In his book, "The Great Movies," Roger Ebert explores what are, in his view, the 100 most essential cinematic works in history. The timeline above lists those 100 by release date, director and stars. (All information is via Imdb.com and all photos without attribution are by unknown photographers and are in the public domain)
In April of this year, the film universe was saddened by the passing of "the best-known film critic in America."
Roger Ebert was not only one of the industry's most well-known pundits, he was one of its very best. Whether it was breaking new ground in becoming the first film critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism or his infamous on air reviewing of films during which he would coin the now common place idiom "Two thumbs up," Ebert was able to do what few critics before him could: popularize film criticism.
In a way, what Ebert did for film criticism is similar to what director Steven Spielberg did for the movie industry with the marketing and release of his 1975 thriller "Jaws." In the film, Spielberg created a first of its kind: the high concept film, or a film of a simple premise that can be easily pitched in 25 words or less. "Jaws" went on to become the first film to gross over $100 million in rentals and effectively built the summer blockbuster secret to box office success we know today.
Ebert, on the other hand, brought the secret of mainstream success to those who write about film. Not long after he started his career as a film critic in 1967, Ebert was already gathering attention for his work. Pauline Kael, who is widely regarded as the most influential film critic of her generation (right before Ebert's), called Ebert's early columns "the best film criticism being done in American newspapers today" shortly after she first read them.
Soon, Ebert, on the heels of his successful start in the business, became a co-host on a weekly film review television show called "Sneak Previews." Though the show started out as a local production in Chicago, it was soon picked up by PBS and shown to audiences nationwide.
Over the years, the show continued to draw successful ratings even through a number of network and name changes. It arguably reached it's most well-known period as "Ebert & Roeper and the Movies" from 2000-2002 when Ebert's fellow Chicago Sun-Times columnist Richard Roeper joined him as co-host.
"I remember the show being a big hit right away," said Raritan Valley Community College film professor and Ebert acquaintance Mark Bezanson. "I think that the show reached a lot of people, not just because it was accessible physically on television, but because it was accessible on a critical level. A lot of film critics talk in a sort of pretentious code, and Ebert took all that and put it in people language so to speak."
"The 'two thumbs up' thing didn't hurt the appeal either," Bezanson added.
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| Roger Ebert is remembered as the most well-known film critic in America. (Photo owned by Roger Ebert) |
What set Ebert apart from other film critics, in addition to his television exposure, was the simplicity of his critical style. He utilized straightforward film rating techniques such as a four star system as opposed to the many other wider ranging systems used, like one-to-10 scales. He also invented and trademarked the "two thumbs up" phrase which rated a movies success based on whether it received thumbs up or down from Ebert. The phrase quickly garnered universal appeal as it gave many the opportunity to quickly decide whether or not to see a film.
"The 'two thumbs up' thing was a big help when my husband and I would try to plan a weekend trip to the movies without the kids," said film fan and mother of three Carol Paterno. "I love movies but I never really had time to figure out what was worth seeing when they were little. And Roger Ebert was normally right so it became a pretty reliable thing for us."
In addition to gaining the approval of general audiences, Ebert also became popular with film insiders, particularly those with a taste for experimental films not popular with mainstream audiences, because of his approval and openness to such films.
Though he did not like the idea of top 10 lists, one he submitted to the 2012 Sight & Sound poll of the greatest films of all time included both Stanley Kubrick's 1968 evolution epic, "2001: A Space Odyssey," and Terrence Malick's 2010 wide-scaling life meditation, "The Tree of Life." The two films are examples of art house features with cult followings from both past and present eras and, upon release, each had just about as many detractors as they did admirers. Ebert praised them as two of the greatest of all time, however, in what was his signature "relative, not absolute" style of reviewing.
Interestingly enough, the beginning of Ebert's popularization of film criticism came in the same year that Spielberg reinvented the box office equation. Ebert first started as a television co-host in 1975, the same year "Jaws" was released. Ebert said of the film: "There are no doubt supposed to be all sorts of levels of meanings in such an archetypal story, but Spielberg wisely decides not to underline any of them. This is an action film content to stay entirely within the perimeters of its story." He knew how the film would revolutionize the business; he was in the process of doing the same to his own.
