The documentary Life Itself about the late Roger Ebert premieres in limited release on July 4. To celebrate America’s most beloved movie critic, this week we’re looking back on his inimitable life and career and his passionate love for film.

Nabbing a place on Roger Ebert’s annual year-end Top 10 list was always kind of a big deal for a movie — particularly if it happened to wind up in the number-one spot. And while many of his “Best of the Year” picks were perhaps obvious critical favorites (such as The Godfather and Argo), there were several instances in which his outside-of-the-box selections caught his readers — and Hollywood —off guard. Here are the five most surprising movies to top Ebert’s year-end lists, as well as one unexpected best-of-decade pick.

The Black Stallion (1980)

Why It Surprised: Carol Ballard’s lyrical adaptation of the Walter Farley’s beloved 1941 children’s book is an undeniably lovely film, particularly the first half, which depicts the friendship that develops between the titular steed and young Alec when they’re both marooned on a desert island following a shipwreck. Still, that Ebert picked The Black Stallion over Martin Scorsese’s seminal black-and-white boxing drama Raging Bull (which took second place) was legitimately shocking, especially as the critic admitted in his own review that Ballard’s film lost some of its steam in the homestretch. Ebert made it up to Scorsese roughly ten years later, naming Raging Bull the best film of the ’80s while The Black Stallion didn’t even crack his decade Top Ten.

Ebert’s Take: “The Black Stallion is a wonderful experience at the movies. The possibility remains, though, that in these cynical times it may be avoided by some viewers because it has a G rating—and G movies are sometimes dismissed as being too innocuous. That’s sure not the case with this film, which is rated G simply because it has no nudity, profanity, or violence—but it does have terrific energy, beauty, and excitement. It’s not a children’s movie; it’s for adults and for kids.”

Also on His Top Ten of 1980: Kagemusha (#3); The Empire Strikes Back (#7); American Gigolo (#9)





House of Games (1987)

Why It Surprised: Perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that longtime Chicagoan Ebert demonstrated Windy City pride by embracing homegrown playwright David Mamet’s feature-filmmaking debut. Nevertheless, the con-artist caperwas far from a box-office dynamo (it earned about $2.5 million) and went almost completely overlooked by most awards groups—save for a Best Screenplay nod at the Golden Globes—most of which went gaga for Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor instead. Mamet went on to make more successful (and arguably better) films over the next three decades, but none of those ever matched House of Games in Ebert’s rankings.

Ebert’s Take: “This movie is awake. I have seen so many films that were sleepwalking through the debris of old plots and second-hand ideas that it was a constant pleasure to watch House of Games, a movie about con men that succeeds not only in conning the audience, but also in creating a series of characters who seem imprisoned by the need to con, or be conned.”

Also on His Top Ten of 1987: The Big Easy (#2); Moonstruck (#5); Lethal Weapon (#9)





Eve’s Bayou (1997)

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