also been overwhelming, with tributes from the likes of Scott Foundas (now at Diversity), Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune, Slate's Dana Stevens, the A.Five. Order'due south Scott Tobias, New York Times critic A.O. Scott, Rolling Stone'due south Peter Travers, Todd McCarthy of THR, Alan Sepinwall of HitFix, James Poniewozik of Time, the Huffington Post's Mo Ryan, and Kenneth Turan of the 50.A. Times. Those are only a few of the hundreds of remembrances from friends and boyfriend critics. For video show of Ebert's passion and influence, Indiewire highlights a video of Ebert defending director Justin Lin at Sundance in 2002, /Film has a series of At the Movies compilations, The Playlist includes a video of Siskel & Ebert discussing picture show criticism, and the L.A. Times gathers a few clips from YouTube (where there are thousands more to cull from). Managing director Steve James promised to complete Life Itself, a documentary on Ebert's life that shares the title of his 2011 memoir, and so fans can expect forward to that. And Ebert'south words should live on for quite some time at rogerebert.com.

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Source: https://www.metacritic.com/feature/remembering-roger-ebert

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