Roger Ebert’s views were always hit or miss for me. I often disagreed with him, and felt like he was choosing witty-sounding opinions that I could understand what he was saying but frequently didn’t really think the same way about the films. When he used to do a joint show with Gene Siskel . I was much more likely to agree with Siskel.
Of Ebert’s top ten list that @Call_Me_Jay posted above, I am surprised that I have only seen six of them. I like and I think appreciate all six of them, but only two make my own current list of 86 vaguely-sorted favorite films. I have Casablanca at #41 and The Third Man at #43.
Of course, we also differ not just in film tastes but in reasons for making top film lists. I’m listing my favorites while Ebert is trying to be more academic about saying which ones he thinks are “best”, for purposes of writing an article.
And I’m sure he found something to consider “great” about each film on his list of 300. But that doesn’t mean I have interest or taste for them myself.
But actually, looking through that list of 300, I thought they all either looked interesting, or had seen and agreed were great or at least respected and thought were good in their own ways. I didn’t see any films that I knew about but didn’t respect, and I think his top 300 does overlap with my 86 pretty heavily.
Oh, well maybe I wouldn’t put Say Anything, nor Planes, Trains, and Automobiles on a top 300 list.