
Opposable Thumbs
How Siskel & Ebert Changed Movies Forever
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Narrated by:
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Matt Singer
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By:
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Matt Singer
Once upon a time, if you wanted to know if a movie was worth seeing, you didn’t check out Rotten Tomatoes or IMDB.
You asked whether Siskel & Ebert had given it “two thumbs up.”
On a cold Saturday afternoon in 1975, two men (who had known each other for eight years before they’d ever exchanged a word) met for lunch in a Chicago pub. Gene Siskel was the film critic for the Chicago Tribune. Roger Ebert had recently won the Pulitzer Prize—the first ever awarded to a film critic—for his work at the Chicago Sun-Times. To say they despised each other was an understatement.
When they reluctantly agreed to collaborate on a new movie review show with PBS, there was at least as much sparring off-camera as on. No decision—from which films to cover to who would read the lead review to how to pronounce foreign titles—was made without conflict, but their often-antagonistic partnership (which later transformed into genuine friendship) made for great television. In the years that followed, their signature “Two thumbs up!” would become the most trusted critical brand in Hollywood.
In Opposable Thumbs, award-winning editor and film critic Matt Singer eavesdrops on their iconic balcony set, detailing their rise from making a few hundred dollars a week on local Chicago PBS to securing multimillion-dollar contracts for a syndicated series (a move that convinced a young local host named Oprah Winfrey to do the same). Their partnership was cut short when Gene Siskel passed away in February of 1999 after a battle with brain cancer that he’d kept secret from everyone outside his immediate family—including Roger Ebert, who never got to say goodbye to his longtime partner. But their influence on in the way we talk about (and think about) movies continues to this day.
Photographer/© ABC/Getty Images.
©2023 Matt Singer (P)2023 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...




















Critic reviews
One of People’s Must-Read Books for Fall 2023
“Opposable Thumbs is a welcome reminder of an era when film criticism actually mattered...But it was Siskel and Ebert who, in Singer’s words, ‘democratized criticism, turned it into mass entertainment.’” —The New York Times
“The Siskel & Ebert rivalry, and its legacy, comes alive in the new book Opposable Thumbs.” —Chicago Tribune
"Siskel and Ebert bustled into the world at a time when movie critics mattered more, before the culture fragmented into a million voices and “influencers,” and they ruled that world with iron thumbs. In this sense Singer’s book is a time capsule of a bygone era every bit as irreplicable as the partnership at its core." —The Los Angeles Times
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I feel fans of film and media will truly enjoy this story of Siskel & Ebert and their partnership.
Fantastic storytelling by Singer!
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Good book. But unless you are a standup comedian, or an actor, you shouldn’t read a book you wrote
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As a writer, Matt Singer does a great job keeping it interesting, even when covering familiar ground. I laughed out loud a few times, which is as much a credit to Siskel and Ebert's own words as well as Singer's ability to find the structure to share them. But the author deserves even more credit for his sensitive and carefully crafted prose which brought me to tears on three separate occasions.
As a reader, he also does very well, to the point it feels unfair comparing him to other writers reading their own nonfiction work. My only criticism is that there's a very broadcast ready, slightly detached quality to the reading which serves most of the book well, but there are times where it would have been served better with a more emotionally nuanced performance.
Overall, I can easily and enthusiastically recommend this audiobook.
Thumbs Way Up for Opposable Thumbs!
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Fun and informative; enjoyable
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I must for niche movie lovers
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The author clearly did his research, and crammed as much information as possible into the book. It might get annoying for some listeners, but possibly not for the true fans that watched the show their whole lives. The voice-over is ok: kind of on the nasal side.
Fans will like it
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Like Ebert even more.
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Nine hours and 35 minutes well spent
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Fun Nostalgic Telling of the Siskel & Ebert Story
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great history of 2 icons
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