A Duo Unlike Any Other: On the Fiftieth Anniversary of “Siskel & Ebert”

November 1975. This is the month when “Opening Soon at a Theater Near You” premiered on PBS in Chicago. It featured the city’s two most prominent film critics, Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune and Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times, who appeared ill at ease during their first pairing on camera. Perhaps the coolness with which they treated one another stemmed from their rivalry. Or maybe they simply hadn’t figured out how to loosen up once the camera began rolling. Either way, it would take a couple of years until the duo would emerge as one of the greatest in television history. By the time their program became nationally syndicated in 1977 under the new title of “Sneak Previews,” Gene and Roger were well on their way to becoming immortalized as “Siskel & Ebert.”

In their first television appearance, Siskel explained, “The point of our show is to sort of be a news magazine about movies. We want to show you what’s playing in town, what’s coming to town, and also maybe take you behind the scenes and show you a little bit about the movie business.” In each of its iterations, their program would certainly check these boxes, yet it ultimately became so much more. The key to the show’s appeal was, first and foremost, the men themselves. Neither had the stereotypical sheen of a television anchor. They simply resembled two journalists from the Midwest, and as they grew more comfortable before the lens, the richness of their personalities began to shine through. 

As Siskel and Ebert discussed—and more often than not, argued over—the week’s new theatrical releases, they could be funny, temperamental, impassioned, and never less than achingly human. Sure, their mismatched physicalities were compared to those of the classic comic duos such as Abbott & Costello and Laurel & Hardy, and they weren’t above playing into their dichotomy, particularly during their appearances on late-night talk shows. Yet as their success grew, so did the respect between these men. 

They could still verbally eviscerate one another during a heated debate, but at the end of each show, they would acknowledge one another’s opinions and the reasoning behind them. Rather than wait for the other to finish talking, they would actually listen to each other, which occasionally caused them to view some aspect of the film they were discussing in a new light. At a time when each half of the country has stopped listening to the other half, Siskel and Ebert’s shows stand as a model for active communication and its ability to transcend the barriers of our own deep-seated biases.

The title of their show would change twice more, when it was acquired by Tribune Broadcasting in 1982 as “At the Movies,” and later by The Walt Disney Company in 1986 as “Siskel & Ebert & the Movies.” As a shorthand for expressing their thoughts on a given film, the critics began using a thumb-based rating system that they would eventually trademark. If they both liked a picture, the quote “Two Thumbs Up!” would routinely appear in its advertising, which consumers saw as a dependable seal of quality. 

No other film critics in the history of the profession had the influence that these two had at the peak of their popularity. They may not have been eligible to vote in the Academy Awards. Still, their annual program, “If We Picked the Winners,” was filmed before a live studio audience nearly as enthusiastic as the one on the Oscar telecast. Bookending the segments on their annual “Holiday Gift Guide” specials were soundbites from their interviews with some of the industry’s biggest stars, who would single out a favorite holiday movie much like how celebrities now do in the Letterboxd YouTube videos entitled “Four Favorites.”

Long before the Criterion Closet opened its doors to film icons eager to recommend their favorite classic titles on YouTube, Siskel and Ebert would devote entire episodes to spotlighting great works of cinema available for rental. They took Disney to task for cropping their early animated masterpieces to fit a wider screen for re-releases, arguing that every detail in the frame was worthy of preservation. For the 1989 episode, “Hail, Hail, Black and White,” the critics removed color from their own program to make a persuasive case for why black-and-white films have a power and majesty all their own. 

At the end of their episode in which they each revealed their selections for the best films of the 1970s, Ebert said, “I wish I had a movie theater. I’d like to throw a film festival.” Two decades later, the critic’s wish would be fulfilled at the Virginia Theatre in Champaign, Illinois—home of his alma mater, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign—where the Ebertfest Film Festival he co-founded with his wife, Chaz, would run from 1999 through 2025.

When Siskel and Ebert used their platform to champion a picture that lacked the marketing budget of major studio releases, they single-handedly motivated potential audience members from around the country to see it. It was on this program that Roger hailed Spike Lee’s 1989 landmark “Do the Right Thing,” which had been a target of controversy ever since its premiere at Cannes, as “one of the most fair-minded and honest films ever made about race in America.” Throughout 1994, both critics were tireless in their praise of Steve James’ documentary, “Hoop Dreams,” with Roger declaring it “one of the best films about American life that I have ever seen” before eventually choosing it as his top film of the decade. 

Louis Malle’s 1981 gem “My Dinner with Andre” reportedly played for a year in New York as a result of Siskel and Ebert’s rave review on their show. “It’s very much like one of those all-night conversations so many of us have had with friends and family, whether it be in a college dormitory, over the kitchen table, or at the neighborhood saloon,” noted Siskel. “Why do I like this film so much? Because it gives us characters as fascinating as some of the most interesting people I’ve ever known.”

The enthusiasm that Siskel and Ebert exuded when they agreed on a film’s merits was utterly infectious. Yet it was for their equally spirited debates that they became best known. Perhaps the most famous of them occurred in June of 1987, upon the release of Stanley Kubrick’s eagerly awaited Vietnam picture, “Full Metal Jacket.” The shock that Siskel felt after learning that Ebert didn’t care for the film turned to outrage later in the broadcast, when his colleague gave “thumbs up” to the comparatively slight children’s picture, “Benji the Hunted.” 

Siskel’s acknowledgment of this led Ebert to deliver one of his most memorable rants, in which he affirmed how reviews are inherently relative. “‘Benji the Hunted’ is not one third the film—not one tenth the film—that the Kubrick film is, but you review films within context!” exclaimed Roger. Last year, actors Stephen Winchell and Zack Mast brilliantly recreated this entire episode at a small theater in Chicago. As part of this month’s fiftieth anniversary festivities for “Siskel & Ebert” at the Chicago Cultural Center, the actors will be reprising their roles—as Siskel and Ebert, respectively—in a new show at the Claudia Cassidy Theater on Saturday, November 22nd. If you are a fan of these critics, this performance is not to be missed.

After Siskel succumbed to a brain tumor in February of 1999, Ebert kept the show going by welcoming various guests as his co-host on “Roger Ebert & the Movies.” Eventually, he found his permanent co-host in Richard Roeper, a Chicago Sun-Times columnist who was unafraid to go toe-to-toe with Ebert during their debates. They appeared together on each episode of their program, “Ebert & Roeper,” until cancer robbed Ebert of his ability to speak in 2006. The show would be revived in different forms before leaving the air for good in 2011, two years before Ebert’s passing in April of 2013. 

Yet the popularity of “Siskel & Ebert” reruns has never waned, and I am excited to learn from Chaz that they will eventually be available to view on a new website. I’ve revisited footage from the show countless times, and not only because of its enormous entertainment value. What these men seemed to understand in their bones is that the purpose of a critic is to encourage moviegoers to be engaged viewers. The discourse between cinephiles on sites like Letterboxd can all be traced back to the conversation started by Siskel and Ebert, who knew how to make their insights accessible without dumbing them down. 

Even when Disney was producing their show, it had no bearing on how the critics reviewed the studio’s releases. In urging people not to remain passive by blindly accepting what was presented to them, Siskel and Ebert were giving generations of viewers a valuable lesson that could be applied far beyond the confines of a movie theater. By elevating film criticism to the level of an art form, the inimitable duo revealed through their critiques the depths of who they were as people and their beliefs about life itself. Echoing Siskel’s observation about “My Dinner with Andre,” they were as fascinating as the most interesting people we personally knew. 

No wonder I can’t stop watching the show. I never want their conversation to end. 

Don’t miss the screening of “Breaking Away” at the Chicago Cultural Center tonight, November 12, as a part of their series celebrating the 50th anniversary of “Siskel & Ebert.”