Roger Joseph Ebert was an American journalist, film critic, and screenwriter, who was a film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967, until his death in 2013. In 1975, he was the first film critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism, an award given to newspaper writers. As of 2010, his reviews were syndicated to more than 200 newspapers in the United States and abroad. Ebert also published more than 20 books and dozens of collections of reviews.
In 1975, Ebert started a long-running partnership with his journalistic rival, Gene Siskel, film critic for the Chicago Tribune, to review films together on television on the Chicago station of the PBS television on a TV show called, Sneak Previews. This series proved a major success becoming one of the most popular adult programs on the public television network and the critics arose to become two of the most influential film critics in North America. In addition to endeavoring to raise the tastes of filmgoers, the duo also touched on important subjects such as criticizing the hatefully visceral tone of the depicted violence against woman in horror and suspense films of the day.
In 1982, Ebert and Gene Siskel moved from PBS to launch a similar syndicated commercial television show named At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert. In 1986, they again moved the show to new ownership, creating Siskel & Ebert & The Movies through Buena Vista Television (part of the Walt Disney Company). This proved to be the longest running incarnation of the duo's shows, which was produced with the clear condition that the critics would have full editorial independence in their reviews, including giving negative reviews to Disney films if they felt was it was deserved.
In addition to film reviews, the show also included commentary on Academy Award nominations, home entertainment recommendations as well as speaking out on important issues concerning film, such as denouncing the computer colorization of black and white films, which they condemned as vandalism, which in turn helped discredit the film alteration technique.
After Siskel's death in 1999, the producers retitled the show Roger Ebert & the Movies and used rotating co-hosts. In September 2000, Chicago Sun-Times columnist Richard Roeper became the permanent co-host and the show was renamed At The Movies With Ebert & Roeper (and other later titles).
Ebert ended his association with the Disney-owned At The Movies in July 2008, after the studio indicated it wished to take the program in a new direction. On February 18, 2009, Ebert reported that he and Roeper would soon announce a new movie review program, and reiterated this plan after Disney announced that the program's last episode would air in August 2010.