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Roger Ebert Quotes (1942-2013)
Author, Writer, Artist
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About Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert (18 June 1942 – 4 April 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. He was the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.
Best Roger Ebert Quotes
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Explore our curated collection of the most famous and impactful Roger Ebert quotes.
“Art is the closest we can come to understanding how a stranger really feels.”
“I believe empathy is the most essential quality of civilization.”
“This movie was made by professionals. Do not attempt any of this behavior yourself.”
“Call me hardhearted, call me cynical, but please don't call me if they make Home Alone 3.”
“Doing research on the Web is like using a library assembled piecemeal by pack rats and vandalized nightly.”
“I had a colonoscopy once, and they let me watch it on TV. It was more entertaining than The Brown Bunny.”
“The R rating refers to Logue's use of vulgarity. It is utterly inexplicable. This is an excellent film for teenagers.”
“I've been reviewing movies for a long time, and I can't think of one that more dramatically shoots itself in the foot.”
“You want loud, dumb, skillful, escapist entertainment? Twister works. You want to think? Think twice about seeing it.”
“One hopeful sign that the filmmakers can learn and grow is that the sequel does not contain a single pie, if you know what I mean.”
Roger Ebert Quotes by Topic
Find exactly what you are looking for by browsing this categorized list of Roger Ebert quotes by topic.
Roger Ebert on Being There 3 quotes
“The movie presents us with an image, and while you may discuss the meaning of the image, it is not permitted to devise explanations for it.”
Roger Ebert on War Horse (film) 3 quotes
“Joey meets a series of masters, most of them on both sides men who respected horses. Yet war is no place for sentiment, and as an officer explains with brutal realism, a horse is a weapon and must either be used or destroyed.”
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Roger Ebert on Groundhog Day (film) 3 quotes
“Formula comedies are a dime a dozen. Those based on an original idea are more rare, and "Groundhog Day," apart from everything else, is a demonstration of the way time can sometimes give us a break. Just because we're born as SOBs doesn't mean we have to live that way.”
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Roger Ebert on Tron 3 quotes
“The interior of a computer is a fine and private place, but none, I fear, do there embrace, except in "Tron," a dazzling movie from Walt Disney in which computers have been used to make themselves romantic and glamorous. Here's a technological sound-and-light show that is sensational and brainy, stylish, and fun.”
Roger Ebert on Aliens (film) 3 quotes
“The director, James Cameron, has been assigned to make an intense and horrifying thriller, and he has delivered it. Weaver comes through with a very strong, sympathetic performance. The supporting players are sharply drawn. The visual effects are professional. I’m giving the movie a high rating for its skill and professionalism and because it does the job it says it will do. I am also advising you not to eat before you go to see it.””
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Roger Ebert on Alien (film) 3 quotes
“One of the great strengths of "Alien" is its pacing. It takes its time. It waits. It allows silences (the majestic opening shots are underscored by Jerry Goldsmith with scarcely audible, far-off metallic chatterings). It suggests the enormity of the crew's discovery by building up to it with small steps: The interception of a signal (is it a warning or an SOS?). The descent to the extraterrestrial surface. The bitching by Brett and Parker, who are concerned only about collecting their shares. The masterstroke of the surface murk through which the crew members move, their helmet lights hardly penetrating the soup. The shadowy outline of the alien ship. The sight of the alien pilot, frozen in his command chair. The enormity of the discovery inside the ship ("It's full of ... leathery eggs ...").”
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Roger Ebert on Magnolia (film) 3 quotes
“Magnolia is a film of sadness and loss, of lifelong bitterness, of children harmed and adults destroying themselves. As the narrator tells us near the end, "We may be through with the past, but the past is never through with us." In this wreckage of lifetimes, there are two figures, a policeman and a nurse, who do what they can to offer help, hope and love. … The central theme is cruelty to children, and its lasting effect. This is closely linked to a loathing or fear of behaving as we are told, or think, that we should. … As an act of filmmaking, it draws us in and doesn't let go. It begins deceptively, with a little documentary about amazing coincidences (including the scuba diver scooped by a fire-fighting plane and dumped on a forest fire) … coincidences and strange events do happen, and they are as real as everything else. If you could stand back far enough, in fact, everything would be revealed as a coincidence. What we call "coincidences" are limited to the ones we happen to notice.”
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Roger Ebert on Altered States 3 quotes
“'''''Altered States'' is one hell of a movie — literally. It hurls its characters headlong back through billions of years to the moment of creation and finds nothing there except an anguished scream of "No!" as the life force protests its moment of birth. And then, through the power of the human ego to insist on its own will even in the face of the implacable indifference of the universe, it turns "No!" into "Yes!" and ends with the basic scene in all drama, the man and the woman falling into each other's arms. But hold on just a second here: I'm beginning to sound like the movie's characters, a band of overwrought pseudo-intellectuals who talk like a cross between Werner Erhard, Freud, and Tarzan. Some of the movie's best dialogue passages are deliberately staged with everybody talking at once: It doesn't matter what they're saying, only that they're incredibly serious about it. I can tell myself intellectually that this movie is a fiendishly constructed visual and verbal roller coaster, a movie deliberately intended to overwhelm its audiences with sensual excess. I know all that, and yet I was overwhelmed, I was caught up in its headlong energy.'''”
Roger Ebert on Alien 3 2 quotes
View all 2 quotes on Alien 3 →Roger Ebert on Gates of Heaven 2 quotes
“[Gates of Heaven is] a film about hope - hope held by the loneliest people who have ever been on film.”
Roger Ebert on Pleasantville 2 quotes
“In the twilight of the 20th century, here is a comedy to reassure us that there is hope — that the world we see around us represents progress, not decay. Pleasantville, which is one of the year's best and most original films, sneaks up on us. It begins by kidding those old black-and-white sitcoms like Father Knows Best, it continues by pretending to be a sitcom itself, and it ends as a social commentary of surprising power.”
Roger Ebert on Hugo (film) 2 quotes
“'''''Hugo'' is unlike any other film Martin Scorsese has ever made, and yet possibly the closest to his heart: a big-budget, family epic in 3-D, and in some ways, a mirror of his own life.''' We feel a great artist has been given command of the tools and resources he needs to make a movie about — movies. He also makes it a fable that will be fascinating for (some, not all) children is a measure of what feeling went into it.”
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What Roger Ebert Said About Others
Discover personal opinions Roger Ebert shared regarding contemporaries.
Roger Ebert on Adam Sandler 2 quotes
“The film is exhilarating to watch because Sandler, liberated from the constraints of formula, reveals unexpected depths as an actor. Watching this film, you can imagine him in Dennis Hopper roles. He has darkness, obsession and power.”
Roger Ebert on Trent Lott
Roger Ebert on James Jones
Roger Ebert on Ingmar Bergman
Roger Ebert on Clive Barker
“...I have seen the future of implausible plotting, and his name is Clive Barker.”
Roger Ebert on Harry Dean Stanton
“No movie featuring either Harry Dean Stanton or M. Emmet Walsh in a supporting role can be altogether bad.”
Roger Ebert on Miranda July
“July’s film fits no genre, fulfills no expectations, creates its own rules and seeks only to share a strange, lovable mind with us.”
Roger Ebert on Woody Allen
Roger Ebert on Sarah Palin
“When I learned of Sarah Palin hunting wolves from a helicopter, my sensibilities were tested, but after this film, I was prepared to call in more helicopters.”
Roger Ebert on Guillermo del Toro
“"Guillermo Del Toro is the most challenging of directors in the fantasy field because he invents from scratch, or adapts into his own vision. He has made six features since his debut at 29 with Cronos, and I have admired, even loved, all of them."http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F20070825%2FREVIEWS08%2F70825002%2F1023”
Roger Ebert on Liam Hemsworth
“I suspect Hemsworth may have been cast for his appeal to fangirls, rather like Robert Pattinson in "Twilight." He's a little too tall, blonde, blue-eyed and hunky to be super plausible. He can definitely become a star, but it may be in the Peter O'Toole tradition; I can more easily imagine him in a remake of "Lawrence of Arabia" than as a settled spouse in a domestic drama.”
Roger Ebert on Christopher Hitchens
“The man can write. He has lived a life. He has seen for himself, making it a point to travel regularly to dangerous and wretched nations. He has been a man of political passion, beginning first as a Trotskyite and becoming in recent years a supporter of the Neocon war in Iraq. … He exists as that most daring of writers, a freelance intellectual. He's a good speaker, can be funny, has bad teeth, is passably good-looking, and is at no pains to be a charmer.”
Quotes About Roger Ebert
Gain deeper perspective through quotes about Roger Ebert from others.
Chris Beaumont on Roger Ebert
“Roger Ebert is a national treasure. He is the most recognizable and well known movie critic. He has been my favorite writer for some time now. I do not always agree with his opinions, which is my right, but he always backs them up. He is not someone who will say that such and such about movie X is bad and leave it at that — he will give the reasons for his thought process.”
Chris Reed on Roger Ebert
Douglas Martin on Roger Ebert
“It would not be a stretch to say that Mr. Ebert was the best-known film reviewer of his generation, and one of the most trusted. The force and grace of his opinions propelled film criticism into the mainstream of American culture. Not only did he advise moviegoers about what to see, but also how to think about what they saw.”
George R. R. Martin on Roger Ebert
“I was very saddened today to hear of the death of Roger Ebert. Roger... has been my favorite film critic since forever. I did not always agree with him, but I always found him insightful and fun to read. He was not just a terrific critic, he was a terrific WRITER. .. A brilliant man, a good life. I give him two thumbs up.”
Barack Obama on Roger Ebert
“For a generation of Americans — and especially Chicagoans — Roger was the movies. When he didn't like a film, he was honest; when he did, he was effusive — capturing the unique power of the movies to take us somewhere magical.”
Michael Shamberg on Roger Ebert
Michael Scherer on Roger Ebert
“"The movies won’t be the same without Roger," the President of the United States said today in a statement upon the death of Roger Ebert, one of the most influential American writers and critics of the last quarter century. He was, to begin, a great film critic, a joyful viewer who always preached that great art and popular entertainment were not exclusive. … He was also a great essayist, and the world now begs some book publisher to come along to bind his best blog posts, if only so they can be preserved by others who loved the printed word as much as he did. But most importantly, he celebrated humanity, and the things it creates.”
Rodney Welch on Roger Ebert
“Here’s something you don’t hear said about many movie critics: people love Roger Ebert. … There’s a good reason for this: Ebert doesn’t stand between moviegoers and the audience. Rather, his regular readers are serious movie-lovers who see him as their rep, the guy out there fighting to make movies less stupid, more entertaining, more intelligent, more everything. You don’t have to agree with him — and I certainly didn’t in this book, when he ragged on Team America and Jesus is Magic, two movies where I laughed myself sick — to know that he’s on your side. He sees the bad movies so you don’t have to, and he’s seen the same ones over and over. … Mere bile, though, isn’t his game; he’s as interested in why movies fail as why they work. A lot of the time, it’s obvious: because it’s made by morons for morons. In these cases, Ebert drags us through the plot in as entertaining a fashion as possible. … Forty years on, he’s still a moviegoer’s best friend.”
About Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert (18 June 1942 – 4 April 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. He was the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.