Gene Siskel (January 26, 1946 – February 20, 1999) and Roger Ebert (June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013), collectively known as Siskel and Ebert, were an American film critic duo known for their partnership on television lasting from 1975 to Siskel's death in 1999.
At the time two of the most well-known film critics writing for Chicago newspapers (Siskel for the Tribune, Ebert for the rival Sun-Times), the two were first paired up as the hosts of a monthly show called Opening Soon at a Theatre Near You, airing locally on PBS member station WTTW. In 1978, the show — renamed Sneak Previews — was expanded to weekly episodes and aired on PBS affiliates all around the United States. In 1982, the pair left Sneak Previews to create the syndicated show At the Movies. Following a contract dispute with Tribune Media in 1986, Siskel and Ebert signed with Buena Vista Television, creating Siskel & Ebert & the Movies (later renamed Siskel & Ebert, and renamed again several times after Siskel's death).
Known for their sharp and biting wit, intense professional rivalry, heated arguments, and their binary "Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down" summations, the duo became a sensation in American popular culture.
Early careers Siskel started writing for the Chicago Tribune in 1969, becoming its film critic soon after. Ebert joined the Chicago Sun-Times in 1966, and started writing about film for the paper in 1967. In 1975, Ebert became the first film critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.
Partnership
Siskel and Ebert started their professional collaboration on the local Chicago PBS station WTTW with a show entitled Opening Soon at a Theatre Near You (1975–1977), before it was renamed two years later when the show was syndicated nationally to Sneak Previews (1977–1982). The show was later distributed by Tribune Broadcasting and changed to At the Movies (1982–1986), and final iteration of the show was when it was produced by The Walt Disney Company with Siskel & Ebert & the Movies (1986–1999). During its successful run with Siskel and Ebert as hosts, the series was nominated for various awards including for Daytime Emmy Awards as well as seven Primetime Emmy Awards including for Outstanding Information Series. Siskel died of a terminal brain cancer in 1999. Ebert continued with the series with rotating guest hosts which included Martin Scorsese, Janet Maslin, Peter Bogdanovich, Todd McCarthy, Lisa Schwarzbaum, Kenneth Turan, Elvis Mitchell, and the eventual replacement for Siskel, Richard Roeper.
Review style and trademarks Siskel and Ebert's reviewing style has been described as a form of midwestern populist criticism rather than the one formed through essays which other critics including Pauline Kael felt undermined and undervalued the profession of film criticism. They were criticized for their ability to sensationalize film criticism in an easygoing, relatable way. Together, they are credited with forming contemporary film criticism. The New York Times described Ebert's reviews as a "critic for the common man".
The pair were also known for their intense debate, often drawing sharp criticisms at each other. After Siskel's death, Ebert reminisced about their close relationship saying:
Siskel and Ebert's professional rivalry was noted in Matt Singer's 2023 book Opposable Thumbs. According to a Tribune editor quoted in the book, when Siskel would scoop his rival in print, he'd exult: "Take that, Tubby, I got him again."
In 1983, the two critics defended the Star Wars films against critic John Simon in an episode of ABC News Nightline. The film Return of the Jedi (1983) had hit theaters that summer and Simon was criticizing the film for "making children dumber than they need to be". Ebert responded saying:
Siskel's critical style Gene Siskel had an abrasive review style, and claimed his film criticism was an individual exercise that should not be swayed by public taste. In an interview for the Academy of Television and Radio, his TV co-host Roger Ebert said of him, "I think Gene felt that he had to like the whole picture to give it a thumbs up."
In particular, he often gave negative reviews to films that became box office champs and went on to be considered mainstream classics: Poltergeist, Scarface, Beverly Hills Cop, The Terminator, Aliens, Predator, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Thelma & Louise, and Independence Day. This even extended to several films that went on to win the Oscar for Best Picture: The Silence of the Lambs and Unforgiven.
Ebert also noted in a memoriam episode of Siskel & Ebert that when Siskel found a movie that he truly treasured, he embraced it as something special. Directly addressing his late colleague, Ebert said: "I know for sure that seeing a truly great movie made you so happy that you'd tell me a week later your spirits were still high." Some of Siskel's most treasured movies included My Dinner with Andre (1981), Shoah (1985), Fargo (1996), and the documentary Hoop Dreams (1994).
Ebert's critical style
Ebert cited Andrew Sarris and Pauline Kael as influences, and often quoted Robert Warshow, who said: "A man goes to the movies. A critic must be honest enough to admit he is that man." His own credo was: "Your intellect may be confused, but your emotions never lie to you." He tried to judge a movie on its style rather than its content, and often said "It's not what a movie is about, it's how it's about what it's about."
He awarded four stars to films of the highest quality, and generally a half star to those of the lowest, unless he considered the film to be "artistically inept and morally repugnant", in which case it received no stars, as with Death Wish II. He explained that his star ratings had little meaning outside the context of the review:
Although Ebert rarely wrote outright scathing reviews, he had a reputation for writing memorable ones for the films he really hated, such as North. Of that film, he wrote "I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it." He wrote that Mad Dog Time "is the first movie I have seen that does not improve on the sight of a blank screen viewed for the same length of time. Oh, I've seen bad movies before. But they usually made me care about how bad they were. Watching Mad Dog Time is like waiting for the bus in a city where you're not sure they have a bus line" and concluded that the film "should be cut up to provide free ukulele picks for the poor." Of Caligula, he wrote "It is not good art, it is not good cinema, and it is not good porn" and approvingly quoted the woman in front of him at the drinking fountain, who called it "the worst piece of shit I have ever seen."
Ebert's reviews were also characterized by "dry wit." He often wrote in a deadpan style when discussing a movie's flaws; in his review of Jaws: The Revenge, he wrote that Mrs. Brody's "friends pooh-pooh the notion that a shark could identify, follow, or even care about one individual human being, but I am willing to grant the point, for the benefit of the plot. I believe that the shark wants revenge against Mrs. Brody. I do. I really do believe it. After all, her husband was one of the men who hunted this shark and killed it, blowing it to bits. And what shark wouldn't want revenge against the survivors of the men who killed it? Here are some things, however, that I do not believe", going on to list the other ways the film strained credulity. He wrote "Pearl Harbor is a two-hour movie squeezed into three hours, about how on Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese staged a surprise attack on an American love triangle. Its centerpiece is 40 minutes of redundant special effects, surrounded by a love story of stunning banality. The film has been directed without grace, vision, or originality, and although you may walk out quoting lines of dialog, it will not be because you admire them."
Ebert often included personal anecdotes in his reviews; reviewing The Last Picture Show, he recalls his early days as a moviegoer: "For five or six years of my life (the years between when I was old enough to go alone, and when TV came to town) Saturday afternoon at the Princess was a descent into a dark magical cave that smelled of Jujubes, melted Dreamsicles and Crisco in the popcorn machine. It was probably on one of those Saturday afternoons that I formed my first critical opinion, deciding vaguely that there was something about John Wayne that set him apart from ordinary cowboys." Reviewing Star Wars, he wrote: "Every once in a while I have what I think of as an out-of-the-body experience at a movie. When the ESP people use a phrase like that, they're referring to the sensation of the mind actually leaving the body and spiriting itself off to China or Peoria or a galaxy far, far away. When I use the phrase, I simply mean that my imagination has forgotten it is actually present in a movie theater and thinks it's up there on the screen. In a curious sense, the events in the movie seem real, and I seem to be a part of them...My list of other out-of-the-body films is a short and odd one, ranging from the artistry of Bonnie and Clyde or Cries and Whispers to the slick commercialism of Jaws and the brutal strength of Taxi Driver. On whatever level (sometimes I'm not at all sure) they engage me so immediately and powerfully that I lose my detachment, my analytical reserve. The movie's happening, and it's happening to me." He sometimes wrote reviews in the forms of stories, poems, songs, scripts, open letters, or imagined conversations.
Alex Ross, music critic for The New Yorker, wrote of how Ebert had influenced his writing: "I noticed how much Ebert could put across in a limited space. He didn't waste time clearing his throat. 'They meet for the first time when she is in her front yard practicing baton-twirling,' begins his review of Badlands. Often, he managed to smuggle the basics of the plot into a larger thesis about the movie, so that you don't notice the exposition taking place: 'Broadcast News is as knowledgeable about the TV news-gathering process as any movie ever made, but it also has insights into the more personal matter of how people use high-pressure jobs as a way of avoiding time alone with themselves.' The reviews start off in all different ways, sometimes with personal confessions, sometimes with sweeping statements. One way or another, he pulls you in. When he feels strongly, he can bang his fist in an impressive way. His review of Apocalypse Now ends thus: 'The whole huge grand mystery of the world, so terrible, so beautiful, seems to hang in the balance.'"
In his introduction to The Great Movies III, he wrote:
In the first Great Movies, he wrote:
Preferences Favorites Siskel For Siskel, one of his favorite films was Saturday Night Fever; he even bought the famous white disco suit that John Travolta wore in the film from a charity auction. Another all-time favorite was Dr. Strangelove. A favorite from childhood was Dumbo, which he often mentioned as the first film that had an influence on him. Ebert For Ebert, in an essay looking back at his first 25 years as a film critic, he stated: