Roger Ebert Quotes About Film

Quotes about: Film

• Every great film should seem new every time you see it.

  Roger Ebert

  Movie, Gambling, Film

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

• It's not what a movie is about, it's how it is about it.

  Roger Ebert

  Film

• If you pay attention to the movies they will tell you what people desire and fear. Movies are hardly ever about what they seem to be about. Look at a movie that a lot of people love, and you will find something profound, no matter how silly the film may be.

  Roger Ebert

  Silly, People, Profound

  Roger Ebert (2012). “Awake in the Dark: The Best of Roger Ebert”, p.388, University of Chicago Press

• Going to see Godzilla at the Palais of the Cannes Film Festival is like attending a satanic ritual in St. Peter's Basilica.

  Roger Ebert

  Cannes Film Festival, Satanic, Festivals

  Roger Ebert (2013). “I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie”, p.145, Andrews McMeel Publishing

• A film like Hoop Dreams is what the movies are for. It takes us, shakes us, and makes us think in new ways about the world around us. It gives us the impression of having touched life itself.

  Roger Ebert

  Dream, Thinking, Giving

  Roger Ebert (2012). “Awake in the Dark: The Best of Roger Ebert”, p.184, University of Chicago Press

• Sometimes miraculous films come into being, made by people you've never heard of, starring unknown faces, blindsiding you with creative genius.

  Roger Ebert

  People, Creative, Genius

• Jacques Tati is the great philosophical tinkerer of comedy, taking meticulous care to arrange his films so that they unfold in a series of revelations and effortless delights.

  Roger Ebert

  Philosophical, Delight, Care

  Roger Ebert (2008). “The Great Movies II”, p.278, Crown Archetype

• Pearl Harbor is a two-hour movie squeezed into three hours, about how on December 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.

  Roger Ebert

  Two, Grace, Vision

  "Pearl Harbor" by Roger Ebert, www.rogerebert.com. May 25, 2001.

• 'Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter' is without a doubt the best film we are ever likely to see on the subject - unless there is a sequel, which is unlikely, because at the end, the Lincolns are on their way to the theater.

  Roger Ebert

  Doubt, Vampire, Hunters

  Roger Ebert (2012). “Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 2013: 25th Anniversary Edition”, p.1, Andrews McMeel Publishing

• One sign of a great actor is when he can be alone by himself on the screen, doing almost nothing, and producing one of a film's defining moments.

  Roger Ebert

  Actors, Defining Moments, Film

  Roger Ebert (2016). “The Great Movies IV”, p.81, University of Chicago Press

• Samurai films, like westerns, need not be familiar genre stories. They can expand to contain stories of ethical challenges and human tragedy.

  Roger Ebert

  Challenges, Tragedy, Needs

  Roger Ebert (2016). “The Great Movies IV”, p.90, University of Chicago Press

• Horror fans are a particular breed. They analyze films with such detail and expertise that I am reminded of the Canadian literary critic Northrup Frye, who approached literature with similar archetypal analysis.

  Roger Ebert

  Fans, Details, Analysis

• Films to the degree that they glorify mindlessness and short attention span they are bad, to the degree that they encourage empathy with people not like ourselves and encourage us to think about life, they are good.

  Roger Ebert

  Thinking, People, Empathy

• The film argues to the young that the old were young once, too, and contain within them all that the young know, and more.

  Roger Ebert

  Arguing, Film, Young

  Roger Ebert (2008). “The Great Movies II”, p.258, Crown Archetype

• I'll tell you, I think that the Internet has provided an enormous boost to film criticism by giving people an opportunity to self publish or to find sites that are friendly.

  Roger Ebert

  Opportunity, Thinking, Self

  Interview With Chris Neumer, www.stumpedmagazine.com.

• James Cameron's films have always been distinguished by ground-breaking technical excellence.

  Roger Ebert

  Excellence, Film, Distinguished

• Ridley Scott's 'Prometheus' is a magnificent science-fiction film, all the more intriguing because it raises questions about the origin of human life and doesn't have the answers.

  Roger Ebert

  Raises Questions, Fiction, Answers

  "Prometheus" by Roger Ebert, www.rogerebert.com. June 6, 2012.

• The screenplay is so well-written in a scruffy, fanzine way that you want to rub noses in it - the noses of those zombie writers who take 'screenwriting' classes that teach them the formulas for 'hit films.'

  Roger Ebert

  Class, Zombie, Noses

  Roger Ebert (1996). “Roger Ebert's Video Companion, 1997 Edition”, Andrews McMeel Pub

• It amazes me that filmmakers will still film, and audiences will still watch, relationships so bankrupt of human feeling that the characters could be reading dialogue written by a computer.

  Roger Ebert

  Reading, Character, Feelings

• 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.

  Roger Ebert

  Running, Lines, Film

  Roger Ebert (2009). “Your Movie Sucks”, p.23, Andrews McMeel Publishing

• Many thrillers follow such reliable formulas that you can look at what's happening and guess how much longer a film has to run.

  Roger Ebert

  Running, Looks, Film

  Roger Ebert (2012). “Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 2013: 25th Anniversary Edition”, p.240, Andrews McMeel Publishing

• The buried code of many American films has become: If I kill you, I have won and you have lost. The instinctive ethical code of traditional Hollywood, the code by which characters like James Stewart, John Wayne and Henry Fonda lived, has been lost.

  Roger Ebert

  Character, Hollywood, Film

• I was indeed a snob, if you agree with this definition: 'A person who believes that their tastes in a particular area are superior to those of other people.' I do believe that. Not superior to all other people, but to some, most probably including those who think Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen is a great film. That is not simply ego on my part. It is a faith that after writing and teaching about films for more than 40 years, my tastes are more evolved than those of a fanboy.

  Roger Ebert

  Revenge, Believe, Teaching

• It's the worst kind of bad film: the kind that gets you all worked up and then lets you down, instead of just being lousy from the first shot.

  Roger Ebert

  Firsts, Just Being, Kind

• There are two things you can't argue in film: comedy and eroticism. If something doesn't make you laugh, no one can tell you why it's funny, and it's difficult to reason someone out of an erection.

  Roger Ebert

  Two, Laughing, Comedy

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