Ebert's Bests

Chicago Shorts

by Roger Ebert

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.

43 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 20, 2012

About the author

Roger Joseph Ebert was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American film critic and screenwriter.

He was known for his weekly review column (appearing in the Chicago Sun-Times since 1967, and later online) and for the television program Siskel & Ebert at the Movies, which he co-hosted for 23 years with Gene Siskel. After Siskel's death in 1999, he auditioned several potential replacements, ultimately choosing Richard Roeper to fill the open chair. The program was retitled Ebert & Roeper and the Movies in 2000.

Ebert's movie reviews were syndicated to more than 200 newspapers in the United States and abroad. He wrote more than 15 books, including his annual movie yearbook. In 1975, Ebert became the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. His television programs have also been widely syndicated, and have been nominated for Emmy awards. In February 1995, a section of Chicago's Erie Street near the CBS Studios was given the honorary name Siskel & Ebert Way. Ebert was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in June 2005, the first professional film critic to receive one. Roger Ebert was named as the most influential pundit in America by Forbes Magazine, beating the likes of Bill Maher, Lou Dobbs, and Bill O'Reilly.[2] He has honorary degrees from the University of Colorado, the American Film Institute, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

From 1994 until his death in 2013, he wrote a Great Movies series of individual reviews of what he deemed to be the most important films of all time. He also hosted the annual Roger Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival in Champaign, Illinois from 1999 until his death.

Reviews

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not particularly enlightening if you've read his bio, but nice to have the lists all in one place, and his discussion of why and how he made some of his choices and how his opinions have changed over time.

[Ruth Shulman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not what I thought

I guess I expected more about the movies and less about Ebert himself. Still...a good list book. Give it a try when choosing a classic to view on video or download.

[Ed · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not much to say. I like Ebert and this is a (very) short little collection of essays about how he got his start. Very interesting his 10 Best lists from all his years on the beat.

[Juliana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short. Essay and lists. Extremely short.

[Susan Molloy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was somewhat of an interesting book, filled with some information about movies since the late 1969s. There’s a list at the end of the ten best (Elbert’s opinions) films per annum since the late 1960s.

[Marley]

I got this for free from the U. of Chicago. It is basically Ebert's account of becoming a film critic. Ebert and I seem to have started out on the same basic track long ago, only ended up a renowned film critic and I didn't. But that's OK. We both love(d) movies and that's what counts. I need to see if he ever reviewed Last Year at Marienbad, one of my top 5 favorite movies--one that most people hate.

[Barnaby Haszard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pearls. But get Life Itself, obviously. It covers the same ground in more detail.

[Harun Šiljak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Truly inspiring. As Ebert puts it perfectly: a movie is not about what it is about.