r/ebert • u/strictcurlfiend • Jun 19 '24

Ebert 4 stars vs "great movie"

I noticed there are 4 star reviews without the "great movie" accolade. Is this on purpose?

4 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

6 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/Greedy-Runner-1789 Jun 23 '24

Yes, this is on purpose. For just a normal brand-new movie that comes out in theaters, Roger's rating system is out of 4 stars, even for new movies. The "great movie" accolade is something different and special. It's for when Roger would go back and re-review various movies of the past, some of which he had reviewed before as they came out during his career as a critic since 1967. For these on his website if you search the movie you'll find two reviews, the original from when it came out then a "Great Movies" review from many years later. Sometimes, a movie he had given less than four stars originally would make it into the Great Movies. But others of the Great Movies were classics that came out before he became a critic.