Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was an American film critic, essayist, and screenwriter known for a conversational style that made sophisticated film ideas accessible. Born in Urbana, Illinois, he attended the University of Illinois and worked as a general reporter before becoming film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times in 1967. His reviews championed foreign and independent films and filmmakers like Werner Herzog and Martin Scorsese. In 1975 he won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism, the first film critic to do so. That same year he and Chicago Tribune critic Gene Siskel began co-hosting a public television program, later titled Sneak Previews, where their thumbs up and thumbs down judgments became a trademark. He also co-wrote the screenplay for the 1970 Russ Meyer film Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. He collected essays on older films in The Great Movies, founded the Overlooked Film Festival, and wrote the memoir Life Itself, which was adapted into a 2014 documentary.