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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

Not available

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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Roger Ebert

Highest Rated: 98% Life Itself (2014)

Lowest Rated: 76% Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970)

Birthday: Jun 18, 1942

Birthplace: Urbana, Illinois, USA

America's most influential and widely recognized film critic, Roger Ebert transported the movie review from the back of the newspaper into the living room, making film criticism a component of modern social intercourse for the masses. Hailing from central Illinois, he parlayed a love for film and journalism into a career as a staff critic at The Chicago Sun-Times in the late 1960s, a position he would maintain throughout his illustrious career. Adding to his growing reputation was a screenplay for the Russ Meyer exploitation classic "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" (1970), a Pulitzer Prize in 1975, and a little movie review show on local Chicago television alongside competing film critic Gene Siskel of The Chicago Tribune. That program would soon morph into the nationally syndicated "Siskel & Ebert" (1986-1999) on which Ebert and his apparent arch-nemesis influenced cinematic tastes as they bickered and bantered, ultimately giving movies their iconic votes of "thumbs up" or "thumbs down." Although devastated by Siskel's death from a brain tumor in 1999, Ebert soldiered on with new review partners on further iterations of the show until a debilitating battle with cancer that began in 2002 eventually led to the reviewer's departure from television. Though physically impaired, Ebert continued his criticism in the paper and online with renewed vigor, proving that while the disease had robbed him of his voice, his incisive wit and intelligence remained intact. He continued his ongoing fight with cancer until his death at age 70 in April of 2013.

Filmography

“2001: A Space Odyssey”

Roger Ebert called Stanley Kubrick 's 2001: A Space Odyssey , "a great visionary leap, unsurpassed in its vision of man and the universe. It was a statement that came at a time which now looks something like the peak of humanity's technological optimism."

“An Alan Smithee Film”

"In taking his name off the film, Arthur Hiller has wisely distanced himself from the disaster, but on the basis of what's on the screen I cannot, frankly, imagine any version of this film that I would want to see. The only way to save this film would be to trim 86 minutes," wrote Ebert.

“Apocalypse Now”

Of Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 war epic, Ebert said: " Apocalypse Now is a film which still causes real, not figurative, chills to run along my spine, and it is certainly the bravest and most ambitious fruit of Coppola's genius"

“Aguirre, Wrath of God”

Werner Herzog was among Ebert's most celebrated filmmakers. In his review of Herzog's Aguirre, Wrath of God , he described the film as "one of the great haunting visions of the cinema"

“Baby Geniuses”

"This is an old idea, beautifully expressed by Wordsworth, who said, 'Heaven lies about us in our infancy,'" wrote Ebert. "If I could quote the whole poem instead of completing this review, believe me, we'd all we happier. But I press on."

“Citizen Kane”

While recounting his favorite films of all time, Ebert had but a simplistic comment for the Orson Welles drama: " Citizen Kane speaks for itself."

“Dukes of Hazzard”

"It's a retread of a sitcom that ran from about 1979 to 1985, years during which I was able to find better ways to pass my time. Yes, it is still another TV program I have never ever seen. As this list grows, it provides more and more clues about why I am so smart and cheerful…. Bo and Luke are involved in a mishap that causes their faces to be blackened with soot, and then, wouldn't you know, they drive into an African-American neighborhood, where their car is surrounded by ominous young men who are not amused by blackface, or by the Confederate flag painted on the car. I was hoping maybe the boyz n the hood would carjack the General, which would provide a fresh twist to the story, but no, the scene sinks into the mire of its own despond."

“La Dolce Vita”

" La Dolce Vita has become a touchstone in my life: A film about a kind of life I dreamed of living, then a film about the life I was living, the about my escape from that life. Now, half a century after its release, it is about the arc of my life, and its closing scene is an eerie reflection of my wordlessness and difficulty in communicating. I still yearn and dream, but it is so hard for me to communicate that–not literally, but figuratively. So the Fellini stays," he wrote.

“North”

In one of his most infamous reviews, Ebert said of North : "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."

“One Woman or Two”

In another blistering review, he commented: "Add it all up, and what you've got here is a waste of good electricity. I'm not talking about the electricity between the actors. I'm talking about the current to the projector."

“Raging Bull”

"Many would choose Taxi Driver as [Martin] Scorsese 's greatest film, but I believe Raging Bull is his best and most personal, a film he says in some ways saved his life," Ebert wrote. "It is the greatest cinematic expression of the torture of jealousy–his Othello ."

“Sour Grapes”

Larry David 's 1998 comedy did not sit well with Ebert. "How to account for the fact that Larry David is one of the creators of Seinfeld ? Maybe he works well with others. I can't easily remember a film I've enjoyed less. North , a comedy I hated, was at least able to inflame me with dislike. Sour Grapes is a movie that deserves its title: It's puckered, deflated and vinegary. It's a dead zone."

“The General”

Selecting his favorite silent film, Ebert chose Buster Keaton 's The General , calling it "his best."

“The Hot Chick”

Of Rob Schneider 's teen comedy — which introduced many to a young Rachel McAdams — Ebert said: "The movie resolutely avoids all the comic possibilities of its situation, and becomes one more dumb high school comedy about sex gags and prom dates…. Through superhuman effort of the will, I did not walk out of The Hot Chick , but reader, I confess I could not sit through the credits. The MPAA rates this PG-13. It is too vulgar for anyone under 13, and too dumb for anyone over 13."

“The Village”

"To call it an anticlimax would be an insult not only to climaxes but to prefixes," he lamented of M. Night Shamalan 's 2004 psychological horror film. "It's a crummy secret, about one step up the ladder of narrative originality from It Was All a Dream. It's so witless, in fact, that when we do discover the secret, we want to rewind the film so we don't know the secret anymore."

“Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie”

"As faithful readers will know, I have a few cult followers who enjoy my reviews of bad movies," he began. "These have been collected in the books I Hated, Hated, Hated, HATED This Movie ; Your Movie Sucks , and A Horrible Experience of Unendurable Length . This movie is so bad, it couldn't even inspire a review worthy of one of those books. I have my standards."

“Tokyo Story”

"The older I grow and the more I observe how age affects our relationships, the more I think Tokyo Story has to teach us," he claimed. "Kurosawa's Ikiru has as much to say, but in the rigid economy of the Sight & Sound limitations, impossible choices are forced."

“Tommy Boy”

" Tommy Boy is one of those movies that plays like an explosion down at the screenplay factory," he said. "You can almost picture a bewildered office boy, his face smudged with soot, wandering through the ruins and rescuing pages at random. Too bad they didn't mail them to the insurance company instead of filming them."

“Tree of Life”

Ebert called Terrence Malick 's Brad Pitt starrer, "affirmative and hopeful." "In The Tree of Life ," he said, "Malick boldly begins with the Big Bang and ends in an unspecified state of attenuated consciousness after death. The central section is the story of birth and raising a family."

“Vertigo”

Ebert also named Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo among his 10 favorite films of all time. " Vertigo (1958), 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."

• Entertainment

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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Roger Ebert (1942-2013)

IMDbPro Starmeter See rank

• 19 wins & 15 nominations total

• Self - Host (archive footage)
• 2010 • 1 ep

• 1975–1977 • 4 eps

• original screenplay by
• based on a short story by

• additional material (uncredited)

• contributing writer

• Writer (as R. Hyde)

• original story (as Reinhold Timme)

• Roger Ebert

• Roger Ebert (voice)

• Roger Ebert (uncredited)
• executive producer

Personal details

• Facebook Fan Page
• Official Site
• 5′ 8″ (1.73 m)
• June 18 , 1942
• Urbana, Illinois, USA
• April 4 , 2013
• Chicago, Illinois, USA (metastatic cancer)
• Chaz Ebert July 18, 1992 - April 4, 2013 (his death)
• Children Sonia Evans
• Parents Annabel Ebert (Stumm)
• Other works Does regular reviews for The Chicago Sun-Times and those reviews are regularly compiled and published in an annual book.
• 1 Biographical Movie
• 1 Print Biography
• 6 Interviews
• 10 Articles

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• Trivia Was an avid user and fanatic of IMDb (Internet Movie Database).
• Quotes I am utterly bored by celebrity interviews. Most celebrities are devoid of interest.
• Trademarks His no-nonsense style of writing
• When did Roger Ebert die?
• How did Roger Ebert die?
• How old was Roger Ebert when he died?

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10 Underrated Movies Recommended By Roger Ebert

It’s hard to find a film where a critic of any kind is portrayed in a positive light. No matter if it’s a horror, drama or comedy, critics are often portrayed as some sort of villains who destroy the main character’s life. Maybe they could have made a narrative fictionalized version of “Life Itself” to change that, a wonderful documentary and a lovely tribute to Roger Ebert.

If you’re a movie fanatic or interested in film criticism, you more or less know why he was so popular and beloved. His reviews helped many young directors to become bigger names; he championed European and Asian arthouse cinema in the United States; and he was generous with his ratings because he wasn’t always high-brow, he understood that every kind of film can be special, regardless of genre and target audience. Speaking of his generosity with ratings, he didn’t shy away from giving four stars to whatever he truly liked. Here we’ll look at 10 of those great films that Roger loved and gave his highest rating, but yet we don’t hear about too often.

10. Last Summer (1969)

Two teenagers, Peter and Dan, spend their summer vacation on Fire Island. On the beach, the boys meet a girl named Sandy, who is tending to an injured seagull. They remove the bone from the bird’s neck. Peter, Dan and Sandy quickly become friends and spend quality time together. They go swimming, take a boat out to sea, smoke marijuana, and discover their awakening sexuality after a visit to the cinema.

It’s better to see this movie uncut to get the full effect, and it’s better to watch in the context of the year it was released to get a better sense of what this movie meant for its time and why Ebert was so impressed by it. The movie prefers to be nonjudgmental about its adolescent experiences.  This provocative and melancholic film is also noted for great performances, especially from Catherine Burns, who got an Oscar nomination for her performance.

Ebert was full of praise for its portrayal of adolescence: “There are good movies about other people’s lives, but rarely a movie that recalls, if only for a scene or two, the sense and flavor of life the way you remember it.” But he believed that it’s a movie that doesn’t need to be talked about much if you haven’t seen it, because your experience seeing it for the first time can get diminished, but he dedicated the last paragraph to praising the performances. Since its release, we got films that were probably better at exploring sexual curiosity and its darker sides as well, but “Last Summer” remains an interesting film to watch and discuss.

9. Tex (1982)

Francis Ford Coppola made two hits back to back based on S.E. Hinton novels – “The Outsiders” and “Rumble Fish” – but the star of those two films, Matt Dillon, already appeared in a successful but now mostly forgotten teen drama based on a Hinton novel. Dillon and Jim Metzler play brothers who struggle after their mother dies and their father walks out on them.

It’s not as dark as other Hinton adaptations, but surprisingly, despite being produced by Walt Disney Studios, they didn’t tone down the book that much. The dynamics between the lead characters are complex and interesting enough to keep you engaged; their problems, such as how they deal with their mother’s death, running out of money, and other things are portrayed with an honest and believable tone. The story is not set in a way that you’d predict where it will go easily.

While “Tex” doesn’t try to say something big or remarkable, it’s an affecting tale and told wonderfully. Ebert used to say it’s not what the film is about but how the film is about, so it’s no wonder he liked this one so much. He also praised the performances: “The movie is so accurately acted, especially by Jim Metzler as Mason and Matt Dillon as Tex, that we care more about the characters than about the plot.” And in the same review, he doesn’t forget to give a mention to Dillon’s feature film debut called “Over the Edge” (1979) which is another great film to check out if you haven’t yet.

8. Ruby in Paradise (1993)

Ashley Judd was introduced to wider audiences for her roles in big studio films like “Kiss the Girls,” “Heat” and “A Time to Kill,” but her feature film debut was a beautiful, complex and touching film that was called “Ruby in Paradise,” which was hailed by critics and earned her many awards and accolades including the Best Actress award at the Independent Spirit awards. Judd’s usual strong work lies in independent films in general, such as “Bug” and “Come Early Morning,” but “Ruby” holds a totally special place.

The movie follows Ruby Lee Gissing, a young woman in her 20s and from Tennessee. She moves to a tourist town in Florida to start a new life and we get to witness it. It’s not necessary to talk about plot points as it’s more of a character study. Ebert was blown away by how “life-affirming” the film actually is and also applauded everything else about the film. He praised Judd for bringing “a simplicity and honesty to the performance that is almost startling in its power” and admired how we see “Ruby growing, learning, discovering things about herself” through the whole film. He admits that when you describe the movie like that, it may sound like a boring film set in an everyday world but indeed, the movie is about finding those details in our lives, about our own discoveries and our struggle to understand what makes us happy.

7. Map of the Human Heart (1992)

The arrival of an English cartographer changes the life of an Inuit boy in the Arctic ice. A young boy named Avik falls ill with tuberculosis; cartographer Walter brings him to Montreal where learns the language and also falls in love. We get to witness Avik’s childhood and also adult life through the film, but it’s not a film that only consists of plot details.

Just like the film above, “Map of the Human Heart” is another film that is not too easy to describe to give you a full sense of what kind of a movie it is. The film benefits from a poetic tone and wonderful chemistry between the leads, especially when they were little kids, and you get to see some heartbreaking moments through the movie, but it always remains beautiful and even unique to some degree. The gorgeous cinematography is a treat, but we also get to hear a lot of history lessons from colonialism to the lives of indigenous peoples.

Ebert describes the unpredictability and yet also the beauty of the film with the following words: “One of the best qualities of “Map of the Human Heart” was that I never quite knew where it was going. It is a love story, a war story, a lifetime story, but it manages to traverse all of that familiar terrain without doing the anticipated.” And he concludes that it’s one of the best films of its year.

6. Body Snatchers (1993)

Ebert is no big fan of “King of New York” but he certainly loved “Bad Lieutenant” and also Ferrara’s first and only studio film effort, “Body Snatchers,” a film where his mark and signature is pretty obvious as usual, which means it’s not something that will appeal to many people, but Ebert saw the appeal of it. This is the third adaptation of this story; the first two films of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” were both successful. In fact, they were among the most successful sci-fi horror films of their respective decades. Yet this version is great in its own way. It’s exactly how you imagine Ferrara would tackle such a subject and it works.

The plot is centered around the discovery that people working at a military base in Alabama are being replaced by perfect physical imitations grown from plantlike pods. Thanks to Ferrara’s direction, you don’t only get that paranoid effect but also the movie feels more sinister than previous adaptations. Some said the movie is a warning against rising fascism, while Ebert thought it might be connected with the fear of AIDS. “Most important, for a horror film, there are scenes of genuine terror.” He says and adds that: “Certainly “Body Snatchers” is not the kind of movie that wins festivals: It is a hard-boiled entry in a disreputable genre. But as sheer moviemaking, it is skilled and knowing, and deserves the highest praise you can give a horror film: It works.” Indeed.

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Dark City Ending, Explained

10 movies to watch if you're a fan of equilibrium, 10 complicated sci-fi movies that went too far.

• Roger Ebert praised Cloud Atlas for its ambitious narrative structure and visual spectacle, calling it a daring cinematic experiment.
• Ebert commended Dark City for its immersive world that blended sci-fi and film noir, calling it a beautiful and generous film.
• Despite his reservations, Ebert gave Equilibrium 3 stars and appreciated its visual aesthetics and stylistic action scenes, noting its pure kinetic energy in depicting a socially relevant dystopia.

Checking out overlooked sci-fi movies Roger Ebert loved is a good way to find obscure, forgotten, or underrated entertaining films. Ebert was largely regarded as the greatest film critic of all time, and much of this was due to his exemplary taste for quality movies. For decades, Ebert single-handedly dominated public perception on quite a number of films. At the same time, like any critic, Ebert's subjective points of view didn't always agree with most viewers' experiences.

Indeed, there are terrible movies that Roger Ebert loved , and some of the films he didn't like have actually aged well. However, even though his reviews moved against the tide from time-to-time, Ebert's opinions held weight because of his sheer passion. Even if he hated certain movies, he made sure to also write about the reasons why others might enjoy them. This is why - although Ebert had no specific preferences in terms of genre - his review style aligned deeply with those who love science fiction . While Ebert's movie reviews weren't always agreeable, audiences and industry professionals alike consistently looked forward to his critical reading of new sci-fi worlds.

10 Movies Roger Ebert Didn’t Like That Actually Aged Really Well

There are a number of movies that renowned film critic Roger Ebert disliked when they were first released. However, many are now considered classics.

10 Cloud Atlas (2012)

Cloud Atlas

Roger Ebert praised Cloud Atlas for its ambitious narrative structure and visual spectacle, describing it as a daring cinematic experiment. Ebert appreciated Cloud Atlas' interconnected storytelling and the actors' versatile performances across different timelines and characters. While acknowledging its complexity, he also recognized that it can be challenging to follow. "On my second viewing, I gave up any attempt to work out the logical connections." Despite his reservations, Ebert called it "a demonstration of the magical, dreamlike qualities of the cinema." Notably, Ebert also gave Cloud Atlas all coveted 4 stars, even though it was a box office disaster that's typically categorized alongside movies that are too complicated to enjoy .

9 Dark City (1998)

Although Dark City is a cult sci-fi movie with very little mainstream appeal, Roger Ebert commended director Alex Proyas for creating an immersive world that blended sci-fi and film noir. Impressed by Dark City's intricate plot and captivating visuals, he described it as "not only a beautiful film but a generous one, which supplies rich depth and imagination and many more details than are really necessary to tell the story." While acknowledging the influence of other pivotal works, Ebert appreciated the film's unique take on existential themes and the nature of reality, and even noted how it accomplished what The Matrix also achieved but "earlier and with more feeling."

A sci-fi and neo-noir classic, Dark City's ending continues to shock its audiences, with fans looking for answers to the mysteries it set up.

8 Total Recall (2012)

Roger Ebert's review of the 2012 adaptation of Total Recall leaned towards criticism. He noted that Colin Farrell is objectively a better actor than Arnold Schwarzenegger - but also that " Schwarzenegger is more of a movie presence and better suited for the role of a wounded bull stumbling around in the china shop of his memories." While recognizing the advancements in special effects, Ebert believed that the film ultimately fell short of expectations. At the same time, while Ebert said that the remake didn't resonate with him "the way the 1990 film did," he still appreciated it as a successful and worthwhile Philip K. Dick adaptation that deserved 3 stars.

7 The Andromeda Strain (1971)

While it's one of the best Michael Crichton sci-fi movies , The Andromeda Strain remains one of the most overlooked entries in the genre. This didn't stop Roger Ebert from celebrating The Andromeda Strain 's realism, production design, and its successful attempts "to create a plausible environment" for astronauts in deep space. At the same time, he felt that it lacked in terms of creating a more emotionally engaging experience due to its focus on scientific processes. Yet, Ebert also noted how The Andromeda Strain is a film with "buried levels," urging viewers to look beyond the plot and engage with its interpretations of artificial intelligence and human dwellings in the future.

6 Equilibrium (2002)

Despite Roger Ebert's mixed feelings about Equilibrium, he saw it fit to confer the film with 3 full stars. Ebert noted the clear influence of other dystopian classics like 1984 and Fahrenheit 451, but suggested that Equilibrium didn't bring much new to the table. However, like many viewers, Ebert was impressed by the movie's visual aesthetics and stylistic action scenes. Though he had reservations about the movie, Ebert fully resonated with Equilibrium , particularly loving "the sneaky way Kurt Wimmer's movie advances its philosophy in between gun battles." Overall, Ebert saw Equilibrium's "pure kinetic energy" as an appropriate vehicle for depicting socially relevant dystopia.

Equilibrium is a unique sci-fi dystopia film with a lot of action. What other movies, like Surrogates or Divergent, would Equilibrium's fans enjoy?

5 Monsters (2010)

3 1/2 stars.

Roger Ebert praised the ingenuity of Monsters despite its limited budget, acknowledging director Gareth Edwards for his dual role as both director and visual effects artist. Over a decade later, Ebert's observations on how Monsters tackled America's "current border situation and the controversy over undocumented aliens" - and wars "where expensive and advanced aircraft are used to fire missiles at enemies who are mostly invisible" - still remain relevant. While recognizing Monsters' strengths, Ebert also pointed out its deliberate pacing, noting that some viewers might find it slow. However, he argued that the slower pace allowed for a deeper exploration of the characters and the world they inhabited.

4 The Cell (2000)

Considering the movie's less than stellar reputation, viewers may be surprised that Roger Ebert gave The Cell a 4-star review, and even called it "one of the best films of the year." Aligning with contemporary film critics who argue why The Cell was ahead of its time , Ebert loved the movie not just for its wild and haunting visuals, but also because it's "a story where we care about the characters; there's a lot at stake at the end, and we're involved." Whereas many found The Cell to be too pretentious when it came out, Ebert was impressed by the spectacular visualization of the film's mind-sharing tech and premise.

3 Timecrimes (2009)

Over the years , Timecrimes has received wildly mixed reviews, and among those to praised the movie's merits is Roger Ebert, although he did it in a way that properly pays tribute to this confusing time travel film. According to Ebert, Timecrimes is "a temporal chess game with nudity, voyeurism and violence, which makes it more boring than most chess games but less boring than a lot of movies." Citing his personal love of time travel paradoxes, Ebert appreciated the film's ability to deliver suspense and complexity within the constraints of its budget, ultimately recommending it to those seeking complicated and thought-provoking science fiction.

Understanding overly complex sci-fi movies entails not just suspending disbelief, but also focusing on the human stories beneath the fringe science.

2 Titan A.E. (2000)

When Titan A.E. first came out, Ebert lauded it as "the animated space adventure I've been hoping for--a film that uses the freedom of animation to visualize the strangeness of the universe in ways live action cannot duplicate, and then joins its vision to a rousing story." Indeed, though Ebert commented on the derivative nature of the plot and characters - particularly noting similarities with Star Wars and Starship Troopers - he also saw Titan A.E. as a huge step for animation overcoming the inherent limitations of live-action film. Overall, Ebert's review of Titan A.E. aligns with how the movie's resulting cult following regards its legacy in the sci-fi genre.

1 Gattaca (1997)

Gattaca (1997).

"This is one of the smartest and most provocative of science fiction films," said Ebert in his review of Gattaca, noting how the film deftly revolves around the resulting class struggles from mass genetic engineering. He admired Gattaca 's focus on suspense and character development, particularly the performances of Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman, as they navigated a society where a person's genetic makeup determined their success. Ebert favorably compared Gattaca to the classic sci-fi works of Orson Welles and King Vidal, citing the movie as an example of how the "best of the genre deals with ideas" rather than mere visual spectacle.

Source: Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert’s 10 Best Reviews and 10 Best Zingers

The venerable film critic died Thursday at age 70. Kevin Fallon curates his finest reviews—from Casablanca to Titanic —and his most memorable takedowns. (Sorry, Rob Reiner.)

Kevin Fallon

Senior Editor, Obsessed

KMazurr/WireImage via Getty

"You slide down in your seat and make yourself comfortable. On the screen in front of you, the movie image appears—enormous and overwhelming. If the movie is a good one, you allow yourself to be absorbed in its fantasy, and its dreams become part of your memories"

Roger Ebert wrote those words in 1980 for The Atlantic magazine, a love letter to the medium that became his employer: the movies. After a 46-year tenure as film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, several decades hosting a hugely influential television show, a landmark Pulitzer Prize, and countless thumbs in both directions, Ebert died Thursday at age 70.

He loved the movies, and loved writing about them—and he was damned good at writing about them. His reviews were a unique combination of scholarly, witty, occasionally sarcastic, and masterfully entertaining. His ability to craft an exhilarating rave of a film was equally matched by his stinging zingers. As we remember him, here’s a look back at what one lifelong admirer considers his 10 best reviews. Plus, no retrospective on Ebert’s work would be complete without a roundup of his most biting takedowns.

E.T.—The Extra-Terrestrial

“This movie made my heart glad. It is filled with innocence, hope, and good cheer. It is also wickedly funny and exciting as hell. E.T.—The Extra-Terrestrial is a movie like The Wizard of Oz , that you can grow up with and grow old with, and it won't let you down. It tells a story about friendship and love. Some people are a little baffled when they hear it described: It's about a relationship between a little boy and a creature from outer space that becomes his best friend. That makes it sound like a cross between The Thing and National Velvet . It works as science fiction, it's sometimes as scary as a monster movie, and at the end, when the lights go up, there's not a dry eye in the house.”

— March 22, 2002

“If we identify strongly with the characters in some movies, then it is no mystery that Casablanca is one of the most popular films ever made. It is about a man and a woman who are in love, and who sacrifice love for a higher purpose. This is immensely appealing; the viewer is not only able to imagine winning the love of Humphrey Bogart or Ingrid Bergman, but unselfishly renouncing it, as a contribution to the great cause of defeating the Nazis…

Seeing the film over and over again, year after year, I find it never grows over-familiar. It plays like a favorite musical album; the more I know it, the more I like it. The black-and-white cinematography has not aged as color would. The dialogue is so spare and cynical it has not grown old-fashioned. Much of the emotional effect of Casablanca is achieved by indirection; as we leave the theater, we are absolutely convinced that the only thing keeping the world from going crazy is that the problems of three little people do after all amount to more than a hill of beans.”

— September 15, 1996

“ Toy Story creates a universe out of a couple of kids’ bedrooms, a gas station, and a stretch of suburban highway. Its heroes are toys, which come to life when nobody is watching. Its conflict is between an old-fashioned cowboy who has always been a little boy's favorite toy, and the new space ranger who may replace him. The villain is the mean kid next door who takes toys apart and puts them back together again in macabre combinations. And the result is a visionary roller-coaster ride of a movie.

For the kids in the audience, a movie like this will work because it tells a fun story, contains a lot of humor, and is exciting to watch. Older viewers may be even more absorbed, because Toy Story , the first feature made entirely by computer, achieves a three-dimensional reality and freedom of movement that is liberating and new. The more you know about how the movie was made, the more you respect it.”

— November 22, 1995

Raging Bull

“Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull is a movie about brute force, anger, and grief. It is also, like several of Scorsese's other movies, about a man's inability to understand a woman except in terms of the only two roles he knows how to assign her: virgin or whore. There is no room inside the mind of the prizefighter in this movie for the notion that a woman might be a friend, a lover, or a partner. She is only, to begin with, an inaccessible sexual fantasy. And then, after he has possessed her, she becomes tarnished by sex. Insecure in his own manhood, the man becomes obsessed by jealousy—and releases his jealousy in violence…

The equation between his prizefighting and his sexuality is inescapable, and we see the trap he's in: LaMotta is the victim of base needs and instincts that, in his case, are not accompanied by the insights and maturity necessary for him to cope with them. The raging bull. The poor sap.”

— January 1, 1980

“It was Francois Truffaut who said that it's not possible to make an anti-war movie, because all war movies, with their energy and sense of adventure, end up making combat look like fun. If Truffaut had lived to see Platoon , the best film of 1986, he might have wanted to modify his opinion. Here is a movie that regards combat from ground level, from the infantryman's point of view, and it does not make war look like fun.”

— December 30, 1986

Beauty and the Beast

" Beauty and the Beast slipped around all my roadblocks and penetrated directly into my strongest childhood memories, in which animation looked more real than live-action features. Watching the movie, I found myself caught up in a direct and joyous way. I wasn't reviewing an 'animated film.' I was being told a story, I was hearing terrific music, and I was having fun. The film is as good as any Disney animated feature ever made—as magical as Pinocchio , Snow White , The Little Mermaid . And it's a reminder that animation is the ideal medium for fantasy, because all of its fears and dreams can be made literal."

— November 22, 1991

“James Cameron’s 194-minute, $200 million film of the tragic voyage is in the tradition of the great Hollywood epics. It is flawlessly crafted, intelligently constructed, strongly acted, and spellbinding. If its story starts well within the traditional formulas for such pictures, well, you don’t choose the most expensive film ever made as your opportunity to reinvent the wheel. …

Movies like this are not merely difficult to make at all, but almost impossible to make well. The technical difficulties are so daunting that it’s a wonder when the filmmakers are also able to bring the drama and history into proportion. I found myself convinced by both story and saga.”

— December 19, 1997

Hoop Dreams

“A film like Hoop Dreams is what the movies are for. It takes us, shakes us, and makes us think in new ways about the world around us. It gives us the impression of having touched life itself.

Hoop Dreams is, on one level, a documentary about two black kids named William Gates and Arthur Agee, from Chicago’s inner city, who are gifted basketball players and dream of someday starring in the NBA. On another level, it is about much larger subjects: about ambition, competition, race, and class in our society. About our value structures. And about the daily lives of people like the Agee and Gates families, who are unusually invisible to the mass media, but have a determination and resiliency that is a cause for hope.”

— October 21, 1994

“Every once in a while I have what I think of as an out-of-the-body experience at a movie. When the ESP people use a phrase like that, they're referring to the sensation of the mind actually leaving the body and spiriting itself off to China or Peoria or a galaxy far, far away. When I use the phrase, I simply mean that my imagination has forgotten it is actually present in a movie theater and thinks it's up there on the screen. In a curious sense, the events in the movie seem real, and I seem to be a part of them.

Star Wars works like that. My list of other out-of-the-body films is a short and odd one, ranging from the artistry of Bonnie and Clyde or Cries and Whispers to the slick commercialism of Jaws and the brutal strength of Taxi Driver . On whatever level (sometimes I'm not at all sure) they engage me so immediately and powerfully that I lose my detachment, my analytical reserve. The movie's happening, and it's happening to me.”

— January 1, 1977

“ Fargo begins with an absolutely dead-on familiarity with small-town life in the frigid winter landscape of Minnesota and North Dakota. Then it rotates its story through satire, comedy, suspense and violence, until it emerges as one of the best films I've ever seen.

To watch it is to experience steadily mounting delight, as you realize the filmmakers have taken enormous risks, gotten away with them and made a movie that is completely original, and as familiar as an old shoe—or a rubbersoled hunting boot from Land's End, more likely.”

— March 8, 1996

Ebert’s Best Burns

"Was there no one connected with this project who read the screenplay, considered the story, evaluated the proposed film and vomited?"

— from Last Rites review, November 19, 1988

"This is an old idea, beautifully expressed by Wordsworth, who said, 'Heaven lies about us in our infancy.' If I could quote the whole poem instead of completing this review, believe me, we'd all be happier. But I press on."

— from Baby Geniuses review, March 12, 1999

“I will one day be thin, but Vincent Gallo will always be the director of The Brown Bunny .”

— from The Brown Bunny review, September 3, 2004

“Watching Mad Dog Time is like waiting for the bus in a city where you're not sure they have a bus line."

— from Mad Dog Time review, November 29, 1996

" 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."

— from Valentine’s Day review, February 10, 2010

" Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo makes a living cleaning fish tanks and occasionally prostituting himself. How much he charges I'm not sure, but the price is worth it if it keeps him off the streets and out of another movie."

— from Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo review, August 12, 2005

"There is a movie called Fargo playing right now. It is a masterpiece. Go see it. If you, under any circumstances, see Little Indian, Big City , I will never let you read one of my reviews again."

— from Little Indian, Big City review, March 22, 1996

" Battlefield Earth is like taking a bus trip with someone who has needed a bath for a long time. It's not merely bad; it's unpleasant in a hostile way."

— from Battlefield Earth review, May 12, 2000

"If you want to save yourself the ticket price, go into the kitchen, cue up a male choir singing the music of hell, and get a kid to start banging pots and pans together. Then close your eyes and use your imagination."

— from Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen review, June 23, 2009

"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."

— from North review, July 22, 1994

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For Pulitzer-Winning Critic Roger Ebert, Films Were A Journey

Cheryl Corley

Film critic Roger Ebert acknowleges the applause of those gathered to pay tribute to him at the historic Chicago Theatre on July 18, 2005. Charles Rex Arbogast/AP hide caption

Film critic Roger Ebert acknowleges the applause of those gathered to pay tribute to him at the historic Chicago Theatre on July 18, 2005.

He won a Pulitzer Prize for his writing, but just as influential as his print essays were his "thumbs up" and "thumbs down" movie reviews. Film critic Roger Ebert died Thursday after struggling for years with cancer. He was 70 years old.

His thumb may have made him famous on TV, but Ebert was first and foremost a print journalist. He worked on newspapers in grade school, high school and college. With his acumen for writing came a love of movies — and on July 12, 2005, proclaimed Roger Ebert Day by the city of Chicago, he told a crowd of admirers why movies matter.

"If it's a great movie, it lets you understand a little bit more what it's like to be a different gender, a different race, a different age, a different economic class," he said. "It helps us to identify with the people who are sharing this journey with us. And that to me is the most noble thing that good movies can do — and it's a reason to encourage them and to support them and to go to them."

Ebert was born June 18, 1942. By the time he was 15, he was covering high school sports for his local paper in Champaign-Urbana, Ill. He went on to become a stringer for the Chicago Sun-Times, and when the paper's film critic left, he was offered the job.

Ebert works in his office at the WTTW-TV studios in Chicago on Jan. 12, 2011. Charles Rex Arbogast/AP hide caption

Ebert works in his office at the WTTW-TV studios in Chicago on Jan. 12, 2011.

"My mother's friends never knew what I did," he recalled. " 'And how is Roger?' They would have sons who were lawyers, doctors. 'And how is Roger? Is he still just going to the movies?' "

Ebert was 24, one of a crop of young critics around the country hired to cover the edgy films being made during the late '60s — movies like The Graduate, Easy Rider and Bonnie and Clyde . While writing reviews, Ebert also got some firsthand experience in the movie business, writing screenplays for B-movie king Russ Meyer. Ebert wrote the script for Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and, under a pseudonym, Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens .

In 1975, Ebert became the first film critic ever to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. Although his movie reviews were syndicated, it was his television work that took the heavyset, bespectacled Ebert to a national audience. In 1978, a three-year-old local film-review show he hosted with his chief Chicago rival, the Tribune 's Gene Siskel, was picked up for syndication by PBS.

"What Roger brought to the show was a very clear vision of what he was trying to communicate to viewers," says Thea Flaum, the show's executive producer. "Not worried about how he appeared. Only worried about getting across what he wanted you, sitting at home watching him, to know. And that's an enormous strength — maybe it's the essence of what a great critic really is, and I think that's what made the show fly."

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The show continued after Siskel's death from a brain tumor in 1999, with Ebert eventually joined by Richard Roeper. At the height of his career, Ebert wrote as many as 300 reviews a year, published books, and covered the Academy Awards and the major film festivals every year as a working journalist — all this in addition to the show. He also programmed his own film event — Roger Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival, featuring movies he considered great but ignored.

Ebert not only communicated enthusiasm for mainstream movies but championed singular projects like the small documentary Gates of Heaven . The film, about pet cemeteries, made it onto Ebert's 10-best list one year. Its director, a then-unknown Errol Morris, says if not for Ebert, he might not have had a career. Ebert's encouragement about that first directorial effort made an enormous difference for Morris.

"Here I had someone writing about my work who was a true enthusiast," Morris says. "His enthusiasm has kept me going over the years, and the memory of his enthusiasm will keep me going for as long as I make movies."

'A Guy Who Could Joke About Himself'

For all of Ebert's influence, his trademarked right thumb also brought charges that he was doing a disservice to serious film criticism. Morris says that's not true.

"It tells you he was a guy who could joke about himself, and if the 'thumbs up' and 'thumbs down' deal in any way suggests to people this was a person who did not take movies seriously, they are just wrong," he says.

In addition to winning the Pulitzer, Ebert was the first critic to have a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame. During a 2005 interview with NPR, he encouraged audiences to push themselves beyond Hollywood.

"If you only see films about people just like yourself, why even bother to go? Because you already know about yourself," he said. "You can only find out about yourself by learning about others."

Ebert was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in early 2002. After several surgeries, he was left unable to speak — but he continued to watch and review movies and carved out a prodigious digital profile on Twitter and on his Sun-Times blog.

In his 2011 memoir, Life Itself, Ebert wrote about the importance of contributing joy to the world — no matter what our problems, our health and circumstances. He was happy, he said, to have lived long enough to find that out.

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Studio Pulls ‘Megalopolis’ Trailer Featuring Fake Review Quotes

To promote Francis Ford Coppola’s epic, the spot used supposed lines from The Times, The New Yorker and others to suggest critics were wrong about him.

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By Annie Aguiar

A new trailer for Francis Ford Coppola’s “ Megalopolis ” featuring fake negative quotes from film critics has been pulled by the movie’s distributor, Lionsgate, a spokesman for the company said Wednesday.

The trailer, which was posted in the morning, featured quotes from well-known film critics of the past including Pauline Kael of The New Yorker, Vincent Canby of The New York Times and Roger Ebert of The Chicago Sun Times panning previous Coppola films like “The Godfather,” “Apocalypse Now” and “Bram Stoker’s Dracula.”

However, as the critic Bilge Ebiri first reported in Vulture , the quotes are not real. The trailer has now been pulled from YouTube, after amassing more than 1.3 million views in the single day it was online.

“Lionsgate is immediately recalling our trailer for ‘Megalopolis,’” a spokesman for the company said in a statement. “We offer our sincere apologies to the critics involved and to Francis Ford Coppola and American Zoetrope for this inexcusable error in our vetting process. We screwed up. We are sorry.”

“Megalopolis,” which was self-financed by Coppola and is due in theaters Sept. 27, was initially unable to find a buyer until Lionsgate stepped in. The epic fantasy premiered to a decidedly mixed reception at the Cannes Film Festival. On Rotten Tomatoes, it stands at just 53 percent fresh among critics. The trailer seemed to be an effort to show that reviews don’t always get it right when it comes to Coppola’s work.

The spot quoted Kael as saying “The Godfather” was “diminished by its artsiness,” when in reality she wrote about it glowingly . While Canby, who served as senior film critic at The New York Times from 1969 to 1993, wasn’t a fan of “Apocalypse Now,” calling it an “ intellectual muddle ,” he didn’t use the phrase “hollow at the core" as the trailer indicates.

The trailer also featured fake quotes from Andrew Sarris in The Village Voice, Stanley Kauffmann in The New Republic, Owen Gleiberman in Entertainment Weekly, and Rex Reed in The New York Observer and The New York Daily News, according to the Vulture report.

John Simon of National Review is also included in the spot, and a writer for the magazine posted on X that the staff was checking the archive but believed it to be false.

It is unclear how the faked quotes were created. Some on social media, speculating that artificial intelligence tools were used, started feeding prompts to ChatGPT looking for similar results.

Lionsgate would not comment on whether ChatGPT or other tools powered by artificial intelligence were used for the trailer.

The pulled trailer was not the first controversy surrounding the film. A report in The Guardian in May quoted anonymous sources accusing Coppola of trying to kiss female extras on the set of a nightclub scene. An executive co-producer, Darren Demetre, has said he was unaware of any harassment complaints made during the production, and Coppola later told The Times , “I’m not touchy-feely,” Coppola said. “I’m too shy.”

Annie Aguiar is a reporter covering arts and culture and a member of the 2024-25 Times Fellowship class, a program for journalists early in their careers. More about Annie Aguiar

20 of Roger Ebert's Most Hated Zero-Star Reviews

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Both a harsh critic at times, and a staunch defender of diversity and creative choices in filmmaking, Roger Ebert is arguably the most esteemed and well-known film critic of all time. Though he sadly passed away in 2013 after a long battle with cancer, his film reviews live on in the public memory as a testament to his perceptive view of cinema and eloquent way of talking about it.

One thing he was known for was not holding back when it came to his movie reviews. When Ebert thoroughly enjoyed and admired a film, he would say so enthusiastically. When he hated one, he would proclaim it loudly as he did for films like Pink Flamingos and Caligula . The critic wrote some of the worst movie reviews ever — not in terms of the quality of his writing, oh no, but in terms of how brutally he talked about the films he was reviewing. There are undeniably some films that he despised more than most, sometimes giving them his infamous lowest-possible rating: No stars and a thumbs down.

20 'The Hitcher' (1986)

Directed by robert harmon.

The '80s were an outstanding decade for thrillers , delivering movies of the caliber of Aliens and Die Hard . One of the decade's most tragically forgotten gems is Robert Harmon 's The Hitcher , a cat-and-mouse mystery where a young man who's escaped from the clutches of a murderous hitchhiker is stalked by the hitcher and framed for his crimes.

Though the film was (and still is) generally well-liked among critics and audiences alike, Ebert wrote a scathing review where he called the movie "diseased and corrupt" , scandalized by its "disgusting moments" and its sense of ethics (or lack thereof). If anything, this goes to show that the famed critic's opinion didn't always perfectly allign with the general consensus on a film.

The Hitcher

Not available

19 'Wolf Creek' (2005)

Directed by greg mclean.

Notoriously scary and underrated, Australian horror has delivered a variety of exceptional movies over the course of history. Sadly, Wolf Creek isn't typically considered to be among those gems. Even then, this horror thriller about a group of backpackers stranded in remote Australia falling prey to a murderous bushman isn't without its fair share of fans, both among audiences and (to a lesser extent) among critics .

Ebert was definitely not among the movie's defenders. On the contrary, in his review , he was very vocal about how he found director Greg McLean 's lopsided horrific treatment of female characters to be concerningly misogynistic at best. Debates about what kinds of lines horror films can cross are always interesting, and when the person leading such conversations is one of the most insightful film fans to ever live, it's all the more compelling.

18 'The Doom Generation' (1995)

Directed by gregg araki.

Gregg Araki 's dark satire The Doom Generation is about Jordan White and Amy Blue, two troubled teens who pick up an adolescent drifter and embark on a trip filled with sex and violence, journeying through an America full of strange people. With the passage of time, the film became a teen cult classic; but at the time it came out, it didn't exactly do so with a bang .

The film is certainly shocking and pretty to look at, but its shock and beauty are pretty surface-level. Roger Ebert evidently thought so, too, as his review is one long way of saying that he found the movie about as deep as a wading pool. He says that he does not "object to the content of [the] movie, but to the attitude," pointing to Araki's direction as in need of much maturing.

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17 'Jaws: The Revenge' (1987)

Directed by joseph sargent.

The fourth and final film in the Jaws franchise and one of the worst sequels of all time , Jaws: The Revenge focuses on the recently widowed Ellen Brody, who goes to visit her son Michael after her other son Sean dies from a shark attack while on the job. During her visit, she strikes up a new romance, but things go awry when the group is terrorized by a great white shark out for revenge. How a shark is able to hold a grudge and set out on a quest for revenge was a mystery for all, including Roger Ebert.

This film interestingly ignores the events of the movie Jaws 3-D , and was one that Roger Ebert found to be not only a “bad movie, but also a stupid and incompetent one.” He also went further and claimed that it wasn’t a good thriller either , which is a deep cut for a Jaws movie. According to Ebert, though, viewers are better off watching a movie that doesn't propose sharks are capable of thirsting for payback.

Jaws: The Revenge

16 'dirty love' (2005), directed by john asher.

In Dirty Love , Jenny McCarthy-Wahlberg plays a woman who finds out her boyfriend is cheating. After breaking up, she steps back onto the dating scene to get back at her ex, all the while ignoring the one guy who might be right for her: her nerdy friend John. Though it's supposed to be a comedy, some would call it one of the unfunniest films ever put on the silver screen.

This is a film that Roger Ebert particularly did not enjoy , having some very strong words for it in his review. He claimed that the film was so pitiful that “it [was] hopelessly incompetent” and said that he was unsure if anyone “involved [had] ever seen a movie, or [knew] what one is.” For anyone thinking about watching Dirty Love , it’s certain that Ebert would advise against it .

Watch on Tubi

15 'Police Academy' (1984)

Directed by hugh wilson.

Police Academy is a raunchy farce where a town's mayor declares that absolutely anyone can enroll in the police academy, regardless of their physical or mental condition. As a result, many misfits enter the academy, including a troublemaker who's forced to apply if he doesn't want to go to jail. Ask anyone who's seen the movie — including Roger Ebert — and they'll tell you that it's probably one of the worst comedies ever made for the silver screen.

Irrespective of its quality, the movie has garnered a bit of a cult following who enjoys its crude and childish humor over the decades. It was precisely because of that raunchy sense of humor that Ebert wrote a review condemning the film as "the least funny movie that could possibly have been inspired by [ Airplane! ] ." Ebert was certainly not the target audience for this kind of comedy, but those who do enjoy it are bound to have a good time with Police Academy .

Police Academy

14 'The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence)' (2011)

Directed by tom six.

One of the most infamously grotesque and disturbing horror movie franchises ever, the Human Centipede trilogy is certainly an entertaining talking point. The second installment, The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) , follows a disturbed loner who sets out to create a 12-person human centipede. No one asked for the first film, no one asked for a sequel, but Tom Six delivered anyway.

From the get-go, Ebert calls the film in his review "an ugly, artless affront to human decency." It's certainly not hard to see why the critic had such contempt for the movie, since it has everything he usually hated: No heart, nothing of any real value to say, and gratuitous shock value. It's certainly a cult classic that isn't without it fans, but Ebert would have never called himself one of them.

The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence)

13 'north' (1994), directed by rob reiner.

Based on a novel by Alan Zweibel , North stars Elijah Wood as the title character, a young boy who is bright but severely neglected by his parents. He meets a man who encourages him to legally separate from them and search the world for a much better replacement, but North soon realizes that the grass is not always greener on the other side.

Roger Ebert reviews could get quite poetic with his use of words, so when he was particularly concise when expressing his distaste for a movie, one knew that things were serious. Judging by his review of North , it might be safe to argue that it’s one of the films he despised most. Simply put, he “hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it.” He even said he was insulted by the very thought that some people might like it, which is an extremely low blow.

12 'Freddy Got Fingered' (2001)

Directed by tom green.

In the black comedy Freddy Got Fingered , a struggling cartoon artist decides to fabricate something life-changing about his father for attention when his pitch for a cartoon gets rejected in Hollywood. The devious lie is that his father is molesting his younger brother Freddy, and it sets off an insane chain of events for the family. The movie has its fans , but for the most part, it's usually considered one of the worst of all time.

Roger Ebert felt that the movie not only “doesn’t scrape the bottom of the barrel,” but that it doesn’t even “deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels.” Needless to say, the esteemed film critic absolutely hated this film about how an egregious lie tears apart a normal family . He didn't find it funny, and general audiences tend to agree.

Watch on Plex

11 'B.A.P.S.' (1997)

Directed by robert townsend.

In B.A.P.S. , one of the campiest comedies of the '90s , Oscar winner Halle Berry plays Nisi alongside Natalie Desselle ’s Mickey, two stylish waitresses who dream of opening their own hair salon that doubles as a soul-food restaurant. To achieve these dreams, the two fly to L.A. for an audition but instead strike up a conveniently close friendship with an elderly millionaire.

Though it's a film that fans of Berry thoroughly enjoy without any irony or shame, Roger Ebert found it less than satisfactory . He is quoted as saying that the film "doesn’t work" but would "bring us all together... in paralyzing boredom." The general critical consensus aligns with his opinion, but with so many modern audiences still loving the movie for what it is, one can't help but wonder if a re-evaluation is in order.

10 'Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo' (2005)

Directed by mike bigelow.

In the somewhat-of-a-cult-classic comedy sequel Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo , Rob Schneider plays the titular gigolo who resumes his career of prostitution when his former pimp returns to his life and requires his assistance. While Deuce attempts to figure out who is framing his friend for multiple murders, he encounters many ladies and obstacles along the way.

Though many fans of Rob Schneider love this wacky movie for what it has to offer, Ebert reviewed the film and called it “aggressively bad, as if it wants to cause suffering to the audience” and he went on to personally address the star, saying: “Mr. Schneider, your movie sucks.” There’s not much else one can add after a scathing review like that!

Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo

9 'last rites' (1988), directed by donald p. bellisario.

The film Last Rites is about a woman named Angela who turns to a priest for help after the brutal murder of her mobster lover at the hands of his furious wife, Zena. The priest becomes torn between his vows, Angela, and his sister, Zena. This may sound like an interesting and promising premise, but if critics like Ebert are to be believed, director Donald P. Bellisario couldn't have squandered the concept's potential more badly.

Last Rites received a scathing review from Roger Ebert , who proclaimed it “ the worst film of 1988 .” He also went on to imply that the people responsible for the movie were all “deficient in taste, judgment, reason, tact, morality and common sense” . He then made sure the masses knew that the film was overall “offensive to [his] intelligence."

8 'Caligula' (1979)

Directed by tinto brass.

Created by the founder of Penthouse magazine Bob Guccione , the erotic drama Caligula focuses on the infamous titular Roman Emperor, played by Malcolm McDowell . Also in the cast of this wild historical movie is the talented Helen Mirren , as well as the late Peter O’Toole . Some call this one of the most scandalous films ever made, others think that its infamy is blown a little out of proportion , but not many people think it's a genuinely great movie.

Unfortunately for everyone involved in the project, Roger Ebert had nothing nice to say about it . He is quoted as saying the film is simply “sickening, utterly worthless, shameful trash” and that he was left feeling “disgusted and unspeakably depressed” after watching it. A noteworthy period drama this is definitely not, at least according to Ebert.

Buy on Amazon

7 'She’s Out of Control' (1989)

Directed by stan dragoti.

In She’s Out of Control , Katie, the good-girl teenage daughter of a radio station manager, uses his business trip as a chance to change up her life and appearance, learning how to do so from her dad's girlfriend, Janet. Despite a star-studded cast with the likes of Tony Danza and Matthew Perry , the movie was an all-around failure, and understandably so.

Roger Ebert called this film “bizzare,” “banal,” and many other negative things, particularly in relation to its depiction of young girls. He said the movie “sees adolescent girls as commodities to be protected from predatory males” but also notes that the predatory male in this film could very well be Katie's father, who keeps looking at her inappropriately.

Watch on Amazon Prime

6 'Mad Dog Time' (1996)

Directed by larry bishop.

In Mad Dog Time , a mob boss named Vic comes out of a stint in a mental hospital to find his business and affairs in a mess. As Vic tries to fix the issues, other mobsters are looking to remove him from the equation so that they can take over. Even a star-studded cast featuring the likes of Gabriel Byrne , Jeff Goldblum , and Kyle MacLachlan couldn't save the film from being obliterated by critics.

In the simplest of terms, Roger Ebert said that this movie “does not improve on the sight of a blank screen viewed for the same length of time.” In other words, Mad Dog Time isn’t even worth watching as viewers could watch paint dry without noticing any difference . This review from Ebert is a burn that cuts extra deep.

5 'The Devils' (1971)

Directed by ken russell.

Ken Russell 's blasphemous and infamous religious drama The Devils is a biopic set in 17th-century France, where Father Urbain Grandier 's protection of the city of Loudun from the corrupt Cardinal Richelieu is undermined by a sexually repressed nun who's accused of witchcraft. Due to its sacrilegious religious imagery, intense sexual content, and graphic violence, the film faced great backlash upon release, as well as heavy censorship .

It may not be quite as taboo nowadays as it was back in the '70s, but The Devils has lost none of the shock value that made Roger Ebert despise it . The critic was always a fan of using sarcasm to criticize movies he didn't like, but his review of The Devils is a special case. Entirely composed of abundantly sarcastic "praise" for Russell's film, it's a witty way of him saying that he found it unbearably pretentious and morally reprehensible.

4 'Pink Flamingos' (1972)

Directed by john waters.

Director John Waters is nothing if not an acquired taste — and one that not many cinephiles are able to tap into, at that. Perhaps his most famous (or infamous) film is Pink Flamingos , a comedy about a notorious criminal who has given herself the title of "the filthiest person alive," and has to defend it from a sleazy couple trying to humiliate her.

The comedy movie is so disturbing that it's arguably more shocking than it is funny . In one of Roger Ebert's worst reviews in terms of how harsh he was to a movie, the critic dismissively wrote that it was a film one is tempted to praise just to be able to say one was able to get through it. However, the critic said "it is a temptation [he could] resist." He refused to give the movie a star rating, saying that stars did not apply in this case. In a resounding conclusion, he argued that Waters's film "should be considered not as a film but as a fact, or perhaps as an object."

Pink Flamingos

3 'i spit on your grave' (2010), directed by steven r. monroe.

A better-known remake of the infamous horror thriller of the same name (which Ebert also gave a thumbs down), I Spit on Your Grave is about a writer who is brutalized during her cabin retreat. After her attackers leave her for dead, she comes back for brutal, gory revenge. It's pure revenge fantasy that never pretends to be anything more, but that was even more reason for critics to find it incredibly distasteful.

The movie is so raw and unfiltered in its depiction of violence that the vast majority of viewers simply can't take it – including Ebert. He hated the film's despicable sense of morality (or lack thereof, rather), and outright said to I Spit on Your Grave in his review "I spit on your violence toward women."

I Spit on Your Grave

2 'i spit on your grave' (1978), directed by meir zarchi.

Originally titled Day of the Woman , the original I Spit on Your Grave follows the same rape-and-revenge story of its remake, but in an arguably more vicious and exploitative way. It's faded into obscurity much more than its successor has, and that's probably for good reason . Its impact is limited to slight satisfaction after watching the third act, and that feeling (along with the memory of the movie) fades away surprisingly quickly.

Ebert thought so, too, writing a merciless review where he called Meir Zarchi 's film "a vile bag of garbage" and referred to the experience of watching it as "one of the most depressing experiences of [his] life." He thought that it was an overly simplistic film devoid of any artistic or technical merit, and if audiences' opinions on the movie nearly a half-century later are any indication, the critic was probably right.

I Spit On Your Grave (1978)

1 'the texas chainsaw massacre' (2003), directed by marcus nispel.

The original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a seminal entry in horror, an essential watch for fans of the genre which has aged like fine wine. The movie was remade in 2003 as Marcus Nispel 's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre , about five friends on the road who find themselves stalked and hunted by a terrifying family of killers.

Although some fans of gruesome slashers don't find this entry in the franchise to be all that bad , most critics and audience members thought it was abysmal in comparison to the original. Ebert didn't like the original, but he despised this one even more. He called 2003's Texas Chainsaw Massacre "vile, ugly and brutal" in his merciless review, emphasizing that he saw absolutely no reason to recommend that audiences check it out.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)

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NEXT: Critically Acclaimed Movies That Roger Ebert Disliked

• Roger Ebert

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