Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert (born June 18, 1942) is a Chicago Sun-Times film critic, and the first author to win a Pulitzer Prize for film criticism (1975 award "for his film criticism during 1974").

He has been writing about film for over forty years; in the 1970s he began co-hosting a weekly movie review television show, Siskel and Ebert, with Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune. When Siskel died in 1999, he was replaced by Chicago Sun-Times columnist Richard Roeper and the show was renamed Ebert & Roeper.

Every year Ebert publishes a book of movie reviews from that year; he has also published a book of movie clichés and a book of essays about great films, as well as a book of essays about films he hated. Ebert hosts Roger Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival.

Ebert also wrote the screenplay for the 1969 cult film, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, directed by Russ Meyer.

An outspoken opponent of the Motion Picture Association of America, Ebert often strongly condemns the organization in his columns for their regulations regarding which movies are "suitable for children."

Ebert graduated from the University of Illinois where he was the editor of The Daily Illini. His Overlooked Film Festival is held annually in Champaign, Illinois.