Possessor of one of the most famous fingers in the entertainment world, Roger Ebert has established a simple yet effective film rating system by pointing his thumb either up or down, depending on his general opinion of the effort.
Ebert and his cohort, the late Chicago Tribune critic Gene Siskel, teamed up to provide television audiences with their summaries of a flick's pros and cons, and to give a "yes" or "no" vote establishing their overall opinion. Ebert, however, is not just an everyday film buff. After becoming the first film critic--and still the only one--to win the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism, in 1975, for his reviews in the Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago's WTTW-TV asked him to cohost a movie reviewing television show with cross-town competitor Siskel. In 1978, PBS signed the quarrelsome critics for the syndicated series Sneak Previews.
In a pair of cozy armchairs, Siskel and Ebert began their trademark barbs at the films as well as each other. Their final word for each review became their trademark. A "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" signaled to potential movie-goers whether the film is overall worth seeing or not. No one knows for sure how much impact their approval or disapproval had on the success of any given film, but reviews for years have been proud to announce "TWO THUMBS UP!" in screaming type whenever the men both expressed their satisfaction, which was actually not that rare.
Sneak Previews was an instant success in Chicago, and in 1978 PBS syndicated it nationwide. It soon became the highest-rated series in the history of public broadcasting. In 1982, Siskel and Ebert signed with Tribune Entertainment, which produced the show commercially as At the Movies, and after another four years, they moved to Buena Vista Television, which renamed the show simply Siskel & Ebert. Ebert has also been a regular critic for US magazine, the New York Post, and the New York Daily News. Ebert has also written several books about the movies. He has been a jury member at the Sundance, Montreal, Chicago, Hawaii, and Venice film festivals, in addition to Cannes.
