closer movie review ebert

The Movie Review: 'Closer'

"Flawlessly lucid"; "viciously insightful"; "quietly devastating"; "emotionally honest and psychologically dense"; "dares speak the truth about modern adult relationships." Those are a few of the phrases that were used to describe the movie Closer when it arrived in theaters late last year. Oddly, as best as I can tell, the following terms were absent from discussion of the film: "ridiculous"; "unmoored from reality"; "emotionally preposterous"; "unintentionally hilarious."

Closer , released on video today, is not a bad movie--or rather it is not merely bad. It's flamboyantly bad, bad in a way that can't help but be fascinating and even entertaining. It's well-enough executed, boasting a couple of good performances and one great one, and it's pleasant to look at. But it's also aggressively, irretrievably silly, a potty-mouthed fantasy that somehow mistakes itself for a fearless excavation of the dark recesses of the human soul, American Pie as reimagined by Neil LaBute.

Adapted by Patrick Marber from his own play, Closer follows two London couples who meet, fall in love, fall out of love, swap partners, and swap back again, in the process wounding one another in all the ways of which human beings are capable. Scratch that: The wounding is all pretty much of a single variety, specifically, being unfaithful to your (presumed) loved one and then describing the infidelity to him or her in excruciating detail. If this sounds familiar, it's probably because similar territory was plowed just a few months earlier in We Don't Live Here Anymore , a movie that shared Closer 's ludicrous belief that displaying unremitting cruelty is somehow the same thing as telling the truth. (You can read my review here .) But if the characters in the former film seemed transplanted from another decade, the characters in Closer seem transplanted from another planet. It's not just that they behave irrationally (though they do), they behave according to no recognizable set of human principles.

Take Dan, played by Jude Law. When we first meet him at the beginning of the film, he's a sweet, bespectacled, romantically timid obituary writer (think Hugh Grant in Notting Hill ) who unexpectedly falls in love with a beautiful young American named Alice (Natalie Portman) after she is hit by a car. The movie then flashes forward one year. Dan has just completed a sexually provocative novel (unmentioned in the first scene) and is being photographed for the book jacket by another beautiful American, Anna (Julia Roberts). Gone are his glasses, and with them any sign of his earlier demeanor: He's now smooth and predatory (think Hugh Grant in Bridget Jones's Diary ), putting the moves on Anna despite the fact that he now lives with Alice, who will arrive at the studio to meet him at any moment. About the only thing these two Dans have in common is Jude Law's face.

Having stolen a kiss from Anna but otherwise had his advances rebuffed (for the time being at least), Dan decides to play an unpleasant trick on her. He goes into an anonymous sex chat room on the Internet, where he encounters a deviant dermatologist named Larry (Clive Owen). Pretending to be Anna, Dan engages Larry in an X-rated dialogue and proposes a sexual assignation at a location he knows the elusive lady to frequent.

Onstage, this scene was apparently a showstopper, with Dan and Larry's raunchy exchange projected on the wall behind them. Onscreen, shorn of this gimmick, it's a strong contender for the silliest scene in a "serious" movie in the last 25 years. I'll say this once: If you are a male over the age of ten who believes that beautiful women get online to earnestly tell strange men "I love COCK" and "sit on my face, fuckboy," then you should turn your computer off right now and never turn it on again. I mean it.

Larry, having failed to receive my exceptional advice, goes to meet Anna, and finds her somewhat taken aback when he refers to her as a "cum-hungry slut." Anna, intuiting that this was all a prank set up by Dan, decides to spend the afternoon with Larry. Why? Because it's her birthday, and what better way to spend it than with a stranger about whom she knows nothing other than that he frequents pornographic websites in search of rough, anonymous sex?

In no time--literally, the film having taken another of its leaps forward--Larry and Anna are a couple, hosting a museum exhibit of her photos. Dan and Alice show up, and the former again woos Anna, whose defenses appear to be weakening. By our next temporal jump, Anna and Dan have been secret lovers for a year, though she has not allowed this detail to keep her from marrying Larry in the interim. When Dan breaks news of the affair to Alice, she cries; when Anna breaks it to Larry, he demands that she describe the flavor of Dan's ejaculate. "Like yours," she answers, "only sweeter." (Poor Julia, she never had such a filthy mouth back when she played a prostitute.)

From this point, the characters will ping-pong back and forth across the behavioral spectrum, swapping turns as villains and victims, masters and slaves. The innocent will turn out to be jaded and the jaded revealed to be innocent. I'll leave the details to the curious, except to warn of a particularly laughable scene in which Larry encounters Alice at a strip club--did I fail to mention that lovely, sweet, decent Alice is also a stripper?--to swap heartbreak stories and some more graphic sex talk. "I love everything about you that hurts," Larry confesses, moments before demanding that she drop trou, turn around, and bend over, "for my viewing pleasure."

Such ostentatious melodrama may have worked on stage, where emotional fireworks are sometimes the price of reaching people in the back rows. But the up-close medium of film requires either more subdued, realistic portrayals or an explicit admission of theatricality. What Closer needed was a director who would take it in the latter direction, recognizing that it bore no resemblance to the reality of urban romance and embracing its B-movie sleaziness. What it got instead was Mike Nichols, a director whose sense of his own cinematic daring has now outlived said daring by a few decades. Although Closer benefits from Nichols's technical command--it is inarguably a "well-made" film--it is very nearly sunk by the same self-admiring earnestness he displayed with the HBO miniseries Angels in America , another corny, out-of-date project that mistook itself for cutting edge.

That Closer manages to stay afloat, at least some of the time, is a testament to its cast. As Dan, Law digs a little deeper than he did in his dozen-odd other 2004 performances, almost finding a thread that can tie together his character's alternating recessive and assertive selves. Roberts gives a low-key, committed performance as Anna, although at times it's unclear what she's committed to . While playwright Marber makes the motivations of his male characters all too evident--varying combinations of sexual desire, sexual jealousy, sexual neediness, and sexual one-upsmanship--he seems at a loss as to why his ladies do what they do, eventually settling for the catchall explanations that Anna is a "depressive" and Alice is an impulsively self-reinventing mystery woman. (His male-centric lens is evident in a Larry line that appeared in the trailer but not the film itself: "You women don't understand the territory. Because you are the territory.")

But the great pleasure of the film, the best if not only reason to see it, is Clive Owen. He alone seems to grasp his character's fundamental ridiculousness, and he throws himself into the role with carnivorous gusto. With his big head and big hands, Owen physically dominates every scene he is in. His Larry is by turns ferocious and tender, meek and mighty, a Noble Savage for the telecommunications age. For a while now, Owen has been talked about as a possible heir to the throne of James Bond--a role in which he'd be magnificent, if only the franchise weren't some forty years removed from making films worthy of him. While Closer may not have won him an Oscar last month, his nomination was a suitable announcement of his arrival as an actor.

For all the accolades, the same cannot be said of Natalie Portman, who is the one broken link in Closer 's sexual daisy chain. The failure is not entirely her fault: Alice, like Anna, is a character whose motivations are not only largely unknown but by design unknowable, a walking argument for the inscrutability of womanhood. Moreover, it's hard to shake the impression that whoever came up with the idea of casting luminous china-doll Portman in the role of world-weary stripper has never actually seen the inside of a gentleman's club.

But Portman's disappointment extends beyond the particulars of the role. Early in her career, when she played child characters ( The Professional , Beautiful Girls ), she seemed old beyond her years. But somehow as she's graduated to adult roles she seems ever more like a child, as though she's shrinking before our eyes. (When, early in Closer , she jokingly describes herself as a "waif," the comment strikes a little too close to the mark.) Portman's tiny stature and delicate features contribute to this impression, of course, but there's more to it than that. As her star has ascended she's seemed somehow less and less touched by real life. For a while it was possible to put this off on her turn as George Lucas's child-queen. But in Closer , as in Garden State (and even her small role in Cold Mountain ), there's something disconcertingly girlish about her. She's a little too unsure of herself and eager to please, like a politician's good-girl daughter who's clever enough to recognize she's been coddled but not selfish enough to feel she deserves it. If Portman is to grow as an actress she will have to indulge herself more, forego her tentativeness and decency, and take what she wants without apology.

Closer would have been well-served had it done the same. For a movie so ardently committed to pushing the envelope, it ends rather timidly. Selfishness and deceit are punished; generosity and truthfulness are rewarded, at least relatively speaking. The final dramatic act, the slapping of a woman whom we imagine has been slapped before, is treated as a shocking, unforgivable transgression--this, by a film that has spent the previous 90 minutes engineering vicious sexual betrayals and congratulating itself on its bleak vision of the world. At Anna's photography opening, Alice describes the pictures as "a lie ... a bunch of sad strangers photographed beautifully." Closer is that, and less: a lie that in the end doesn't even have the conviction of its own malice.

The Home Movies List: Cruel Endings

The Third Man (1949). The last scene--the empty road, the falling leaves,     Joseph Cotton leaning against a fence as Alida Valli walks past--is among     the most bleakly beautiful of all time. Incredibly, in Graham Greene's     original script, it played the other way, with Valli taking Cotton's arm.     Thank goodness director Carol Reed had the sense to see that this story     couldn't possibly end happily.

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964). Have the story and the telling     ever been more wonderfully at odds than in Jacques Demy's      masterpiece , a jaded humanist fable filled with color and music? Like     Reed, Demy was wise enough to know that the ending audiences     wanted was not one he could give them.

Get Carter (1971). A lean, vicious little film starring Michael Caine as a     hoodlum who seeks vengeance for his brother's death and finds a great     deal of it. Intoxicatingly unpleasant.

Silence of the Lambs (1991). Unique in this list, in that the filmmakers     seemed oddly oblivious to the bitterness of its conclusion. After all the     earnest urgency with which Clarice Starling sought Buffalo Bill, we're     meant to think it funny at the end that a far more frightening monster     has escaped.

The Last Seduction (1994). Crueler even than the ending of the film is     that Linda Fiorentino--who must have known, even then, that this was     the role of her lifetime--was deemed ineligible for Oscar consideration     thanks to the film's debut on HBO.

This post originally appeared at TNR.com

Closer (United States, 2004)

If you pay attention to Hollywood's romantic comedies, the interaction between men and women is all about love and companionship. If you instead rely upon the philosophy of Closer , it's all about power. Closer starts like a nice romantic drama, with a couple of "meet cutes" (as Roger Ebert calls them), then does a 180-degree turn and shows what happens when happily ever after rots from the inside out. It isn't just the relationships that curdle, but the characters. Their interaction becomes bitter and cynical. Sex is a tool used in power struggles and one-upsmanship games. Although the word "love" is mentioned a few times, it has little place in this movie, where emotions are weaknesses to be exploited by others. With Closer , director Mike Nichols and screenwriter Patrick Marber (translating his stage play) have ventured into Neil LaBute territory ( In the Company of Men, Your Friends and Neighbors ). For Nichols, this is not new terrain - he has visited here twice previously, in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Carnal Knowledge . Put those two older films together with Closer and you get a grim trilogy that doesn't have a lot of good things to say about the human condition.

On the surface, Closer is the story of two couples whose infidelities rip them apart. Dan (Jude Law) and Alice (Natalie Portman) meet on the streets of London when she is hit by a car and he comes to her rescue. He takes her to a hospital and the pair are soon living together. But Dan, an obituary writer who has penned a novel, finds himself obsessed with Anna (Julia Roberts), a photographer who takes the picture for his book jacket. He wants her, and tells her so, but she demurs when she learns he has a live-in girlfriend. "You're taken," she comments, as if that puts an end to things. Dan inadvertently introduces Larry (Clive Owen) to Anna when a practical joke (in which he pretends to be Anna in an Internet sex chat room) goes awry. The two start a romance, and are eventually married. But there's sexual chemistry between Dan and Anna, and, to a lesser extent, between Larry and Alice. Over the next four years (the film occasionally jumps forward by months in order to span that much time), infidelities occur, betrayals are discovered, and all manner of ugliness ensues. From a physical standpoint, Closer is not a violent film. From an emotional one, it's brutal. Nichols doesn't pull his punches. You leave the theater shaken.

The film is notable for its frank dialogue. There's plenty of profanity and also a host of interesting observations. (Although these characters speak with an erudition not found in conversations between real people.) Closer is talky, but in a smart way. You never feel that the characters are talking to hear their own words or to fill up screen time. Nevertheless, those unaware that the story began its life as a play will not be surprised to learn this fact. Yet the rawness of emotions keeps us from noticing how few sets there are, and how little conventional "action" occurs.

The film turns the tables on just about everyone. Users become victims, and vice versa. Innocence is corrupted, and corruption learns too late that there's no return path. Alice, who is arguably the most naïve member of the ensemble (despite being a stripper by profession), is hurt the most deeply, and that pain results in an irrevocable change. Larry, a decent guy when the film starts, turns into a cold, calculating man, having sex on at least two occasions to torment Dan. In the end, he wants to possess Anna not out of love, but because doing so means beating Dan. But to paint Dan as guiltless is unfair - he's a weasel (albeit a charming one) and an instigator. He cheats without concern for repercussions, then is astounded when any of them impact him. Anna is fundamentally weak and dishonest. She doles out and receives hurt in equal measures.

In Closer , the actors get a chance to shine, and no one is brighter than Clive Owen. Despite a number of memorable turns (and one big mistake: King Arthur ), Owen still lacks household recognition. A likely (and deserved) Oscar nomination for this performance will change that. The ferocity with which Owen delivers his lines, and the restless energy he imparts to Larry, electrifies every scene that he's in. Closer 's two most riveting sequences involve Owen and Natalie Portman - one in an art gallery where they first meet, and the other in a strip club where he has all the money but she has the power, and uses it.

Portman, in what has been called her first truly adult role (it's certainly nowhere close to Queen Amidala), is also very, very good. Like Owen, she must essay a character who undergoes a complete personality transformation - from vulnerable waif to ice queen seductress. There's a rawness and courage to her work (and, although there's no overt physical nudity due to camera placement, her scenes in the strip club are frank). The aforementioned scenes are Portman's highlights as well as Owen's, and she has one other - a heartbreaking moment in which she turns to the camera with tears on her face, and we recognize that the first piece of Alice's innocence has been stolen.

It would be unfair to describe either Julia Roberts' or Jude Law's performances as "lesser," but the two high-profile actors are not on the same level as their compatriots. Each has their moments, but neither captures the attention of the camera with the intensity of Owen or Portman. This is Roberts the actress, not Roberts the movie star (see Ocean's Twelve if you're craving for the latter), and her dedication to the role rather than glamour serves her well. Law is a little flat; I actually found him more convincing in Alfie .

Movies that look deeply into the human soul and uncover putrefaction are hard sells. But they are also some of the most fascinating films to be found. Are Nichols and Marber's characters too cynically drawn? Perhaps. Do they occasionally seem like marionettes manipulated by a clever writer? Yes. But those things don't diminish the film's compelling emotional qualities. Closer is powerful and disturbing stuff. It is not life-affirming, and it's not for those who want to leave a movie theater uplifted and convinced that fairy tale endings can happen. And this is most definitely not a date movie. But if you appreciate films that are more substance than style, that take challenges and don't follow formulas, and that feature Oscar-caliber performances, Closer is not to be missed.

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FILM REVIEW

When Talk Is Sexier Than a Clichéd Clinch

By A.o. Scott

• Dec. 3, 2004

Like most interesting movies about sex, "Closer," Mike Nichols's deft film adaptation of a well-known play by Patrick Marber, is mostly talk. There are still a few filmmakers -- not all of them French -- who are capable of infusing the bodily expressions of erotic desire with dramatic force and psychological meaning, but the vast majority are content with a few moments of sheet-twisting and peek-a-boo montage.

In the past, Mr. Nichols has usually addressed sexuality with an elegant mixture of candor and discretion, and his intention in "Closer," which brings him back to the raw, needy emotions of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and "Carnal Knowledge," seems to be to show very little while saying a great deal. There is some display of skin: one of the characters, after all, is a stripper (another happens to be a dermatologist) and a pivotal scene unfolds in her place of work. But even that moment is less memorable for Natalie Portman's near-nudity than for the emotional self-exposure of the fully clothed Clive Owen.

The verbal intercourse that dominates that scene and every other in the film is vigorous, compulsive, sometimes painful and occasionally funny, as well as more stimulating -- for the characters, one suspects, as much as the audience -- than the physical intercourse that is its frequent subject. It is also mannered, schematic and frequently improbable, defects in Mr. Marber's play that Mr. Nichols and his strenuously engaged cast labor mightily to overcome.

Although "Closer" moves gracefully through the streets and rooms of contemporary London, it never quite shakes off the stasis and claustrophobia that haunt even the best screen adaptations of self-conscious, over-reaching serious drama. At times, the smooth naturalism of Mr. Nichols's direction emphasizes the archness and artificiality of Mr. Marber's dialogue and the unreality of the people speaking it.

Nonetheless, those people, though they are increasingly difficult to like, do manage to command a degree of curious attention. There are four of them, free-floating representatives of the disconnected contemporary tribe of wandering city-dwellers, arranged by Mr. Marber (who wrote the screenplay) and Mr. Nichols into a tight, ever-shifting grid of jealousy, longing and deceit.

The opening sequence is a barbed variation on the romantic comedy cliché of "meeting cute." Ms. Portman, playing Alice, a transplanted American, ambles along a crowded sidewalk. Walking toward her is Jude Law, whose character, Dan, is a newspaper obituary writer with literary aspirations. Their eyes lock across an intersection, into which Alice steps -- looking, as Americans will, in the wrong direction. The taxicab that knocks her down is a hulking metaphor for the narrative that follows, in which Alice and Dan -- along with Larry (Mr. Owen) and Anna (Julia Roberts), whose own cute meeting via mistaken identity and the Internet soon follows -- collide by accident, continually blindsided by one another and by their own feelings.

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Roger Ebert's 10 greatest films of all time

By David Morgan

April 8, 2013 / 1:54 PM EDT / CBS News

Updated April 8 1:53 p.m. ET

(CBS News) There were few more passionate advocates for films as art than Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert, who died Thursday at the age of 70 after a long battle against cancer.

Despite the seeming limitations of serving as the co-host of a syndicated TV review show and plying his trade in the Midwest (where distribution of independent or foreign-language films can be spotty at best), Ebert helped shine a light on deserving films to millions. He was an early supporter of such noted directors as Martin Scorsese, Spike Lee and Werner Herzog, and his published collections of film criticism offered a bracing celebration of cinematic innovation and emotional clarity (and, in the case of "I Hated, Hated, HATED This Movie," a piercing cry against mediocrity).

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In 2012 the British Film Institute's Sight & Sound magazine polled international critics to choose their 10 favorite films, as it has every decade since 1952. Ebert once again offered his selection , despite his qualms about reducing his passion for the medium into a tidy Top-10 list. ("Lists are ridiculous, but if you're going to vote, you have to play the game," he relented.) Films which he'd previously included in his S&S polls, such as "Notorious" and the documentary "Gates of Heaven," he considered thusly canonized, and was willing to cut loose, to welcome new entries into the pantheon.

• "Vertigo" tops "Kane" in critics' poll of greatest films

The following, in alphabetical order, are Ebert's 2012 choices. Click through this gallery by the tabs up top to read excerpts from his published reviews.

"Aguirre, Wrath of God" (1972), directed by Werner Herzog

"Werner Herzog's 'Aguirre, the Wrath of God' is one of the great haunting visions of the cinema. It tells the story of the doomed expedition of the conquistador Gonzalo Pizarro, who in 1560 and 1561 led a body of men into the Peruvian rain forest, lured by stories of the lost city. . . .

"The film is not driven by dialogue . . . or even by the characters, except for Aguirre, whose personality is created as much by [Klaus] Kinski's face and body as by words. What Herzog sees in the story, I think, is what he finds in many of his films: Men haunted by a vision of great achievement, who commit the sin of pride by daring to reach for it, and are crushed by an implacable universe."

• Ebert review: "Aguirre, Wrath of God"

"Apocalypse Now" (1979) directed by Francis Ford Coppola

Ebert wrote in 1999, "[S]een again now at a distance of 20 years, 'Apocalypse Now' is more clearly than ever one of the key films of the century. Most films are lucky to contain a single great sequence. 'Apocalypse Now' strings together one after another, with the river journey as the connecting link. The best is the helicopter attack on a Vietnam village, led by Col. Kilgore (Robert Duvall), whose choppers use loudspeakers at top volume to play Wagner's 'Ride of the Valkyries' as they swoop down on a yard full of schoolchildren. Duvall won an Oscar nomination for his performance and its unforgettable line, 'I love the smell of napalm in the morning.' His emptiness is frightening ..."

• Ebert review: "Apocalypse Now"

"Citizen Kane" (1941) directed by Orson Welles

" 'Rosebud' is the emblem of the security, hope and innocence of childhood, which a man can spend his life seeking to regain. It is the green light at the end of Gatsby's pier; the leopard atop Kilimanjaro, seeking nobody knows what; the bone tossed into the air in '2001.' It is that yearning after transience that adults learn to suppress. 'Maybe Rosebud was something he couldn't get, or something he lost,' says Thompson, the reporter assigned to the puzzle of Kane's dying word. 'Anyway, it wouldn't have explained anything.' True, it explains nothing, but it is remarkably satisfactory as a demonstration that nothing can be explained.

"'Citizen Kane' likes playful paradoxes like that. Its surface is as much fun as any movie ever made. Its depths surpass understanding. I have analyzed it a shot at a time with more than 30 groups, and together we have seen, I believe, pretty much everything that is there on the screen. The more clearly I can see its physical manifestation, the more I am stirred by its mystery."

• Ebert review: "Citizen Kane"

"La Dolce Vita" (1960) directed by Federico Fellini

"Movies do not change, but their viewers do. When I saw 'La Dolce Vita'' in 1960, 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.

"When I saw the movie around 1980, Marcello was the same age, but I was 10 years older, had stopped drinking, and saw him not as a 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 Mastroianni died, I thought that 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."

• Ebert review" "La Dolce Vita"

"The General" (1927) directed by Buster Keaton

"Buster Keaton was not the Great Stone Face so much as a man who kept his composure in the center of chaos. Other silent actors might mug to get a point across, but Keaton remained observant and collected. That's one reason his best movies have aged better than those of his rival, Charlie Chaplin. He seems like a modern visitor to the world of the silent clowns. ...

"Today I look at Keaton's works more often than any other silent films. They have such a graceful perfection, such a meshing of story, character and episode, that they unfold like music. Although they're filled with gags, you can rarely catch Keaton writing a scene around a gag; instead, the laughs emerge from the situation; he was 'the still, small, suffering center of the hysteria of slapstick,' wrote the critic Karen Jaehne. And in an age when special effects were in their infancy, and a 'stunt' often meant actually doing on the screen what you appeared to be doing, Keaton was ambitious and fearless. He had a house collapse around him. He swung over a waterfall to rescue a woman he loved. He fell from trains. And always he did it in character, playing a solemn and thoughtful man who trusts in his own ingenuity."

• Ebert review: "The General"

"Raging Bull" (1980) directed by Martin Scorsese

" 'Raging Bull' is not a film about boxing but about a man with paralyzing jealousy and sexual insecurity, for whom being punished in the ring serves as confession, penance and absolution. It is no accident that the screenplay never concerns itself with fight strategy. For Jake LaMotta, what happens during a fight is controlled not by tactics but by his fears and drives.

"Consumed by rage after his wife, Vickie, unwisely describes one of his opponents as 'good-looking,' he pounds the man's face into a pulp, and in the audience a Mafia boss leans over to his lieutenant and observes, 'He ain't pretty no more.' After the punishment has been delivered, Jake (Robert De Niro) looks not at his opponent, but into the eyes of his wife (Cathy Moriarty), who gets the message. . . .

" 'Raging Bull' is the most painful and heartrending portrait of jealousy in the cinema -- an 'Othello' for our times. It's the best film I've seen about the low self-esteem, sexual inadequacy and fear that lead some men to abuse women. Boxing is the arena, not the subject. LaMotta was famous for refusing to be knocked down in the ring. There are scenes where he stands passively, his hands at his side, allowing himself to be hammered. We sense why he didn't go down. He hurt too much to allow the pain to stop."

• Ebert review: "Raging Bull

"Tokyo Story" (1953) directed by Yasujiro Ozu

"It is clear that 'Tokyo Story' was one of the unacknowledged masterpieces of the early-1950s Japanese cinema, and that Ozu has more than a little in common with that other great director, Kenji Mizoguchi ('Ugetsu'). Both of them use their cameras as largely impassive, honest observers. Both seem reluctant to manipulate the real time in which their scenes are acted; Ozu uses very restrained editing, and Mizoguchi often shoots scenes in unbroken takes.

"This objectivity creates an interesting effect; because we are not being manipulated by devices of editing and camera movement, we do not at first have any very strong reaction to 'Tokyo Story.' We miss the visual cues and shorthand used by Western directors to lead us by the nose. With Ozu, it's as if the characters are living their lives unaware that a movie is being shot. And so we get to know them gradually, begin to look for personal characteristics and to understand the implications of little gestures and quiet remarks.

" 'Tokyo Story' moves quite slowly by our Western standards, and requires more patience at first than some moviegoers may be willing to supply. Its effect is cumulative, however; the pace comes to seem perfectly suited to the material. And there are scenes that will be hard to forget: The mother and father separately thanking the daughter-in-law for her kindness; the father's laborious drunken odyssey through a night of barroom nostalgia; and his reaction when he learns that his wife will probably die."

• Ebert review" "Tokyo Story"

"The Tree of Life" (2011) directed by Terrence Malick

"Terrence Malick's 'The Tree of Life' is a film of vast ambition and deep humility, attempting no less than to encompass all of existence and view it through the prism of a few infinitesimal lives. The only other film I've seen with this boldness of vision is Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey,' and it lacked Malick's fierce evocation of human feeling. There were once several directors who yearned to make no less than a masterpiece, but now there are only a few. Malick has stayed true to that hope ever since his first feature in 1973.

"I don't know when a film has connected more immediately with my own personal experience. In uncanny ways, the central events of 'The Tree of Life' reflect a time and place I lived in, and the boys in it are me. If I set out to make an autobiographical film, and if I had Malick's gift, it would look so much like this."

• Ebert review: "The Tree of Life"

"2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968) directed by Stanley Kubrick

"The genius is not in how much Stanley Kubrick does in '2001: A Space Odyssey,' but in how little. This is the work of an artist so sublimely confident that he doesn't include a single shot simply to keep our attention. He reduces each scene to its essence, and leaves it on screen long enough for us to contemplate it, to inhabit it in our imaginations. Alone among science-fiction movies, '2001' is not concerned with thrilling us, but with inspiring our awe. ...

"The film did not provide the clear narrative and easy entertainment cues the audience expected. The closing sequences, with the astronaut inexplicably finding himself in a bedroom somewhere beyond Jupiter, were baffling. The overnight Hollywood judgment was that Kubrick had become derailed, that in his obsession with effects and set pieces, he had failed to make a movie.

"What he had actually done was make a philosophical statement about man's place in the universe, using images as those before him had used words, music or prayer. And he had made it in a way that invited us to contemplate it -- not to experience it vicariously as entertainment, as we might in a good conventional science-fiction film, but to stand outside it as a philosopher might, and think about it."

• Ebert's review: "2001: A Space Odyssey"

"Vertigo" (1958) directed by Alfred Hitchcock

" 'Vertigo,' which is one of the two or three best films Hitchcock ever made, is the most confessional, dealing directly with the themes that controlled his art. It is *about* how Hitchcock used, feared and tried to control women. He is represented by Scottie (James Stewart), a man with physical and mental weaknesses (back problems, fear of heights), who falls obsessively in love with the image of a woman -- and not any woman, but the quintessential Hitchcock woman. When he cannot have her, he finds another woman and tries to mold her, dress her, train her, change her makeup and her hair, until she looks like the woman he desires. He cares nothing about the clay he is shaping; he will gladly sacrifice her on the altar of his dreams."

• Ebert review: "Vertigo"

For more on Roger Ebert:

• rogerebert.com
• "Life Itself: A Memoir by Roger Ebert (Grand Central)

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Roger Ebert’s Final List of His Top 10 Favorite Films

in Film | July 9th, 2014 33 Comments

Image by Sound Opin­ions, via Flickr Com­mons

Roger Ebert seems to have resent­ed star rat­ings, which he had to dish out atop each and every one of his hun­dreds upon hun­dreds of reg­u­lar news­pa­per movie reviews. He also empha­sized, every once in a while, his dis­dain for the “thumbs up” and “thumbs down” sys­tem that became his and Gene Siskel’s tele­vi­sion trade­mark. And he could hard­ly ever abide that run-of-the-mill crit­ic’s stand­by, the top-ten list. Film­go­ers who nev­er paid atten­tion to Ebert’s career will like­ly, at this point, insist that the man nev­er real­ly liked any­thing, but those of us who read him for years, even decades, know the true depth and scope of his love for movies, a pas­sion he even expressed, reg­u­lar­ly, in list form. He did so for, as he put it , “the one sin­gle list of inter­est to me. Every 10 years, the ancient and ven­er­a­ble British film mag­a­zine, Sight & Sound , polls the world’s direc­tors, movie crit­ics, and assort­ed pro­duc­ers, cin­e­math­eque oper­a­tors and fes­ti­val direc­tors, etc., to deter­mine the Great­est Films of All Time.”

“Why do I val­ue this poll more than oth­ers?” Ebert asks. “It has sen­ti­men­tal val­ue. The first time I saw it in the mag­a­zine, I was much impressed by the names of the vot­ers, and felt a thrill to think that I might some­day be invit­ed to join their num­bers. I was teach­ing a film course in the Uni­ver­si­ty of Chicago’s Fine Arts Pro­gram, and taught class­es of the top ten films in 1972, 1982 and 1992.” His dream came true, and when he wrote this reflec­tion on send­ing in his list every decade, he did so a year near­ly to the day before his death in 2013, mak­ing his entry in the 2012  Sight & Sound  poll a kind of last top-ten tes­ta­ment:

• 2001: A Space Odyssey   (Stan­ley Kubrick, 1968)
• Aguirre, the Wrath of God   (Wern­er Her­zog, 1972)
• Apoc­a­lypse Now   (Fran­cis Ford Cop­po­la, 1979)
• Cit­i­zen Kane   (Orson Welles, 1941)
• La dolce vita  (Fed­eri­co Felli­ni, 1960)
• The Gen­er­al  (Buster Keaton, 1926) — free online
• Rag­ing Bull   (Mar­tin Scors­ese, 1980)
• Tokyo Sto­ry (Yasu­jirô Ozu, 1953)
• The Tree of Life   (Ter­rence Mal­ick, 2010)
• Ver­ti­go (Alfred Hitch­cock, 1958)

Decid­ing that he must vote for “one new film” he had­n’t includ­ed on his 2002 list, Ebert nar­rowed it down to two can­di­dates:  The Tree of Life and Char­lie Kauf­man’s  Synec­doche, New York . “Like the Her­zog, the Kubrick and the Cop­po­la, they are films of almost fool­hardy ambi­tion. Like many of the films on my list, they were direct­ed by the artist who wrote them. Like sev­er­al of them, they attempt no less than to tell the sto­ry of an entire life. [ … ] I could have cho­sen either film — I chose The Tree of Life because it’s more affir­ma­tive and hope­ful. I realise that isn’t a defen­si­ble rea­son for choos­ing one film over the oth­er, but it is my rea­son, and mak­ing this list is essen­tial­ly impos­si­ble, any­way.”  That did­n’t stop his cinephil­ia from pre­vail­ing — not that much ever could.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Roger Ebert Talks Mov­ing­ly About Los­ing and Re-Find­ing His Voice (TED 2011)

The Two Roger Eberts: Emphat­ic Crit­ic on TV; Inci­sive Review­er in Print

Roger Ebert Lists the 10 Essen­tial Char­ac­ter­is­tics of Noir Films

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on cities, lan­guage, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer . Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book .

by Colin Marshall | Permalink | Comments (33) |

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Comments (33), 33 comments so far.

I can’t even imag­ine the amount of films Ebert must have watched in his life­time…

Are these films in any order?

They’re in alpha­bet­i­cal order

I’m 44 and I’ve only seen one of the movies on this list of his (Rag­ing Bull, which I thought was pret­ty bor­ing.)

2001 and Cit­i­zen Kane are bor­ing, too.

And yet he has includ­ed an über corny and decid­ed­ly clum­sy movie like Tree of Life in his top ten.

Seri­ous­ly makes me doubt every­thing that man has ever said about the art of film.

2001, Cit­i­zen Kane bor­ing?

Is that sup­posed to be a joke?

“Rag­ing Bull”.…boring?! .…Bor­ing??!! … Wow!! .…To each his own I guess. Then just a few lines down “Cit­i­zen Kane” also described as bor­ing?! … Strange how 2 peo­ple that have such a bla­tant dis­re­gard for what are wide­ly con­sid­ered 2 of the best films of all time!!!…Just strange how these 2 peo­ple even found there way to com­ment on this thread linked to one of the most famous film crit­ics of all time … some one who absolute­ly adored film and even for a film that Roger Ebert loathed he at least had enough respect for films he hat­ed to bestow upon them a lite­ny of adjec­tives to which they would be laid to shame in that they could at least be proud that they died a good death. But to just mere­ly call a film “boring”.…..is the biggest injus­tice you can give a film. Even a film you dis­like has to call rise to some­thing inside you … that you would at least be man enough to look it in its eyes as you gut it from spleen to spine!!!.…A lone pithy word … “bor­ing” .… expound­ing no further…is to stab it in the back while it expos­es all its vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties to the world. A film you dis­like deserves all the same pas­sion you bestow on the films you love oth­er­wise just get up and leave the the­ater after the trail­ers have con­clud­ed because you have noth­ing deep­er to offer medi­um.

In my opin­ion these are the top 10 movies of all time:

1. There Will Be Blood 2. Pan’s Labyrinth 3. Let­ters from Iwo Jima 4. The 33 5. 12 Angry Men 6. The Ten Com­mand­ments 7. Willy Won­ka and the Choco­late Fac­to­ry 8. A Hard Day’s Night 9. Snow White and the Sev­en Dwarfs 10. Rata­touille

In this 37 year old’s opin­ion there are the great­est films of all time:

1. There Will Be Blood 2. Pan’s Labyrinth 3. Let­ters from Iwo Jima 4. The 33 5. The Ten Com­mand­ments 6. A Hard Day’s Night 7. 12 Angry Men 8. Snow White and the Sev­en Dwarfs 9. Rata­touille 10. Willy Won­ka and the Choco­late Fac­to­ry

The movie stands on its own, leav­ing one ques­tion?

I once lis­tened to movie crit­ics dis­cuss the Acad­e­my Awards. They had all kinds of ideas as to why this movie was vot­ed best, over anoth­er. The con­ver­sa­tion got heat­ed, then one per­son chimed in…”…Hey,…the rea­son this or that got the award,…it was VOTED in !”.…Which is the truth. Movies are released, at giv­en dates so they can be viewed and peo­ple can vote for the movie, in time for the Awards, that year. Full page ads are tak­en out in news­pa­pers, like Vari­ety and papers in cer­tain demo­graph­ic regions to bring the movies to the atten­tion of viewers…and vot­ers. Mem­bers of the Acad­e­my ( the only ones who can vote for a movie, by the way) get calls, and now I guess emails, and oth­er prods to vote for this one or that. Who ever wins an acad­e­my award, be they actor or direc­tor has just moved in to the Mil­lion dol­lar a pic­ture class… So, don’t get bent out of shape, if YOUR favorite movie is not rat­ed high­ly. The entire award process is SUBJECTIVE and high­ly moti­vat­ed by MONEY. It is inter­est­ing that many movies debut and are not high­ly regarded…but over time, crit­ics study them and come to the con­clu­sion that there is some­thing great there. Movies have been around for 100+ years. Go back and dis­cov­er movies you have not seen before.….re-see movies you saw in your youth. The def­i­n­i­tion of a clas­sic is a movie you can watch over and over again and it nev­er gets stale. I have my favorites…” 2001 Space Odyssey”. “Clock Work Orange” ” The Year­ling” “ mag­nif­i­cent 7” ( orig­i­nal with Yul Bryn­ner, etc.) ” The Thing (from anoth­er world)” (orig­i­nal with Ken­neth Tobey, etc)..” the best years of their lives”…” 30 sec­onds over tokyo”.…” A guy named Joe”…“sunrise”..” the Gen­er­al”..” The Great Dic­ta­tor” ( char­lie Chap­lin)…” things to come”..” the day the earth stood still” ( orig­i­nal with michael ren­nie, not the trash re make) ..” Carosel”…” the sound of music”…” the pawn bro­ker”…” 12 angry men” ( orig­i­nal with Hen­ry Fon­da)…” fail­safe”…” dr stran­glove”…” loli­ta” ( orig­i­nal with Shelly Win­ters, etc)..” night of the hunter” (the only movie direct­ed by Charles Laughton)..” the hunch­back of notre dame” ( 1939 ver­sion star­ring charles laughton)..” moby Dick” ( gre­go­ry Peck)…” red drag­on” ( ralph fiennes)..” silence of the lambs”..“them”.….etc.….ENJOY…

“Strange how 2 peo­ple that have such a bla­tant dis­re­gard for what are wide­ly con­sid­ered 2 of the best films of all time!!!…Just strange how these 2 peo­ple even found there way to com­ment on this thread linked to one of the most famous film crit­ics of all time”

“wide­ly con­sid­ered 2 of the best films of all time!!!” “wide­ly con­sid­ered 2 of the best films of all time!!!” “wide­ly con­sid­ered 2 of the best films of all time!!!” “one of the most famous film crit­ics of all time” “one of the most famous film crit­ics of all time” “one of the most famous film crit­ics of all time”

Strange how a sin­gle word like “bor­ing” can be so trig­ger­ing, can be viewed as “bla­tant dis­re­gard”. Just strange how peo­ple teach you which film is great by keep­ing men­tion­ing that oth­er peo­ple think which film is great.

“A film you dis­like deserves all the same pas­sion you bestow on the films you love oth­er­wise just get up and leave the the­ater after the trail­ers have con­clud­ed because you have noth­ing deep­er to offer medi­um. ”

Real­ly? Do you show all the same pas­sion to what­ev­er you watch? Do you have some­thing deep to offer oth­er than some angry mum­bo-jum­bo?

Unlike a num­ber of com­ments, Roger Ebert would elab­o­rate his opin­ion to more than a few words. If peo­ple find these films bor­ing then that’s unfor­tu­nate for them real­ly. I under­stand why peo­ple might think Cit­i­zen Kane is bor­ing as the pace is often slow but it may be worth watch­ing it acknowl­edg­ing that it was made almost 80 years ago and that a lot of films released and enjoyed since were inspired by it and imi­tat­ed it.

I’m obvi­ous­ly here look­ing for a list as well but I like Ebert’s com­ment about top 10s. What defines a top film any­way? Is it pos­si­ble that the no.1 on Mon­day is the same as on Tues­day? I don’t real­ly see any enjoy­ment at all in find­ing your no.1 film. It seems a child­like behav­iour, loop­ing the same film again and again.

i know. in eng­lish.

i am omni­scient after all. in no order. some might real­ly be a slow as 100 best.

2001 apoc­a­lypse now gates of heav­en (doc­u­men­tary) brideshead revis­it­ed (1981) dr strangelove the right stuff (docu­d­ra­ma) the hus­tler amer­i­can gigo­lo (only half jok­ing) lit­tle chil­dren the world at war (doc­u­men­tary)

How about Fargo,High Sier­ra and The African Queen.

Real­ly, what’s bor­ing about them no car chase?

It is quite strange to see this list from Roger Ebert, because he was noto­ri­ous for con­sis­tent­ly refus­ing to answer ques­tions about his “10 favorite” any­thing.

Michael, I hope you’ll watch more movies. *Snow White and the Sev­en Dwarfs* is the only thing you’ve list­ed made before 1956! Five of your films were made in 2005 or after.

I hope you’ll recon­sid­er *Let­ters from Iwo Jima*. It’s marred by sen­ti­men­tal­i­ty and self-serv­ing his­tor­i­cal dis­tor­tion. I lived in Japan for four years, and the Min­istry of Edu­ca­tion squelch­es any attempt to put evi­dence of Japan­ese war crimes—or even of Japan­ese aggres­sion against Manchuria, Korea, etc.—from the cur­ricu­lum. The film amount­ed to a bow-wrapped gift, and the manip­u­la­tion through sen­ti­men­tal­i­ty made it even more nau­se­at­ing. Nev­er­the­less, this is the kind of manip­u­la­tion that Japan­ese often don’t see because so much of Japan­ese pop cul­ture is sen­ti­men­tal. The screen­play was a Japan­ese prod­uct. Clint East­wood’s per­for­mances and movies aren’t known for depth or sub­tle­ty of emo­tion or even thought. If you haven’t seen *Unfor­giv­en* yet, you should.

Artis­tic eval­u­a­tion is always sub­jec­tive. I thought every­one knew that. How­ev­er, what’s rare is being able to explain and/or defend why one likes one movie and hates anoth­er. Some­times the answers seem pret­ty obvi­ous, but oth­er times a movie goes through strange crit­i­cal meta­mor­phoses, usu­al­ly from the bot­tom up (the audi­ence) than the top down (the crit­ics). Film­mak­ers can be tem­pera­men­tal­ly from either camp or both. In the case of the *Cahiers du cin­e­ma* crowd, they were crit­ics who became film­mak­ers, so I guess that’s why Truf­faut’s cham­pi­oning of Hitch­cock as an auteur had such a pro­found impact.

There is no such thing as a list of “the best movies of all time.” And Roger Ebert point­ed this out con­tin­u­al­ly through­out his writ­ing career. He always said this was a list of HIS favorite movies. And he was quick to say that these were the movies that affect­ed him the most on an EMOTIONAL LEVEL. You think Cit­i­zen Kane is bor­ing? Good for you! That’s total­ly fine because it’s your reac­tion and that’s per­fect­ly valid. I found “Armaged­don” star­ring Bruce Willis out­ra­geous­ly bor­ing, but again, it’s just one man’s opin­ion.

So here’s my per­son­al take on the ten best films: Rear Win­dow Cit­i­zen Kane Wild Straw­ber­ries The Wages of Fear 2001: A Space Odyssey Chi­na­town Blade Run­ner Blue Vel­vet Raiders of the Lost Ark The Silence of the Lambs

But again that’s just one man’s opin­ion. These are the movies that I per­son­al­ly love to watch the most. There’s no such thing as a Ten Best Films of All Time!

Just like imag­ine, I don’t know, maybe some­thing in the region of lit­er­al­ly loads and load and loads of films stretch­ing on and on and on or stacked upon each oth­er so they go high up to the sky and you can bare­ly see the top and I reck­on that’s how many he’s seen and a good way to imag­ine it

Here is my list for movies I want with me when desert­ed on an island:

2001, A Space Odyssey One Flew Over the Cuck­oos Next Sling­blade The Wiz­ard of Oz Pulp Fic­tion The Imi­ta­tion Game Mrs. Pal­frey at the Clair­mont Mon­ty Python’s Mean­ing of Life Wood­stock Easy Rid­er Alien The Caine Mutiny Mil­lion Dol­lar Baby Good­fel­las Annie Hall Planes, Trains and Auto­mo­biles Psy­cho Shaw­shank Redemp­tion Being There

All were Ebert 4‑star movies. I picked them from that list, because — and I can­not empha­size this enough — Ebert was NEVER WRONG (except for “Prometheus” but he wrote that review after his ill­ness, and all his reviews were slant­ed pos­i­tive in his last year, God Bless him.)

Let’s hope this island has a TV, a DVD play­er and an elec­tric­i­ty sup­ply

Roger once said that Shaw­shank Redemp­tion was the peo­ple’s favorite film after Cit­i­zen Kane. My favorites are Jesus Of Nazareth and End­less Sum­mer.

To be fair I haven’t seen too many old­er films before 1956, since most old films tend to bore me to tears, but here’s a list of old films which I do tend to love: just about any­thing ani­mat­ed by Dis­ney Mr. Smith Goes to Wash­ing­ton Sergeant York All Qui­et on the West­ern Front 12 Angry Men Plan­et of the Apes A Hard Day’s Night The Ten Com­mand­ments

I tend to love new­er films more often than not so sue me, lol.

And when it comes to Clint East­wood I haven’t seen a sin­gle one of his films made before True Crime in 1999, but out of the films I have seen by Clint here is my per­son­al favorite list: 1. Let­ter’s from Iwo Jima 2. Gran Tori­no 3. Here­after 4. Sul­ly 5. J. Edgar 6. Mil­lion Dol­lar Baby 7. Flags of Our Fathers 8. The 15–17 to Paris 9. True Crime 10. Invic­tus 11. Trou­ble with the Curve 12. Jer­sey Boys 13. Amer­i­can Sniper

And here’s my list of the best films released since 1990: 1990: Stephen King’s IT 1991: Beau­ty and the Beast 1992: A Few Good Men 1993: Schindler’s List 1994: The Shaw­shank Redemp­tion 1995: Poc­a­hon­tas 1996: Sling Blade 1997: Stephen King’s Thin­ner 1998: Sav­ing Pri­vate Ryan 1999: The Green Mile 2000: Almost Famous 2001: Mon­ster’s Ball 2002: Punch-Drunk Love 2003: Kill Bill 2004: Kill Bill 2 2005: Sin City 2006: Pan’s Labyrinth 2007: There Will Be Blood 2008: Gran Tori­no 2009: Avatar 2010: Miley Cyrus’s The Last Song 2011: Har­ry Pot­ter and the Death­ly Hal­lows, Part 2 2012: Brave 2013: The Hob­bit: The Des­o­la­tion of Smaug 2014: The Hob­bit: The Bat­tle of the Five Armies 2015: The 33 2016: Silence 2017: The Dark Tow­er 2018: Bohemi­an Rhap­sody 2019 so far: The Lion King

Two weeks ago I final­ly say Clint East­wood’s The Mule so here is my updat­ed list of how I would now rank the won­der­ful but admit­ted­ly some­what few East­wood movies I have seen, though to be fair Jer­sey Boys and Amer­i­can Sniper will always be last for me since those two movies sim­ply stink. But real­ly every­thing else I’ve seen by him has been absolute­ly fan­tas­tic.

1. Let­ter’s from Iwo Jima 2. Gran Tori­no 3. Here­after 4. Sul­ly 5. J. Edgar 6. Mil­lion Dol­lar Baby 7. Flags of Our Fathers 8. The 15–17 to Paris 9. True Crime 10. The Mule 11. Invic­tus 12. Trou­ble with the Curve 13. Jer­sey Boys 14. Amer­i­can Sniper

Here are my favorite movies of the 80s: 1980: Fri­day the 13th 1981: Fri­day the 13th Part 2 1982: E.T. 1983: Cujo 1984: Fri­day the 13th Part 4 1985: Sil­ver Bul­let 1986: Fri­day the 13th Part 6 1987: The Run­ning Man 1988: Who Framed Roger Rab­bit 1989: Dead Poets Soci­ety

One film I haven’t seen men­tioned is The Third Man. Eas­i­ly in the top ten (imho) and the great­est music ever. Not an opin­ion, a fact (imho)

The Swim­mer Chi­na­town Secret of my Suc­cess Break­ing the Waves Ver­ti­go The Best Years of Our Lives Shaw­shank Redemp­tion Bladerun­ner Secret in Their Eyes (Orig­i­nal) The Apart­ment

*Sweet Smell of Suc­cess

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I couldn’t find a prior thread on this, other than some rants about it in the oscars thread – so, opinions?

I thought it was good but pointless. My guess is that Nichols was trying to make a statement about how shitty love can be, and how it can make you do things that you hate and be things you despise even when you have the best of intentions. To which I say: no shit?

The only really interesting observation I found was Alice’s when she comments that you a choice to fall in love, that right before you do you can give in or you can step back. That goes against the common rationale of “I can’t help how I feel!”.

I’d always thought that Julia Roberts was only an average actress, but for some reason I thought she did a great job here. Between this and Mona Lisa Smile she shows an understated ability to convey feeling and emotion and thought. She may have done that before but, to be honest, I don’t think I’ve seen any of her movies prior to this except Pretty Woman. I don’t even think I saw Flatliners. But I digress.

There’s a recent movie that’s very reminiscent of Closer. Last Night (it’s on Netflix instant). It you’re a Keira Knightley fan, it’s definite watching. Probably her most intimate role, and she’s gorgeous in it.

Holy shit, thread necro from hell, and I’m like “Wait, I posted a thread about that show with Kyra Sedgwick?” Then I read my post…and I don’t remember posting that or ever watching that movie. I looked at the synopsis and STILL don’t remember it. And I looked at some screencaps and vaguely remember Natalie Portman as a stripper (because, well, that’s memorable).

But otherwise…zero recollection of any of this.

You know what a heart looks like? Like a fist wrapped in blood!

It’s minor Nichols.

This movie is horrible, the end.

this movie is awesome, the end.

Screen Rant

10 overlooked thriller movies that roger ebert loved.

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Every Movie Roger Ebert Walked Out On

Michael peña's 10 best movies, ranked, "we’d done a lot of work": woody harrelson recalls trying to rewrite a famous no country for old men scene.

• Roger Ebert's unique rating system helps identify impressive thrillers worth watching, earning them the coveted "thumbs-up".
• Ebert appreciated horror-thriller mixes like "The Possession", lauding fresh twists on familiar formulas in the genre.
• Ebert praised buddy cop film "End of Watch" for its strong performances, chemistry, and depiction of dangerous police work.

The late Roger Ebert is still hailed to this day as one of the greatest film critics ever, and his earnest reviews of thriller movies helped give credit to some undersung gems of the genre. On his eponymous website, rogerebert.com , Ebert's reviews of some of the best thrillers of all time are immortalized, which gave credit where credit was due without holding back on the films that failed to satiate his hunger for suspense. Never one to judge a film by its pedigree or popularity, looking through Ebert's old reviews uncovers some hidden treasures in the thriller space.

The unique rating system of Roger Ebert makes it easy to identify which thrillers were impressive, and which failed to generate the mystery and tension promised by the genre. Those with three stars or above were generally considered to be given the coveted "thumbs-up", which signified an enthusiastic recommendation from the esteemed cinema writer. The term "thriller" can cover a wide range of settings, subgenres, and tones, be they closer to a standard drama or a straight-up horror film. Ebert remained fairly diverse in his tastes, appreciating some lesser-known films within the category.

The critic Roger Ebert from has walked out of a handful of films despite his convictions about finishing them - here's what they are and why he left.

10 Premium Rush (2012)

Ebert's score: 3 1/2 stars.

Premium Rush

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Premium Rush centers on Wilee, a New York City bicycle messenger played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who becomes embroiled in a high-stakes chase involving a suspicious package. Michael Shannon co-stars as a corrupt cop determined to intercept the delivery. Directed by David Koepp, the film showcases intense action sequences through the bustling streets of Manhattan, blending thrilling elements with the urban landscape.

A sort of take on Keanu Reeves' Speed sans the combustion engine, Premium Rush was enjoyed by Ebert as " A breakneck chase movie on bicycles " . Roger Eberts appreciated Premium Rush for what it was, acknowledging that " If you're looking for depth and profundity, this is the wrong movie. " while still giving credit to the expertly-choreographed chase sequences and nail-biting stunt work blended with tastefully-done CGI. Even if the characters weren't the most developed and the themes weren't anything thought-provoking, Premium Rush certainly justified its existence as a brisk chase movie in Ebert's eyes.

9 The Possession (2012)

The possession (2012).

The Possession is a supernatural horror film directed by Ole Bornedal. It follows a young girl who becomes obsessed with an antique wooden box purchased at a yard sale, which unbeknownst to her father, contains a malevolent spirit. As her behavior turns increasingly erratic, her family must confront an ancient evil to save her. The film stars Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Kyra Sedgwick.

Roger Ebert could certainly appreciate horror movies , and double-dipping genres with a horror-thriller mix is one of the most consistently compelling ways to enhance the category. Enter The Possession , a haunting exorcism movie centered around Jewish folklore rather than the typical Catholic demons of The Exorcist popularity. Ebert acknowledged the former's influence while still appreciating what new twists to the formula the film was able to offer, remarking "' The Exorcist' has influenced a lot of films, and this is one of the better ones. "

The haunted dybbuk box of The Possession was based on a real artifact described in a Los Angeles Times article, whose validity Ebert was weary of.

8 Arbitrage (2012)

Ebert's score: 4 stars.

A film that made no reservations about its vile protagonist, Arbitrage told the story of a corporate fraudster who tries to get away with covering up both his company's debt and his own infidelity, all while using his daughter as a scapegoat. Ebert praised Richard Gere's leading role, calling him " Improbably handsome " while conveying the insidious callousness bubbling under the surface of a " Wall Street lion, worth billions, charming, generous, honored and a fraud right down to his bones. " Ebert flinched as director Nicholas Jarecki made him identify with such a foul hero , respecting him for doing so.

7 End Of Watch (2012)

End of Watch

Written and directed by David Ayer, End of Watch is a 2012 Thriller and Action film starring Michael Pena, Jake Gyllenhaal, Natalie Martinez, and Anna Kendrick. The premise follows two Los Angeles police officers as they attempt to deal with a large gang presence in their area.

One of the premiere buddy cop movies , End of Watch pairs Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña as archetypal loose cannons who get results. Ebert gave props to both central performances, admiring Jake Gyllenhaal's previously-undiscovered " presence and stability " while calling Peña's role as Zavala " one of the performances of his career. " With a strong foundational chemistry to navigate the delicate territory of police work in some of California's most dangerous areas, End of Watch was a success in Ebert's book, and gave the film his illustrious four-star seal of approval.

Michael Peña may not be the most well-known actor, but he gives every performance his all, with excellent results as lead or supporting roles.

6 The Pledge (2001)

Another thriller centered around police work, The Pledge 's title refers to the oath given by Jack Nicholson's character, a Nevada detective in the twilight years of his career, to the mother of a young murder victim. Ebert was enthralled by the equally microscopic examination of both the crime scenes and the waning identity of Nicholson's Jerry Black. The esteemed reviewer admired The Pledge for how it " plunges deeper into the mysteries of innocence, evil, and a man's need to validate himself ", high praise for a relatively unheard of entry in Nicholson's illustrious film career.

Ebert was enthralled by the equally microscopic examination of both the crime scenes and the waning identity of Nicholson's Jerry Black.

5 Badlands (1973)

Capitalizing on Hollywood's obsession with Bonnie and Clyde , Badlands told a similar story of star-crossed lovers on the wrong side of the law that utterly enthralled Roger Ebert. It's clear the lauded critic held Badlands in high regard, calling it " one of the great films of the flowering of American auteurs in the 1970s ." Ebert gave special praise to Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek's effortlessly iconic looks and shallow, yet deadly relationship. The fateful road trip of Kit and Holly was at once meditative and thrilling for Eberts, and afforded the film the lasting laurel of a "thumbs-up".

4 Leaves Of Grass (2009)

Leaves of Grass

Though often seen as a cringeworthy gimmick, Leaves of Grass proved that films with a single actor in a dual leading role could be incredibly poignant, insightful, and most of all, tense. The movie starred Edward Norton as a pair of twins navigating the dangerous marijuana trade of isolated rural Oklahoma. Not only did Norton's dual-pronged acting ability dazzle Ebert, calling him " flawless as both an elite intellectual and a good ol' boy. ", but he lavished the film's heady exploration of theology and monotheism amid the crime-ridden background of its story.

3 We Need To Talk About Kevin (2011)

We need to talk about kevin.

Motherhood isn't always what it's cracked up to be, and Roger Ebert enjoyed Tilda Swinton's descent into madness and depravity alongside her child-rearing in We Need to Talk About Kevin . The film chronicled the relationship between Swinton's Eva and Ezra Miller's Kevin over a fractured timeline, which Ebert expertly observed as a symptom of Eva having " been so overwhelmed by despair that her life exists in her mind all at the same time. " Beyond being one of the best performances in Tilda Swinton's career , Ebert hailed the film as a masterful " portrait of a deteriorating state of mind ".

2 Rampart (2011)

Another L.A. crime story that piqued Ebert's interest, Rampart posited Woody Harrelson as a tense corrupt cop that must endure the consequences of his participation in the rampart scandal that inspired TV's The Shield . Ebert was once again fascinated by an unsavory protagonist, remarking Harrelson's Dave Brown had " no moral center, but he has the survival instincts of a rat. " While Rampart is better remembered today for its controversial posters and disastrous promotional Reddit AMA, Ebert enjoyed the film itself as a curious character study of a loveless scoundrel.

1 Take Shelter (2011)

Take Shelter (2011)

Thoughtfully combining elements of disaster movies and thrillers, Take Shelter followed the climate crisis to its natural conclusion to the delight of Roger Ebert. The film critic was astounded by the slow descent of Michael Shannon's character into unbridled paranoia and fear, having remarked " I think an Oscar nomination for best actor would be well-deserved ." Having perfectly encapsulated the very real dread created by the modern age of environmental deterioration, Take Shelter earned a deserved spot as one of Roger Ebert 's most beloved thrillers.

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7 of Roger Ebert’s Most Brutal Movie Reviews

T he long Fourth of July weekend is another kind of holiday for film lovers: The documentary about beloved film critic Roger Ebert, Life Itself , hits theaters and on-demand services Friday. Directed by Steve James ( Hoop Dreams ), the film began as a loose adaptation of Ebert’s 2011 memoir of the same name, but as Ebert’s health declined — he was diagnosed with cancer in 2002 — the documentary became a frank, revealing and sometimes hard-to-watch look at his final days before his death in 2013. “I think it’s so poetic that a man like Roger, who spent his whole life reviewing movies, ends up ending his life on the big screen,” Ebert’s wife, Chaz Ebert, told Flavorwire in a recent interview.

Some of those movies he reviewed over the years were great — others, not so much. Reading Ebert’s passionate praise of exemplary filmmaking was a treat for readers, but his take-downs of the very worst of box offices provided another kind of joy. Here are seven of his most entertaining negative reviews.

Valentine’s Day Giving it two stars, Ebert didn’t totally trash this star-studded rom-com from 2010, but he also concluded his review with some sage dating advice: “ Valentine’s Day is being marketed as a Date Movie. I think it’s more of a First-Date Movie. If your date likes it, do not date that person again. And if you like it, there may not be a second date.”

North Ebert disliked North so much, one of the collections of his most negative reviews, I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie , gets its name from his 1994 take: “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.”

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Nobody really watches Michael Bay films expecting critically acclaimed works of art, but Ebert’s review of the 2009 blockbuster is just as fun, if not more: “[The movie] is a horrible experience of unbearable length, briefly punctuated by three or four amusing moments. One of these involves a dog-like robot humping the leg of the heroine. Such are the meager joys.”

Caligula Ebert admitted he couldn’t even make it all the way through the film in his 1980 review: “ Caligula is sickening, utterly worthless, shameful trash. If it is not the worst film I have ever seen, that makes it all the more shameful: People with talent allowed themselves to participate in this travesty. Disgusted and unspeakably depressed, I walked out of the film after two hours of its 170-minute length … Caligula is not good art, it is not good cinema, and it is not good porn.”

Police Academy This 1984 attempt at poking fun at cop movies failed miserably: “It’s so bad, maybe you should pool your money and draw straws and send one of the guys off to rent it so that in the future, whenever you think you’re sitting through a bad comedy, he could shake his head, and chuckle tolerantly, and explain that you don’t know what bad is.”

Deuce Bigalo: European Gigalo This 2005 piece also inspired the title of Ebert’s second collection of reviews about the worst movies: “[ Deuce star Rob] Schneider retaliated by attacking [ex-Los Angeles Times columnist Patrick] Goldstein in full-page ads … ‘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.’ … 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.”

Mad Dog Time The first line of this 1996 review doesn’t hold back: “ 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.”

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If you're lucky enough to attend an early screening of John Krasinski's new film, "IF," you may be greeted with a short introduction by the writer/director, asserting that the film is expressly for all the "girl dads" out there. Having now seen it, that much is true: despite its family-friendly brief, "IF" is less for kids than for the adults of kids -- the girl dads, if you will -- who want something that  feels a little more mature than " Minions " but doesn't scare the kids away. Far from it; it might just bore them to tears.

It's a bold shift for Krasinski, who's already transitioned from sitcom lead to successful director with the "Quiet Place" series, and yet, looking at the man himself, it makes perfect sense. This is the guy who started a little feel-good news show from his house during the pandemic (that he then sold to ViacomCBS for a presumed truckload of money), after all. He's the kind of all-American aw-shucks new dad who dipped his toe into the horror genre, and now wants to make a fun movie that his children can watch. 

The results, such as they are, play out like a half-baked live-action adaptation of a Pixar picture, from the "Monsters, Inc"-like structure of the IF world and the dramedic coming-of-age tales of " Inside Out " and " Up ." The opening credits even evoke "Up," playing gauzy home movies of the rhythms of a playful, happy family—with Krasinski as the patriarch—ostensibly shot by a DV camera but which looks suspiciously like grainy, professional-grade film stock. When films use this kind of device, only one thing can come -- death. Not just once but twice: When we catch up with Krasinski's daughter, Bea ( Cailey Fleming ), she's still in mourning over the offscreen death of her mother some time ago, which is now compounded by her father staying at the hospital awaiting heart surgery. (We're never privy to the details: he just says he has a "broken heart," which is a nifty case study for the film's simple, cloying nature.) The trauma clearly eats away at her, despite Krasinski's quirked-up, obnoxious attempts to cheer her up in the hospital room. 

In the meantime, Bea stays with her equally effervescent grandmother ( Fiona Shaw , one of the film's highlights) at her old, creaky apartment building. It's while there that she suddenly develops the ability to see people's imaginary friends (or IFs, as the film so proudly dubs them), and gets looped into an adventure involving her grandmother's downstairs neighbor, the cynical IF whisperer Calvin ( Ryan Reynolds ). You see, he's been running a kind of matchmaking service for IFs whose kids have stopped believing in them; once they do, you usually get put out to pasture in a kind of pastel retirement home. Bea, eager for something to do (and believe in), sets herself to the task of helping Calvin save the IFs by giving them someone to believe in them.

That's the loose framework upon which Krasinski's paper-thin script rests, one that gestures broadly at a kind of mechanical worldbuilding but soon throws its hands up in the air and greedily chases one heartstring after another. For a kid's adventure, it's surprisingly dour and sentimental, chucking laugh-out-loud jokes for a patient sense of melancholy. That may work well for the young dads in the audience, but it's gotta bore kids to tears. 

Its early stretches see Krasinski using the suspenseful eye he developed during " A Quiet Place " to fascinating kid-horror effect: Janusz Kaminski shoots the winding staircase of grandma's apartment like it's the Overlook Hotel, and one early spooky moment shows us a kid's-eye view of how creepy a strange old woman leering at you in the hallway can be. There's something of Guillermo del Toro's more sentimental work in some of these moments, building a world where imagination can be just as much a threat as comfort. 

But then we get to the IFs and their dilemma, where most of "IF" loses its steam. The creatures themselves are hardly much to write home about: they take whatever form their kids conceived, from fire-breathing dragons to walking, talking, self-roasting marshmallows, all voiced by a murderer's row of "that guy" guest voices that'll leave you reaching for your phone to pull up IMDb right after. 

Sure, they're technically impressive to look at, but they're bereft of character or whimsy. That's especially true for the film's central IF, Blue ( Steve Carell ), a purple, snaggle-toothed furball resembling the Grimace as subjected to years of British dentistry. Rather than play him with any kind of arched eyebrow, Carell gives a surprisingly workmanlike performance, a right shame given the verbal dexterity that lets him own wild animated characters like Gru. 

The human cast fares little better, especially Reynolds, who coasts through this thing with the half-hearted zeal of someone sick of repeating the same Deadpool schtick. It almost feels redundant to cast him here since he functions as a kind of stand-in for Krasinski as the "fun dad" he's always wanted to be; instead, Calvin exists primarily as a smarmy sidekick, a fellow cynic who nonetheless helps the IFs on their mission. Then there's Fleming herself, a waifish young girl who rises to the occasion in a few Big Moments near the end but who largely gets little to do besides pout and absorb information. 

The mechanics of the IFs also beggar belief and change on a dime depending on which lazy heartstring Krasinski wants to pull next. The script can't seem to decide how they really work: Do they disappear once forgotten about, or are they put in a home? Is the plan to rehome them to new kids, or get their now-grown adult companions to believe in them again? What's the plan from there? All immaterial questions for the presumed kiddie audience, but it's easy to get lost in the shoddy mechanics of the thing when the product as is is this listless and humorless. By the end, you get the distinct feeling that all of this sturm und drang is in service to stakes that, all told, are exceedingly minimal. 

Occasionally, Krasinski lands on a neat idea or a perfect scene: A kaleidoscopic chase through an IF retirement home that Bea is changing with her imagination (complete with Busby Berkeley riffs and Reynolds climbing through an oil painting); Shaw's character remembering her love of ballet while her former IF ( Phoebe Waller-Bridge ) dances alongside just out of sight. But for every one of these, we get another tired scene with half-hearted performers rotely asserting the plot, or trotting out cloying platitudes like "The most important stories we tell are the ones we tell ourselves." That's to say nothing of the film's musical choices, the last of which is so on-the-nose, so egregious, that Wes Anderson should sue for plagiarism. 

"IF" is a well-intentioned misfire—a kid's movie without laughs and a parent's movie without purpose. I sure hope Krasinski had a ball making it; it seemed like a welcome balm after the stressors of doing two horror pictures. But now, it's time to put away childish things.

Clint Worthington

Clint Worthington is a Chicago-based film/TV critic and podcaster. He is the founder and editor-in-chief of  The Spool , as well as a Senior Staff Writer for  Consequence . He is also a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and Critics Choice Association. You can also find his byline at RogerEbert.com, Vulture, The Companion, FOX Digital, and elsewhere. 

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Roger Ebert’s 20 Most Scathing Movie Reviews

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If there's ever been a film critic who has achieved near-universal respect, it was Roger Ebert . The man loved movies like life itself and not once ever allowed his writing to become lazy or cliché. He wrote from the heart, and it was palpable.

But, the Chicago Sun-Times (from '67 to 2013) critic wasn't enamored with every film to come down the pipeline. After all, the more solid movies one watches, the more they're able to pick up on the flaws of the poor ones. Ebert saw an awful lot of movies, and he wrote an awful lot of words about them. It's just that not all of them were positive, even if, sometimes, the films weren't actually that bad .

20 Alligator (1980)

Roger's rating - 1/4 stars.

When a little girl's parents buy her a pet baby alligator, it's only so long before that thing gets flushed down a toilet. And, for the characters of John Sayles' (who went on to direct excellent indies such as Lone Star ) Alligator , that's far from a good thing. Jackie Brown 's Robert Forster plays the cop on its scaled tail, unless it gobbles him up first.

What Did He Want Out of Alligator?

Well, the man couldn't always be on the money. He gave Alligator just a single star, citing its supposedly poor special effects. He even mentions the alligator emerging from the sewer, which, to this day, actually looks pretty terrific. Plenty of creature features (including Anaconda ) earned outright adoration from Ebert, but what he saw in them, he didn't see in this 1980 film, even if it was very much present. Stream Alligator for free with ads on Tubi.

19 Baby Geniuses (1999)

Roger's rating - 1.5/4 stars.

Baby Geniuses isn't just one of Hollywood's most bizarre movies, it's outright Hollywood's most bizarre franchise . Yet, Kathleen Turner and Christopher Lloyd wisely bowed out of the one theatrical sequel, as they should have with this. The plot follows the test subjects of Babyco, a company which has just learned that, up until the age of two, babies can communicate with one another in extremely eloquent and detailed fashion.

He Described it as Horrifying

Ebert starts his review with, "Bad films are easy to make, but a film as unpleasant as Baby Geniuses achieves a kind of grandeur." Never has the word 'grandeur' carried more bizarre weight. But Baby Geniuses is nothing if not bizarre.

Or, as Ebert concludes the opening paragraph of his review, it's the type of movie where "there is something so fundamentally wrong that our human instincts cry out in protest." Ouch. Rent Baby Geniuses on Prime Video.

18 Bad Boys II (2003)

Everything that many people dislike about Michael Bay was brought to the forefront in his Bad Boys II . Infinitely more mean-spirited, unpleasant, and sometimes outright ignorant than his solid first film , many decisions in this (financially successful) film's construction are somewhat baffling. The plot, what little of it there is, follows Will Smith's Mike Lowrey and Martin Lawrence's Marcus Burnett as they take down a drug kingpin, often in slow motion.

Fortunately, things improved drastically with Bad Boys for Life , which lost Bay as director. Unfortunately, Ebert had already passed away at the time of release. So, his last adventure with the pair of humorous but competent cops was this, a film which he called "cruel" and "distasteful." He wasn't wrong. Stream Bad Boys II on Hulu.

17 Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever (2002)

Roger's rating - .5/4 stars.

Ebert gave Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever just half of one star. So, there wasn't really much of anything about it he found merit in. This includes the mouthful of a title, which is not only difficult for ticket buyers to spout, but makes absolutely no sense.

Aren't We Cool

Ecks and Sever are allies in the film, the whole time, even before either one of them fully realizes it. There's no versus between them. The level of thought that went into the title went into the remainder of the film. As Ebert states , it's not so much a narrative as much as it's a series of explosions book ended by opening and closing credits.

16 Battle: Los Angeles (2011)

Battle: Los Angeles

*Availability in US

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It's pretty easy to pinpoint what Battle: Los Angeles wanted to be, even if it's harder to pinpoint just why it fails in every regard. It wants to be Black Hawk Down with aliens, pure and simple. Just look at its whole boots-on-the-ground vibe.

What a Missed Opportunity

But, like audiences at large quickly realized, as did Ebert, not even Aaron Eckhart's main character is as believable or fleshed-out as the side players in Black Hawk Down. By act two, the audience realizes the human characters have as much personality as the unintentionally ugly CGI aliens. So, why would they feel invested in the greater conflict? Rent on AppleTV.

15 Battlefield Earth (2000)

The plot of Battlefield Earth is irrelevant in comparison to the mentality that fueled its construction. It's the Scientology movie, plain and simple. Equipped with Psychlos, horrid dialogue, and devout follower John Travolta (who really hams it up here), that's all it ever really wanted to be. But, instead of spreading whatever Scientology's core message is, it made it a bigger laughingstock than its detractors already found it to be.

Did Ebert See an Upside?

He starts his review with, " Battlefield Earth is like taking a bus trip with someone who has needed a bath for a long time." So, suffice it to say, he didn't find the viewing a pleasant experience. Which is fair, considering it seems every extra dollar funneled into this thing to make it look more impressive actually just served to make it hideous. Rent Battlefield Earth on Prime Video.

14 The Bucket List (2007)

The Bucket List

The Bucket List really hasn't gotten enough credit for being as rotten as it is. Not even Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, two of the most likable and talented performers ever to grace the silver screen, can elevate it from unpleasant to watchable. The narrative follows two twilight-aged men with very different lives who find themselves facing the same thing: The Big C. Now, it's adventure time before time's no more.

Hollow as Can be

But, unlike fellow Nicholson film Terms of Endearment , The Bucket List doesn't even seem to take cancer seriously. It certainly doesn't bother to make its characters seem like actual humans going through one of the toughest times imaginable. Instead, it wants to be pleasant diversionary fare, but it's hard to be pleasant when that factor is looming large. Rent on AppleTV.

13 Cop Out (2010)

Cop Out follows Bruce Willis' Detective Jimmy Monroe (and never had the actor looked more miserable throughout his storied career) and his partner, Paul (Tracy Morgan) as they try and locate a rare baseball card. The thing is, it's Monroe's card, which he hoped to sell to help pay for his daughter's wedding. They get an opportunity to receive the card, but first, they have to carry out a mission for a scummy gangster.

Insert Pun About the Title Here

Cop Out is the only film Kevin Smith has helmed that he himself did not write, and that shows. Even if someone doesn't find themselves on Smith's wavelength, a specific wavelength is preferable to a big bag of nothing. Like audiences in general, Ebert found Cop Out to be nothing more than a deeply unfunny series of poop jokes. For a film about two grown men trying to solve a crime, there are a ton of juvenile jokes. Rightly so, Ebert considered juvenile to be a decent adjective for the movie as a whole. Rent on AppleTV.

12 Dungeons & Dragons (2000)

Since the game was blowing up in the late '90s, why not craft a film for the early aughts? Too bad Dungeons & Dragons appealed to neither fans nor general audiences. Not everyone has the taste for ham...and the 2000 D&D film is a full pig roast.

It Seemed Like an Okay Idea at the Time

Ebert compared the movie to a junior high school play. When a studio funnels a ton of money into a film with the hopes it will succeed, that's basically the last thing higher-ups want to read from America's most famous film critic. That said, at least he notes that Jeremy Irons has a ton of fun hamming it up. Stream Dungeons & Dragons for free with ads on YouTube.

11 Freddy Got Fingered (2001)

Freddy Got Fingered

Roger's rating - 0/4 stars.

There isn't much of a plot in Freddy Got Fingered . Really, it's one of the hardest movies to explain, especially in terms of why someone would like it (they are out there, it's an understandable cult favorite oddity). Basically, the meat is that a ridiculously immature 28-year-old man has issues with his daddy ("Would you like some sausage? Daddy, would you like some sau-sa-ges?").

A Crass Culmination

Freddy Got Fingered made a profit, but Ebert certainly couldn't see how that might come to fruition. He saw the film as the crass culmination of other late '90s and early aughts' films such as See Spot Run (which might just get a mention soon), Monkeybone , Joe Dirt , and Tomcats . In other words, he thought less of it than he did those films, and he most certainly did not like those films. Rent on AppleTV.

10 Godzilla (1998)

Admittedly, and it may be a controversial take, but Roland Emmerich's Godzilla has aged extraordinarily well. If one looks at films like entities trying to accomplish a mission, Godzilla 's was simple: entertain . It does an amazing job of that, with underappreciated pacing, a terrific first attack on Manhattan, and a fun performance from Jean Reno.

Are there elements that still don't work? Absolutely. But, with the MonsterVerse in full swing, giving G-Fans the Big-G they're accustomed to, the sting of disappointment that surrounded Emmerich's film has all but disappeared, allowing it to serve on its own as both a rollercoaster ride and a late '90s timepiece.

Ebert's Thoughts?

Basically, he made a fair comparison to Jurassic Park . Godzilla (1998) isn't so much Godzilla as it is an attempt to replicate the success of that Steven Spielberg masterpiece. It doesn't quite succeed in that goal, and Ebert was quick to cite the film's special effects, especially how they're shrouded in darkness and rain and, far more often than not, Zilla rushes off the screen.

But, in fairness to the film, that helps seal the effect of a big lizard being able to conceal itself below ground in one of the most populated cities on Earth. Stream Godzilla on Max.

RELATED: Godzilla Minus One Director Reveals His Thoughts On Panned 1998 Godzilla Film

9 The Hot Chick (2002)

The Hot Chick (2002)

For a little while there, Hollywood was trying its best to make Rob Schneider a leading man. And, considering The Hot Chick is the best of his few leading man movies, it's not very surprising things didn't pan out. Yet, just because The Hot Chick is slightly more intelligent than Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo and the baffling The Animal doesn't mean it really possesses merit. That is, besides giving Anna Faris a major role outside Scary Movie and doing a little more to increase Rachel McAdams' exposure.

Switch-a-Ooh, This Is Forgettable

It wasn't a distaste for the body swap movie that turned Ebert off on The Hot Chick , it was this particular one's treatment of female characters. Basically, the women characters in The Hot Chick have very little to do other than openly fantasize about a phallus. In other words, he saw it as the nadir of an already pretty weak sub-genre. Stream on Hulu.

8 Jason X (2001)

If Ebert seemed to have a distaste for any one genre in particular, it was absolutely horror. More often than not, when writing about the genre, he was either harsh or dismissive. But, in the case of Friday the 13th , he made the irresponsible decision of posting performer Betsy Palmer's address just so they could harass her about staring in it. It wasn't a great look, and Ebert never warmed up to the franchise (which, with 12 movies combined, is less harmful than posting someone's, fortunately inaccurate, address).

The Nadir of His Least-Favorite Franchise

So, basically, Jason X was decidedly not the critic's favorite of the year. And, considering even die-hard Friday the 13th fans hate the thing, maybe it can't all be chalked up to franchise bias. That said, he did give some praise to the liquid nitrogen kill.

7 Kick-Ass (2010)

Roger Ebert wasn't alone in his repulse to Matthew Vaughn's Kick-Ass . Heck, there are some people out there, like those who went to see the midnight showing (because those were a thing at the time) during their senior year of high school, that left questioning the film's core ethical code. After all, hearing a little girl drop the "C Word" is... a lot.

What Didn't He Like?

Yet, unpleasant as it can be at first, it doesn't take long to gravitate to Kick-Ass ' level. Not to mention, with her immediate subsequent roles, Chloë Grace Moretz continued to show herself to be both an incredible talent and an old soul, so the sour taste of her language and actions in Kick-Ass is, or has become, diluted. But, even still, the character of Hit Girl rubbed Ebert the wrong way . Rent on AppleTV.

6 The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009)

The Twilight Saga: New Moon

The Twilight Saga never received Ebert's love, but there was only one he outright hated. And fair enough, because his main criticism was that it was stagnant more often than not. And, considering The Twilight Saga: New Moon is the only one that truly feels like a placeholder (okay, maybe Breaking Dawn Part 1 , as well), it's a criticism shared by many others. In Ebert's words, the characters in New Moon "should be arrested for loitering with intent to moan." A film without momentum is just money on a screen.

How Did He Feel About the Others?

Ebert gave the first film two-and-a-half stars out of four. His biggest gripe was that the acting wasn't always believable, but he seemed to admire the film's spirit. He was a little harsher on The Twilight Saga: Eclipse , which followed New Moon , but not as harsh as he was on that second film. He just felt that, while seeing Bella quiver and shiver in front of Edward has its appeal for fans, it was running out of steam (and there were two more flicks to go).

RELATED: New Moon Director Says Taylor Swift Tried to Get a Role in the Film

5 Pearl Harbor (2001)

War films tend to receive accolades. Michael Bay's Pearl Harbor , however, was seen as merely an excuse to put pretty people on a poster. Of course, Bay's film is a cinematic retelling of the attack on Pearl Harbor. But, even more than that (way more than that), it's desperately trying to be the love triangle version of Titanic (Rose wasn't exactly conflicted, so not a triangle).

At Least it Led to a Great Team America Joke

Ebert found Bay's film, like a few other Bay films, bloated as can be. He also figured it to be hackneyed, awkwardly-written, and "directed without grace."

In other words, he saw it as the intended moneymaker it is, not the accurate retelling of American history it should have been. What a waste of Josh Hartnett's considerable talent (and, frankly, this should have damaged Ben Affleck's career, not Hartnett's, but it absolutely did to the latter). Stream Pearl Harbor on Max.

4 See Spot Run (2001)

See Spot Run follows David Arquette's Gordon Smith, a mailman always going toe to toe with pups. When his cute neighbor's kid needs a babysitter, he leaps at the opportunity, but he's really babysitting two. The boy, and a constantly-pooping police pup who has just scurried from his witness protection situation (WITSEC for a dog? Alright).

See Ticket Buyers Run

In his one-and-a-half star review, Ebert called the unfunny comedy "desperate," "excruciating," and filled with farts. Well, fart jokes... if the term joke can actually be used for that kind of thing. Suffice it to say, Ebert felt he was too old for this, and he felt everyone else with their age in the double digits would feel much the same.

3 Thir13en Ghosts (2001)

Thirteen Ghosts

Thir13en Ghosts follows Arthur, the widowed nephew of a seemingly-deceased famous ghost hunter who is left the latter's massive mansion. A mansion that, in a way, functions as a clock...with moving pieces and all. But, not all is as it appears, and if the ghost-filled house doesn't kill Arthur Kriticos (Tony Shalhoub, looking absolutely miserable) and his family, his bloodline will.

There Are More Than Thir13en Reasons to Never Watch This

Okay, it's not that awful, it just takes a lot of big swings and doesn't really land them. But, without a doubt, there are at least two death scenes in this film that are legitimately well-crafted, unique, and memorable. But Ebert didn't even see merit in that brand of creativity, as he was more focused on just how loud and empty this ghost house actually is. To that point, he called Thir13en Ghosts "literally painful." Rent on AppleTV.

2 Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

The issues Ebert had with Bad Boys II he had with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen . A film laced with so much bombast it's overwhelming by the end of the first act, Revenge of the Fallen is essentially a plotless film. It just wants to entertain and, frankly, it doesn't even do that.

A Soulless Endeavor

Really, the same thing, that it seeks to entertain, could be said of the first film. And, there, the mission was accomplished. But Revenge of the Fallen , when it isn't suffering from slow stretches, is steamrolled by some seriously ignorant characterizations (e.g. Mudflap). The vast majority of the film did nothing for Ebert, which couldn't have been more accurately summarized than with his calling it "of unbearable length."

1 Wild Wild West (1999)

Wild Wild West

Will Smith was on the top of the world when Wild Wild West was released. That much is obvious, even just looking at the fact this movie didn't kill his career . But, really, this is the exact type of movie that kills careers, to the letter. Bloated, poorly written, it makes Kenneth Branagh look like a weak actor, and it was clearly built by committee. After all, the whole mechanical spider thing was supposed to be in Tim Burton's Superman Lives . It's as if the studio needed a tent pole and hoped this would be it.

"A Comedy Dead Zone"

It's astonishing Smith passed on The Matrix in favor of Wild Wild West . Even if just analyzing the scripts, one works and one (even on the page) clearly does not. Ebert gave it ( Wild Wild West , not The Matrix ) a single star, citing in particular its ineffective comedic beats and the uncomfortable gelling of cyberpunk elements with the Western genre.

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