Author: Roger Ebert

Troy is based on the epic poem The Iliad by Homer, according to the credits. Homer’s estate should sue.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter
Reviews/Criticism

The movie is being revived around the country for midnight cult showings. Midnight is not late enough.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter
Reviews/Criticism

This movie is not merely bad, but incompetent. I get tapes in the mail from 10th graders that are better made than this… I have often asked myself, “What would it look like if the characters in a movie were animatronic puppets created by aliens with an imperfect mastery of human behavior?” Now I know.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter
Reviews/Criticism

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.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter
Reviews/Criticism

It was W. C. Fields who hated to appear in the same scene with a child, a dog, or a plunging neckline – because nobody in the audience would be looking at him. Jennifer Aniston has the same problem in this movie even when she’s in scenes all by herself.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter
Reviews/Criticism

If you plan to miss this movie, better miss it quickly; I doubt if it’ll be around to miss for long.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter
Reviews/Criticism

The movie Ed Wood, about the worst director of all time, was made to prepare us for Stargate. – Review of “Stargate”

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter
Reviews/Criticism

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.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter
Reviews/Criticism

Wild Wild West is a comedy dead zone. You stare in disbelief as scenes flop and die. The movie is all concept and no content; the elaborate special effects are like watching money burn on the screen…

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter
Reviews/Criticism

The Last Airbender is an agonizing experience in every category I can think of and others still waiting to be invented.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter
Reviews/Criticism

They say state-of-the-art special effects can create the illusion of anything on the screen, and now we have proof: It's possible for the Jim Henson folks and Industrial Light and Magic to put their heads together and come up with the most repulsive single creature in the history of special effects, and I am not forgetting the Chucky doll…

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter
Reviews/Criticism

My guess is that African Americans will be offended by the movie, and whites will be embarrassed. The movie will bring us all together, I imagine, in paralyzing boredom.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter
Reviews/Criticism

It's the worst kind of bad film: the kind that gets you all worked up and then lets you down, instead of just being lousy from the first shot.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter
Reviews/Criticism

Going to see Godzilla at the Palais of the Cannes Film Festival is like attending a satanic ritual in St. Peter's Basilica… it was the festival's closing film, coming at the end like the horses in a parade, perhaps for the same reason.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter
Reviews/Criticism

To call it an anticlimax would be an insult not only to climaxes but to prefixes.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter
Reviews/Criticism

The director, whose name is Pitof, was probably issued with two names at birth and would be wise to use the other one on his next project.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter
Reviews/Criticism

Perhaps it was made by beings from another planet, who were able to watch our television in order to absorb key concepts such as cars, sex, leukemia, and casinos, but formed an imperfect view of how to fit them together.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter
Reviews/Criticism

You know when sometimes a film catches fire inside a projector? If it happened with this one, I suspect the audience might cheer.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter
Reviews/Criticism

John Waters’ Pink Flamingos has been restored for its 25th anniversary revival, and with any luck at all that means I won’t have to see it again for another 25 years. If I haven’t retired by then, I will.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter
Reviews/Criticism

Only enormously talented people could have made Death to Smoochy. Those with lesser gifts would have lacked the nerve to make a film so bad, so miscalculated, so lacking any connection with any possible audience.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter
Reviews/Criticism

You know you’re in trouble with a sequel when the word of mouth advises you to see the first movie twice instead.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter
Reviews/Criticism