Roger Ebert

It was finally time. The 96th Academy Awards ceremony was ready for its big moment: Best Picture. But when presenter Al Pacino appeared on the stage with the envelope, somehow skipped over reading the names of the 10 Best Picture...

Documentaries have always held a prominent position at the SXSW Film Festival, and the best of the non-fiction form here in Austin feel like they encourage personal expression. It’s a festival (and a city really) that’s built around artists and...

When judging whether a particular year’s Oscars are “good” or “bad,” you should break down your response into separate criteria. Were you happy with what won? Did you like the speeches? Were there memorable unscripted moments? How was the host?...

The first full day of features at the Paramount (after Opening night premieres of “Road House” and Netflix’s “3 Body Problem—and an AM preview of new episodes of “Hacks”) felt like a purposeful attempt by the programmers to offer escape....

True/False is a rare gem. As a critic based in Chicago—whether it’s Cannes, Karlovy Vary, Sundance, SXSW, NYFF, or TIFF—I’m always venturing out of the Midwest to a festival in another region or another country. But no matter who I’ve...

Usually, I make it a rule to not rewatch films at festivals; When my time on the ground is so limited, I would rather discover a new title rather than re-explore (in fact, the only time I’ve ever rewatched any...

Like many festivals and observers, True/False, the preeminent nonfiction film festival in Columbia, Missouri, has had displacement on its mind while considering a central question: How do we hold onto what once was? For many filmmakers, the preservation of memories,...

“Road House” likes to explicitly reference that it thinks it’s a Western. It’s more like a cartoon. While that may sound harsh, some of the Looney Tunes-esque qualities of this reimagining of the 1989 Patrick Swayze classic work in its...

If you’ve been missing the mind f*ck properties of HBO’s “Westworld,” Netflix has a show for you. You know that feeling that so many streaming shows sag due to having too few ideas for their episode order? What’s the opposite...

Opening night at the 2024 South by Southwest Film Festival may have been dominated by Doug Liman’s remake of “Road House,” but there was a major event unfolding just next door at almost the same time, a major stop on...