In a production that straddles the line between reenactment and parody, director Katlin Schneider brings back one of the pair’s most heated half-hours, a full-bore discussion of Full Metal Jacket and sideways sparring around other famous (and not-so-famous) films of the 1987 summer season. A cast re-creates the movie clips live on stage as Siskel and Ebert duke it out over what it truly means to be a film critic.




EBERTFEST 2026 "THE LAST DANCE" is presented by:




Roger Ebert’s Film Festival celebrates films, genres, and formats that have been overlooked by distributors, audiences, and/or critics. These include independent, international, and studio films that did not win wide audiences; overlooked formats such as 70mm; and overlooked genres such as documentaries and musicals.

The festival screens one film at a time – so that everyone sees the same films – promoting a strong sense of community among audience members, filmmakers, guests, students, and scholars.

Ebertfest was founded in 1999 by Roger and Chaz Ebert, with Professor Nathaniel Kohn as Festival Director. Roger was an Urbana native, U of I Journalism graduate, and Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic for The Chicago Sun-Times.

For a complete list of the films, visit this page.

For more, visit www.ebertfest.com