Roger Ebert’s Final List of His Top 10 Favorite Films

roger-ebert-list

Image by Sound Opin­ions, via Flickr Com­mons

Roger Ebert seems to have resent­ed star rat­ings, which he had to dish out atop each and every one of his hun­dreds upon hun­dreds of reg­u­lar news­pa­per movie reviews. He also empha­sized, every once in a while, his dis­dain for the “thumbs up” and “thumbs down” sys­tem that became his and Gene Siskel’s tele­vi­sion trade­mark. And he could hard­ly ever abide that run-of-the-mill crit­ic’s stand­by, the top-ten list. Film­go­ers who nev­er paid atten­tion to Ebert’s career will like­ly, at this point, insist that the man nev­er real­ly liked any­thing, but those of us who read him for years, even decades, know the true depth and scope of his love for movies, a pas­sion he even expressed, reg­u­lar­ly, in list form. He did so for, as he put it, “the one sin­gle list of inter­est to me. Every 10 years, the ancient and ven­er­a­ble British film mag­a­zine, Sight & Sound, polls the world’s direc­tors, movie crit­ics, and assort­ed pro­duc­ers, cin­e­math­eque oper­a­tors and fes­ti­val direc­tors, etc., to deter­mine the Great­est Films of All Time.”

“Why do I val­ue this poll more than oth­ers?” Ebert asks. “It has sen­ti­men­tal val­ue. The first time I saw it in the mag­a­zine, I was much impressed by the names of the vot­ers, and felt a thrill to think that I might some­day be invit­ed to join their num­bers. I was teach­ing a film course in the Uni­ver­si­ty of Chicago’s Fine Arts Pro­gram, and taught class­es of the top ten films in 1972, 1982 and 1992.” His dream came true, and when he wrote this reflec­tion on send­ing in his list every decade, he did so a year near­ly to the day before his death in 2013, mak­ing his entry in the 2012 Sight & Sound poll a kind of last top-ten tes­ta­ment:

Decid­ing that he must vote for “one new film” he had­n’t includ­ed on his 2002 list, Ebert nar­rowed it down to two can­di­dates: The Tree of Life and Char­lie Kauf­man’s Synec­doche, New York. “Like the Her­zog, the Kubrick and the Cop­po­la, they are films of almost fool­hardy ambi­tion. Like many of the films on my list, they were direct­ed by the artist who wrote them. Like sev­er­al of them, they attempt no less than to tell the sto­ry of an entire life. [ … ] I could have cho­sen either film — I chose The Tree of Life because it’s more affir­ma­tive and hope­ful. I realise that isn’t a defen­si­ble rea­son for choos­ing one film over the oth­er, but it is my rea­son, and mak­ing this list is essen­tial­ly impos­si­ble, any­way.”  That did­n’t stop his cinephil­ia from pre­vail­ing — not that much ever could.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Roger Ebert Talks Mov­ing­ly About Los­ing and Re-Find­ing His Voice (TED 2011)

The Two Roger Eberts: Emphat­ic Crit­ic on TV; Inci­sive Review­er in Print

Roger Ebert Lists the 10 Essen­tial Char­ac­ter­is­tics of Noir Films

4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on cities, lan­guage, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.


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Comments (33)
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  • Roman Sateonetoo says:

    I can’t even imag­ine the amount of films Ebert must have watched in his life­time…

  • Brian Berta says:

    Are these films in any order?

  • Bob says:

    They’re in alpha­bet­i­cal order

  • Marlon says:

    I’m 44 and I’ve only seen one of the movies on this list of his (Rag­ing Bull, which I thought was pret­ty bor­ing.)

  • Joe Feckle says:

    2001 and Cit­i­zen Kane are bor­ing, too.

  • Carsten Cris says:

    And yet he has includ­ed an über corny and decid­ed­ly clum­sy movie like Tree of Life in his top ten.

    Seri­ous­ly makes me doubt every­thing that man has ever said about the art of film.

  • Carsten Cris says:

    And yet he has includ­ed an über corny and decid­ed­ly clum­sy movie like Tree of Life in his top ten.

    Seri­ous­ly makes me doubt every­thing that man has ever said about the art of film.

  • Amor Asad says:

    2001, Cit­i­zen Kane bor­ing?

    Is that sup­posed to be a joke?

  • STVnRWC says:

    “Rag­ing Bull”.…boring?! .…Bor­ing??!! … Wow!! .…To each his own I guess. Then just a few lines down “Cit­i­zen Kane” also described as bor­ing?! … Strange how 2 peo­ple that have such a bla­tant dis­re­gard for what are wide­ly con­sid­ered 2 of the best films of all time!!!…Just strange how these 2 peo­ple even found there way to com­ment on this thread linked to one of the most famous film crit­ics of all time … some one who absolute­ly adored film and even for a film that Roger Ebert loathed he at least had enough respect for films he hat­ed to bestow upon them a lite­ny of adjec­tives to which they would be laid to shame in that they could at least be proud that they died a good death. But to just mere­ly call a film “boring”.…..is the biggest injus­tice you can give a film. Even a film you dis­like has to call rise to some­thing inside you … that you would at least be man enough to look it in its eyes as you gut it from spleen to spine!!!.…A lone pithy word … “bor­ing” .… expound­ing no further…is to stab it in the back while it expos­es all its vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties to the world. A film you dis­like deserves all the same pas­sion you bestow on the films you love oth­er­wise just get up and leave the the­ater after the trail­ers have con­clud­ed because you have noth­ing deep­er to offer medi­um.

  • Michael Hovey says:

    In my opin­ion these are the top 10 movies of all time:

    1. There Will Be Blood
    2. Pan’s Labyrinth
    3. Let­ters from Iwo Jima
    4. The 33
    5. 12 Angry Men
    6. The Ten Com­mand­ments
    7. Willy Won­ka and the Choco­late Fac­to­ry
    8. A Hard Day’s Night
    9. Snow White and the Sev­en Dwarfs
    10. Rata­touille

  • Michael Hovey says:

    In this 37 year old’s opin­ion there are the great­est films of all time:

    1. There Will Be Blood
    2. Pan’s Labyrinth
    3. Let­ters from Iwo Jima
    4. The 33
    5. The Ten Com­mand­ments
    6. A Hard Day’s Night
    7. 12 Angry Men
    8. Snow White and the Sev­en Dwarfs
    9. Rata­touille
    10. Willy Won­ka and the Choco­late Fac­to­ry

  • Paul Blake says:

    The movie stands on its own, leav­ing one ques­tion?

  • anthony barbuto says:

    I once lis­tened to movie crit­ics dis­cuss the Acad­e­my Awards. They had all kinds of ideas as to why this movie was vot­ed best, over anoth­er. The con­ver­sa­tion got heat­ed, then one per­son chimed in…”…Hey,…the rea­son this or that got the award,…it was VOTED in !”.…Which is the truth. Movies are released, at giv­en dates so they can be viewed and peo­ple can vote for the movie, in time for the Awards, that year. Full page ads are tak­en out in news­pa­pers, like Vari­ety and papers in cer­tain demo­graph­ic regions to bring the movies to the atten­tion of viewers…and vot­ers. Mem­bers of the Acad­e­my ( the only ones who can vote for a movie, by the way) get calls, and now I guess emails, and oth­er prods to vote for this one or that.
    Who ever wins an acad­e­my award, be they actor or direc­tor has just moved in to the Mil­lion dol­lar a pic­ture class…
    So, don’t get bent out of shape, if YOUR favorite movie is not rat­ed high­ly. The entire award process is SUBJECTIVE and high­ly moti­vat­ed by MONEY. It is inter­est­ing that many movies debut and are not high­ly regarded…but over time, crit­ics study them and come to the con­clu­sion that there is some­thing great there.
    Movies have been around for 100+ years. Go back and dis­cov­er movies you have not seen before.….re-see movies you saw in your youth. The def­i­n­i­tion of a clas­sic is a movie you can watch over and over again and it nev­er gets stale. I have my favorites…” 2001 Space Odyssey”. “Clock Work Orange” ” The Year­ling” “ mag­nif­i­cent 7” ( orig­i­nal with Yul Bryn­ner, etc.) ” The Thing (from anoth­er world)” (orig­i­nal with Ken­neth Tobey, etc)..” the best years of their lives”…” 30 sec­onds over tokyo”.…” A guy named Joe”…“sunrise”..” the Gen­er­al”..” The Great Dic­ta­tor” ( char­lie Chap­lin)…” things to come”..” the day the earth stood still” ( orig­i­nal with michael ren­nie, not the trash re make) ..” Carosel”…” the sound of music”…” the pawn bro­ker”…” 12 angry men” ( orig­i­nal with Hen­ry Fon­da)…” fail­safe”…” dr stran­glove”…” loli­ta” ( orig­i­nal with Shelly Win­ters, etc)..” night of the hunter” (the only movie direct­ed by Charles Laughton)..” the hunch­back of notre dame” ( 1939 ver­sion star­ring charles laughton)..” moby Dick” ( gre­go­ry Peck)…” red drag­on” ( ralph fiennes)..” silence of the lambs”..“them”.….etc.….ENJOY…

  • yqsb says:

    “Strange how 2 peo­ple that have such a bla­tant dis­re­gard for what are wide­ly con­sid­ered 2 of the best films of all time!!!…Just strange how these 2 peo­ple even found there way to com­ment on this thread linked to one of the most famous film crit­ics of all time”

    “wide­ly con­sid­ered 2 of the best films of all time!!!”
    “wide­ly con­sid­ered 2 of the best films of all time!!!”
    “wide­ly con­sid­ered 2 of the best films of all time!!!”
    “one of the most famous film crit­ics of all time”
    “one of the most famous film crit­ics of all time”
    “one of the most famous film crit­ics of all time”

    Strange how a sin­gle word like “bor­ing” can be so trig­ger­ing, can be viewed as “bla­tant dis­re­gard”. Just strange how peo­ple teach you which film is great by keep­ing men­tion­ing that oth­er peo­ple think which film is great.

    “A film you dis­like deserves all the same pas­sion you bestow on the films you love oth­er­wise just get up and leave the the­ater after the trail­ers have con­clud­ed because you have noth­ing deep­er to offer medi­um. ”

    Real­ly? Do you show all the same pas­sion to what­ev­er you watch?
    Do you have some­thing deep to offer oth­er than some angry mum­bo-jum­bo?

  • pj says:

    Unlike a num­ber of com­ments, Roger Ebert would elab­o­rate his opin­ion to more than a few words. If peo­ple find these films bor­ing then that’s unfor­tu­nate for them real­ly. I under­stand why peo­ple might think Cit­i­zen Kane is bor­ing as the pace is often slow but it may be worth watch­ing it acknowl­edg­ing that it was made almost 80 years ago and that a lot of films released and enjoyed since were inspired by it and imi­tat­ed it.

    I’m obvi­ous­ly here look­ing for a list as well but I like Ebert’s com­ment about top 10s. What defines a top film any­way? Is it pos­si­ble that the no.1 on Mon­day is the same as on Tues­day? I don’t real­ly see any enjoy­ment at all in find­ing your no.1 film. It seems a child­like behav­iour, loop­ing the same film again and again.

  • God says:

    i know. in eng­lish.

    i am omni­scient after all. in no order. some might real­ly be a slow as 100 best.

    2001
    apoc­a­lypse now
    gates of heav­en (doc­u­men­tary)
    brideshead revis­it­ed (1981)
    dr strangelove
    the right stuff (docu­d­ra­ma)
    the hus­tler
    amer­i­can gigo­lo (only half jok­ing)
    lit­tle chil­dren
    the world at war (doc­u­men­tary)

    hmmm…

  • david andrews says:

    How about Fargo,High Sier­ra and The African Queen.

  • frank connolly says:

    Real­ly, what’s bor­ing about them no car chase?

  • Merry Runaround says:

    It is quite strange to see this list from Roger Ebert, because he was noto­ri­ous for con­sis­tent­ly refus­ing to answer ques­tions about his “10 favorite” any­thing.

  • ZeroExceptWebbing says:

    Michael, I hope you’ll watch more movies. *Snow White and the Sev­en Dwarfs* is the only thing you’ve list­ed made before 1956! Five of your films were made in 2005 or after.

    I hope you’ll recon­sid­er *Let­ters from Iwo Jima*. It’s marred by sen­ti­men­tal­i­ty and self-serv­ing his­tor­i­cal dis­tor­tion. I lived in Japan for four years, and the Min­istry of Edu­ca­tion squelch­es any attempt to put evi­dence of Japan­ese war crimes—or even of Japan­ese aggres­sion against Manchuria, Korea, etc.—from the cur­ricu­lum. The film amount­ed to a bow-wrapped gift, and the manip­u­la­tion through sen­ti­men­tal­i­ty made it even more nau­se­at­ing. Nev­er­the­less, this is the kind of manip­u­la­tion that Japan­ese often don’t see because so much of Japan­ese pop cul­ture is sen­ti­men­tal. The screen­play was a Japan­ese prod­uct. Clint East­wood’s per­for­mances and movies aren’t known for depth or sub­tle­ty of emo­tion or even thought. If you haven’t seen *Unfor­giv­en* yet, you should.

  • ZeroExceptWebbing says:

    Artis­tic eval­u­a­tion is always sub­jec­tive. I thought every­one knew that. How­ev­er, what’s rare is being able to explain and/or defend why one likes one movie and hates anoth­er. Some­times the answers seem pret­ty obvi­ous, but oth­er times a movie goes through strange crit­i­cal meta­mor­phoses, usu­al­ly from the bot­tom up (the audi­ence) than the top down (the crit­ics). Film­mak­ers can be tem­pera­men­tal­ly from either camp or both. In the case of the *Cahiers du cin­e­ma* crowd, they were crit­ics who became film­mak­ers, so I guess that’s why Truf­faut’s cham­pi­oning of Hitch­cock as an auteur had such a pro­found impact.

  • Clint Cooper says:

    There is no such thing as a list of “the best movies of all time.” And Roger Ebert point­ed this out con­tin­u­al­ly through­out his writ­ing career. He always said this was a list of HIS favorite movies. And he was quick to say that these were the movies that affect­ed him the most on an EMOTIONAL LEVEL. You think Cit­i­zen Kane is bor­ing? Good for you! That’s total­ly fine because it’s your reac­tion and that’s per­fect­ly valid. I found “Armaged­don” star­ring Bruce Willis out­ra­geous­ly bor­ing, but again, it’s just one man’s opin­ion.

    So here’s my per­son­al take on the ten best films:
    Rear Win­dow
    Cit­i­zen Kane
    Wild Straw­ber­ries
    The Wages of Fear
    2001: A Space Odyssey
    Chi­na­town
    Blade Run­ner
    Blue Vel­vet
    Raiders of the Lost Ark
    The Silence of the Lambs

    But again that’s just one man’s opin­ion. These are the movies that I per­son­al­ly love to watch the most. There’s no such thing as a Ten Best Films of All Time!

  • Phillip Wand says:

    Just like imag­ine, I don’t know, maybe some­thing in the region of lit­er­al­ly loads and load and loads of films stretch­ing on and on and on or stacked upon each oth­er so they go high up to the sky and you can bare­ly see the top and I reck­on that’s how many he’s seen and a good way to imag­ine it

  • Angela Lordi says:

    Here is my list for movies I want with me when desert­ed on an island:

    2001, A Space Odyssey
    One Flew Over the Cuck­oos Next
    Sling­blade
    The Wiz­ard of Oz
    Pulp Fic­tion
    The Imi­ta­tion Game
    Mrs. Pal­frey at the Clair­mont
    Mon­ty Python’s Mean­ing of Life
    Wood­stock
    Easy Rid­er
    Alien
    The Caine Mutiny
    Mil­lion Dol­lar Baby
    Good­fel­las
    Annie Hall
    Planes, Trains and Auto­mo­biles
    Psy­cho
    Shaw­shank Redemp­tion
    Being There

    All were Ebert 4‑star movies. I picked them from that list, because — and I can­not empha­size this enough — Ebert was NEVER WRONG (except for “Prometheus” but he wrote that review after his ill­ness, and all his reviews were slant­ed pos­i­tive in his last year, God Bless him.)

  • Richard White says:

    Let’s hope this island has a TV, a DVD play­er and an elec­tric­i­ty sup­ply

  • John says:

    Roger once said that Shaw­shank Redemp­tion was the peo­ple’s favorite film after Cit­i­zen Kane. My favorites are Jesus Of Nazareth and End­less Sum­mer.

  • Michael Hovey says:

    To be fair I haven’t seen too many old­er films before 1956, since most old films tend to bore me to tears, but here’s a list of old films which I do tend to love:
    just about any­thing ani­mat­ed by Dis­ney
    Mr. Smith Goes to Wash­ing­ton
    Sergeant York
    All Qui­et on the West­ern Front
    12 Angry Men
    Plan­et of the Apes
    A Hard Day’s Night
    The Ten Com­mand­ments

    I tend to love new­er films more often than not so sue me, lol.

    And when it comes to Clint East­wood I haven’t seen a sin­gle one of his films made before True Crime in 1999, but out of the films I have seen by Clint here is my per­son­al favorite list:
    1. Let­ter’s from Iwo Jima
    2. Gran Tori­no
    3. Here­after
    4. Sul­ly
    5. J. Edgar
    6. Mil­lion Dol­lar Baby
    7. Flags of Our Fathers
    8. The 15–17 to Paris
    9. True Crime
    10. Invic­tus
    11. Trou­ble with the Curve
    12. Jer­sey Boys
    13. Amer­i­can Sniper

  • Michael Hovey says:

    And here’s my list of the best films released since 1990:
    1990: Stephen King’s IT
    1991: Beau­ty and the Beast
    1992: A Few Good Men
    1993: Schindler’s List
    1994: The Shaw­shank Redemp­tion
    1995: Poc­a­hon­tas
    1996: Sling Blade
    1997: Stephen King’s Thin­ner
    1998: Sav­ing Pri­vate Ryan
    1999: The Green Mile
    2000: Almost Famous
    2001: Mon­ster’s Ball
    2002: Punch-Drunk Love
    2003: Kill Bill
    2004: Kill Bill 2
    2005: Sin City
    2006: Pan’s Labyrinth
    2007: There Will Be Blood
    2008: Gran Tori­no
    2009: Avatar
    2010: Miley Cyrus’s The Last Song
    2011: Har­ry Pot­ter and the Death­ly Hal­lows, Part 2
    2012: Brave
    2013: The Hob­bit: The Des­o­la­tion of Smaug
    2014: The Hob­bit: The Bat­tle of the Five Armies
    2015: The 33
    2016: Silence
    2017: The Dark Tow­er
    2018: Bohemi­an Rhap­sody
    2019 so far: The Lion King

  • Michael Hovey says:

    Two weeks ago I final­ly say Clint East­wood’s The Mule so here is my updat­ed list of how I would now rank the won­der­ful but admit­ted­ly some­what few East­wood movies I have seen, though to be fair Jer­sey Boys and Amer­i­can Sniper will always be last for me since those two movies sim­ply stink. But real­ly every­thing else I’ve seen by him has been absolute­ly fan­tas­tic.

    1. Let­ter’s from Iwo Jima
    2. Gran Tori­no
    3. Here­after
    4. Sul­ly
    5. J. Edgar
    6. Mil­lion Dol­lar Baby
    7. Flags of Our Fathers
    8. The 15–17 to Paris
    9. True Crime
    10. The Mule
    11. Invic­tus
    12. Trou­ble with the Curve
    13. Jer­sey Boys
    14. Amer­i­can Sniper

  • Michael Hovey says:

    Here are my favorite movies of the 80s:
    1980: Fri­day the 13th
    1981: Fri­day the 13th Part 2
    1982: E.T.
    1983: Cujo
    1984: Fri­day the 13th Part 4
    1985: Sil­ver Bul­let
    1986: Fri­day the 13th Part 6
    1987: The Run­ning Man
    1988: Who Framed Roger Rab­bit
    1989: Dead Poets Soci­ety

  • James simons says:

    One film I haven’t seen men­tioned is The Third Man. Eas­i­ly in the top ten (imho) and the great­est music ever. Not an opin­ion, a fact (imho)

  • Alan says:

    The Swim­mer
    Chi­na­town
    Secret of my Suc­cess
    Break­ing the Waves
    Ver­ti­go
    The Best Years of Our Lives
    Shaw­shank Redemp­tion
    Bladerun­ner
    Secret in Their Eyes (Orig­i­nal)
    The Apart­ment

  • Alan says:

    *Sweet Smell of Suc­cess

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