Roger Ebert's 50 Greatest Film Reviews

By James Kirk / May 16, 2013

18. Battlefield Earth (2000) - ½ Director: Roger Christian

Next up is a film Ebert described as not merely bad; it's unpleasant in a hostile way. This movie is awful in so many different ways. Their costumes look like they were purchased from the Goodwill store on the planet Tatooine. Battlefield Earth is shapeless and senseless, without a compelling plot or characters we care for in the slightest. Some movies run off the rails. This one is like the train crash in The Fugitive. I watched it in mounting gloom, realizing I was witnessing something historic, a film that for decades to come will be the punch line of jokes about bad movies. There is a moment here when the Psychlos' entire planet (home office and all) is blown to smithereens, without the slightest impact on any member of the audience (or, for that matter, the cast). If the film had been destroyed in a similar cataclysm, there might have been a standing ovation. Battlefield Earth is like taking a bus trip with someone who has needed a bath for a long time.

17. Highlander II: The Quickening (1991) - ½

Director: Russell Mulcahy

Well let Roger speak for himself: This movie has to be seen to be believed. On the other hand, maybe that's too high a price to pay. Highlander 2: The Quickening is the most hilariously incomprehensible movie I've seen in many a long day - a movie almost awesome in its badness. Wherever science fiction fans gather, in decades and generations to come, this film will be remembered in hushed tones as one of the immortal low points of the genre. If there is a planet somewhere whose civilization is based on the worst movies of all time, Highlander 2: The Quickening deserves a sacred place among their most treasured artifacts. FILM NOTE: Quickening is a process by which two people touch each other and are surrounded by special effects making it look as if one of them is standing in a puddle and the other had just stuck his finger into a light socket.

16. Caligula (1979) - 0 Stars

Director: Tinto Brass

The soft-porn-masquerading-as-historical-epic didnt receive many good reviews. It didnt sit well with Roger Ebert, either. "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: people with talent allowed themselves to participate in this travesty. Disgusted and unspeakably depressed, I walked out of the film after two hours of its 170-minute length.

15. In A Lonely Place (1950) -

Director: Nicholas Ray

In a Lonely Place, starring Humphrey Bogart, is considered one of the finest examples of film noir. Ebert called it "a superb example of the mature Hollywood studio system at the top of its form.

Ebert wrote eloquently of the noir genre and of Bogart and his place in it. Bogart is so good at playing vulnerable men. It's strange he has an enduring image as a tough guy. It would be more accurate to say he was tempered by experience. A decade before this film, in Casablanca, he was already the man drinking alone late at night, afraid of hearing an old song. If there is one key element of film noir, it is the flawed hero. Bogart embodies this noir quality flawlessly.

17. Highlander II: The Quickening (1991) - ½

16. Caligula (1979) - 0 Stars

15. In A Lonely Place (1950) -    

15. In A Lonely Place (1950) -