Ebert's Bests

Roger Ebert

Dec 2012 · University of Chicago Press

About this ebook

A treasury of year-by-year ten-best lists, plus personal reminiscences by the man whose name became synonymous with the movies.
 
In Ebert’s Bests, the iconic Roger Ebert takes us through the journey of how he became a film critic, from his days at a student-run cinema club to his rise as a television commentator in At the Movies and Siskel & Ebert. Recounting the influence of the French New Wave; his friendships with Werner Herzog and Martin Scorsese; and travels to Sweden and Rome to visit Ingrid Bergman and Federico Fellini, Ebert never loses sight of film as a key component of our cultural identity. In considering the ethics of film criticism—why we should take all film seriously, without prejudgment or condescension—he argues that film critics ought always to engage in open-minded dialogue with a movie.
 
All this is accompanied by decades’ worth of annual ten-best lists, which showcase Roger Ebert’s  recommendations—while at the same time reminding us that hearts and minds, and even rankings, are bound to change.

Ratings and reviews

A thumbnail wormhole of excellence. Rarest literary excellence makes you feel like the author is talking to you, instead of at you. My conversations with Mr.Ebert are among the most of the best that I can describe.

Excellent collection of movies some i have to see

Diss is not good

About the author

Roger Joseph Ebert was born on June 18, 1942 in Urbana, Illinois, and died on April 4, 2013. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he was editor of the Daily Illini. He is best known for his film review column in the Chicago Sun Times since 1967 and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert and Siskel and Ebert and The Movies. After Gene Siskel's death in 1999, Roger Ebert teamed up with Ruchard Roeper for the television series Ebert and Roeper and The Movies which began airing in 2000. Ebert's movie reviews were in more than 200 newspapers in the U.S. and worldwide by Universal Press Syndicate. He wrote more than 15 books, including his annual movie yearbook which was a collection of his reviews for that specific year. He became the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize. In June 2005, he was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame; he was the first professional critic to receive this award. He received honorary degrees from the University of Colorado, the AFI Conservatory, and the School of Art Institute of Chicago. Ebert died on April 4, 2013 at age 70. He had lost his voice and much of his jaw after battling thyroid and salivary gland cancer.