Roger Joseph Ebert was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter and author. He was the film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. Ebert was known for his intimate, Midwestern writing style and critical views informed by values of populism and humanism. Writing in a prose style intended to be entertaining and direct, he made sophisticated cinematic and analytical ideas more accessible to non-specialist audiences. Ebert endorsed foreign and independent films he believed would be appreciated by mainstream viewers, championing filmmakers like Werner Herzog, Errol Morris and Spike Lee, as well as Martin Scorsese, whose first published review he wrote. In 1975, Ebert became the first film critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. Neil Steinberg of the Chicago Sun-Times said Ebert "was without question the nation's most prominent and influential film critic," and Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times called him "the best-known film critic in America." Per The New York Times, "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."
Schindler's List is a 1993 American epic historical drama film directed and produced by Steven Spielberg and written by Steven Zaillian. It is based on the historical novel Schindler's Ark (1982) by Thomas Keneally. The film follows Oskar Schindler, a German industrialist who saved more than a thousand mostly Polish–Jewish refugees from the Holocaust by employing them in his factories during World War II. It stars Liam Neeson as Schindler, Ralph Fiennes as SS officer Amon Göth, and Ben Kingsley as Schindler's Jewish accountant Itzhak Stern.
Vincent Gallo is an American actor, filmmaker, and musician. He has won several accolades, including a Volpi Cup for Best Actor, and has been nominated for numerous more, including the Palme d'Or, the Golden Lion, and the Bronze Horse.
Eugene Kal Siskel was an American film critic and journalist for the Chicago Tribune who co-hosted movie review television series alongside colleague Roger Ebert.
Richard E. Roeper is an American columnist and film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times. He co-hosted the television series At the Movies with Roger Ebert from 2000 to 2008, serving as the late Gene Siskel's successor. From 2010 to 2014, he co-hosted The Roe and Roeper Show with Roe Conn on WLS-AM. From October 2015 to October 2017, Roeper served as the host of the FOX 32 morning show Good Day Chicago.
Capturing the Friedmans is a 2003 HBO documentary film directed by Andrew Jarecki. It focuses on the 1980s investigation of Arnold and Jesse Friedman for child molestation. The film premiered at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival where it received critical acclaim as well as the Grand Jury Prize: Documentary. The film went on to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
At the Movies was an American movie review television program produced by Disney–ABC Domestic Television in which two film critics share their opinions of newly released films. Its original hosts were Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel, the former hosts of Sneak Previews on PBS (1975–1982) and a similarly titled syndicated series (1982–1986). After Siskel died in 1999, Ebert worked with various guest critics until choosing Chicago Sun-Times colleague Richard Roeper as his regular partner in 2000.
Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, collectively known as Siskel & Ebert, were American film critics known for their partnership on television lasting from 1975 to Siskel's death in 1999.
Aaron Edward Eckhart is an American actor. Born in Cupertino, California, Eckhart moved to the United Kingdom at an early age. He began his acting career by performing in school plays, before moving to Australia for his high school senior year. He left high school without graduating, but earned a diploma through a professional education course, and then graduated from Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah, in 1994 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in film.
Abel Ferrara is an American filmmaker, actor, musician, and songwriter. He is best known for the provocative and often controversial content in his movies and his use and redefinition of neo-noir imagery. A long-time independent filmmaker, some of his best known movies include the New York-set, gritty crime thrillers The Driller Killer (1979), Ms .45 (1981), King of New York (1990), Bad Lieutenant (1992), and The Funeral (1996), chronicling violent crime in urban settings with spiritual overtones.
Richard Nelson Corliss was an American film critic and magazine editor for Time. He focused on movies, with occasional articles on other subjects.
Anthony Oliver Scott is an American journalist and cultural critic, known for his film and literary criticism. After starting his career at The New York Review of Books, Variety, and Slate, he began writing film reviews for The New York Times in 2000, and became the paper's chief film critic in 2004, a title he shared with Manohla Dargis. In 2023, he moved to The New York Times Book Review.
Nelson George is an American author, columnist, music and culture critic, journalist, and filmmaker. He has been nominated twice for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Dannis Peary is an American film critic and sports writer. He has written and edited many books on cinema and sports-related topics. Peary is most famous for his book Cult Movies (1980), which spawned two sequels, Cult Movies 2 (1983) and Cult Movies 3 (1988) and are all credited for providing more public interest in the cult movie phenomenon.
Judy Lenteen Pace is an American actress known for her roles in films and television shows, particularly blaxploitation films. Pace portrayed Vickie Fletcher on the TV series Peyton Place (1968–1969) and Pat Walters on the ABC drama series The Young Lawyers (1969–1971), for which she won an Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series in 1970.
Stefan Forbes is an American screenwriter and film director whose films and social justice work often address issues of race, class, masculinity, violence, and restorative justice.
Ebert Presents: At the Movies is a weekly, nationally syndicated movie review television program produced by film critic Roger Ebert and his wife, Chaz Ebert. The program aired on public television stations in the United States through American Public Television from January 21 to December 30, 2011.
Ignatiy Igorevich Vishnevetsky is a Russian-American film critic, essayist, and columnist. He has worked as a staff film critic for The A.V. Club and written for Mubi.com and the Chicago Reader.
For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism is a 2009 documentary film dramatizing a hundred years of American film criticism through film clips, historic photographs, and on-camera interviews with many of today’s important reviewers, mostly print but also Internet. It was produced by Amy Geller, written and directed by long-time Boston Phoenix film critic Gerald Peary, and narrated by Patricia Clarkson. Critics featured include Roger Ebert of The Chicago Sun-Times, A.O. Scott of The New York Times, Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly, Kenneth Turan of The Los Angeles Times, and Elvis Mitchell, host of the public radio show The Treatment.
Jared Leto is an American entertainer with an extensive career in film, music, and television. He made his debut with minor roles in the television shows Camp Wilder (1992) and Almost Home (1993). He achieved recognition in 1994 for his role as Jordan Catalano in the teen drama television series My So-Called Life. The show was praised for its portrayal of adolescence and gained a cult following, despite being canceled after only one season. The same year, he made his television film debut starring alongside Alicia Silverstone in Cool and the Crazy. Leto's first film role was in the 1995 drama How to Make an American Quilt. He later co-starred with Christina Ricci in The Last of the High Kings (1996) and received a supporting role in Switchback (1997). In 1997, Leto starred in the biopic Prefontaine, in which he played the role of Olympic hopeful Steve Prefontaine. His portrayal received positive reviews from critics and is often considered his breakthrough role. The following year, Leto starred together with Alicia Witt in the horror Urban Legend. He then acted alongside Sean Penn and Adrien Brody in the war film The Thin Red Line (1998). After supporting roles in Black and White and Girl, Interrupted, Leto portrayed Angel Face in Fight Club (1999), which has since become a cult film.
