Roger Ebert's 50 Greatest Film Reviews

By James Kirk / May 16, 2013

46. No Country For Old Men (2007) - ˜…˜…˜…˜… Directors: Joel and Ethan Coen

There are relatively few movies that garnered absolute praise from Roger Ebert, considering he saw and wrote about so many films over the course of his career. Ebert was not a critic to hand out accolades undeserved. But when he admired, truly admired a movie, his exuberance and enthusiasm for the film was present in his review, as in this passage from his review of the Coen brothers' No Country for Old Men. €œMany of the scenes in No Country for Old Men are so flawlessly constructed that you want them to simply continue,€ Ebert wrote, €œand yet they create an emotional suction drawing you to the next scene. Another movie that made me feel that way was Fargo. To make one such film is a miracle. Here is another.€

45. Mommie Dearest (1981) - ˜…

Director: Frank Perry

Occasionally the essence of one of Roger Ebert's reviews could be boiled down to a single sentence. Take this one, for example, from his review of Mommie Dearest:

€œI can't imagine who would want to subject themselves to this movie.€

44. My Dinner With Andre (1981) - ˜…˜…˜…˜…

Director: Louis Malle

It seems implausible that a filmmaker could create a remarkable movie out of a dinner conversation. But that's just what director Louis Malle did with My Dinner With Andre. Ebert called it a film €œentirely devoid of clichés. It should be unwatchable, and yet those who love it return time and again, enchanted.€ Ebert added My Dinner with Andre to his list of great movies. "Like many great movies, My Dinner With Andre is almost impossible to nail down." He credits Malle with an "understated but sophisticated shooting style, in which the distance from the camera to the actors at key moments is calculated to the millimeter, while half-seen reflections in mirrors create the illusion of a real restaurant, and the rhythm of the reaction shots subtly reflects the buried tension between the two men."

43. Touch of Evil (1958) - ˜…˜…˜…˜…

Director: Orson Welles

Set in a seedy Mexican border town, this noir classic stars Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh and Orson Welles as Hank Quinlan. Ebert described the character Welles played in this film, as in all his others, as autobiographical, "giants destroyed by hubris. Now consider Quinlan, who nurses old hurts and tries to orchestrate this scenario like a director, assigning dialogue and roles. There is a sense in which Quinlan wants final cut in the plot of this movie, and doesn't get it. He's running down after years of indulgence and self-abuse, and his ego leads him into trouble. "Is there a resonance between the Welles character here and the man he became? The story of Welles' later career is of projects left uncompleted and films altered after he had left them. To some degree, his characters reflected his feelings about himself and his prospects, and Touch of Evil may be as much about Orson Welles as Hank Quinlan. Welles brought great style to his movies, embracing excess in his life and work as the price (and reward) of his freedom."