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Credit: Far Out \/ Rebert (Roger Ebert<\/p>\n
Mon 1 June 2026 17:45, UK <\/p>\n
Asking someone to name their favourite movie is often like asking them to pick a favourite child, but does the same thing apply to critics? Apparently, it does, since Roger Ebert<\/a> named one review as his favourite of the thousands upon thousands of them that he\u2019d written.<\/p>\n Most critics who were or have been in the business for anywhere near as long as Ebert, who enjoyed a professional career that stretched from 1967 until 2013 and covered newspapers, television, and the internet, would struggle to reach that far back into their memory banks to single out one filmic assessment they held the closest to their hearts, especially if it was one of their earlier ones.<\/p>\n And yet, for over four decades, the thumbs-up\/thumbs-down favourite never forgot. It\u2019s a bit on the self-congratulatory side, with Ebert acknowledging that he was one of the few who were ahead of the curve, but when you\u2019ve penned over 10,000 of them<\/a>, and you\u2019ve still got one that you\u2019d happily place at the head of the back, he was allowed to pat himself on the back a little bit.<\/p>\n The year after his first review was published, he sat in for a screening of an ambitious, existential, and innovative epic, one that wasn\u2019t greeted as rapturously as it would be in the years to come. In fact, one of the earliest public showings of Stanley Kubrick\u2019s 2001: A Space Odyssey was defined more by the number of people who walked out<\/a> than the seminal picture\u2019s endless merits.<\/p>\n Today, it sounds preposterous for one of the greatest movies ever made, and almost certainly the single most influential sci-fi flick in cinema history, to struggle with winning approval from critics. That\u2019s exactly what happened, though, with the auteur\u2019s inimitable vision splitting opinion down the middle, with as many reviews showering it in praise as there were ones that heaped it with derision.<\/p>\n Ebert was one of the earliest adopters<\/a> of the now-standard \u20182001 is an era-defining masterpiece\u2019 school of thought, and when asked to name his favourite review that he\u2019d ever written, that was precisely why. \u201cI\u2019m pleased that I reviewed 2001 on the night of its first public screening,\u201d he reflected. \u201cAnd got it right, when the initial reaction was largely negative.\u201d<\/p>\n Even at the time, he saw how the film had split its audience into two distinct camps. \u201cTo describe that first screening as a disaster would be wrong,\u201d he wrote in his self-appointed finest review. \u201cFor many of those who remained until the end knew they had seen one of the greatest films ever made. But not everyone remained.\u201d<\/p>\n Further reading: Cutting Room Floor<\/p>\n He even remembered \u2018Golden Age\u2019 icon Rock Hudson asking, \u201cWill someone tell me what the hell this is about?\u201d but Ebert was in on the ground floor, and he knew from the second the credits rolled that he\u2019d witnessed the maiden showing of a masterwork<\/a>, even if it took some people longer to come around to the same way of thinking.<\/p>\n These days, nobody\u2019s going to bat an eyelid when you call 2001 an all-timer, because it is. However, back in \u201968, it was hardly a universally accepted truth, which is why it remained Ebert\u2019s favourite-ever of his own reviews.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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