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Michael Phillips (critic)

American film critic

Field	Value
name	Michael Phillips
birth_date
birth_place	Kenosha, Wisconsin, U.S.
occupation	Film critic
years_active	1983–present
spouse
children	1

Michael Phillips (born March 11, 1961) is an American film critic formerly for the Chicago Tribune newspaper.

Early life

Phillips was born in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and spent most of his early years in Racine.

Career

Prior to being film critic for the Chicago Tribune, Phillips was the drama critic of the Tribune; the Los Angeles Times; the St. Paul Pioneer Press; The San Diego Union-Tribune; and the Dallas Times Herald.

From 2006 through August 2008, he appeared frequently on At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper, first as one of numerous guest critics filling in for the late Roger Ebert while he was on medical leave, and becoming a semipermanent cohost with Richard Roeper in the months before Roeper and Ebert ended their association with the series. On August 5, 2009, Phillips was hired along with New York Times critic A. O. Scott to replace hosts Ben Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz. The show was cancelled after one season due to low ratings, concluding its run in August 2010.

Phillips has introduced over 100 feature films for Turner Classic Movies. He appears on the Filmspotting podcast. He hosted a series about movie music called The Film Score and contributes to Soundtrack both for WFMT-FM (98.7).

In 2025, the Chicago Tribune eliminated its film critic role and Phillips accepted a buyout. His final review for the paper, published August 14, was for the film Highest 2 Lowest. His final piece for the paper overall, published September 4, was a preview for movies coming out in the fall of 2025.

Preferences

In an interview with Rotten Tomatoes, Phillips listed his five favorite films (in chronological order):

The Passion of Joan of Arc
His Girl Friday
Citizen Kane
The Band Wagon
Taxi Driver

Best films of the year

Each year, Phillips prepares a list of the top ten films of the year. In 2009, he also made a list for the films of the 2000's decade.

Year	#1	#2	#3	#4	#5	#6	#7	#8	#9	#10
2005	Capote	King Kong	The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada	Nuit noire 17 octobre 1961	The 40-Year-Old Virgin	The Squid and the Whale	Junebug	Le Grand Voyage	Pride and Prejudice	Brokeback Mountain
2006	Climates	United 93	Little Children	The Death of Mr. Lazarescu	Letters from Iwo Jima	Borat	The War Tapes	Casino Royale	The Queen	Caché
2007	Once	The Diving Bell and the Butterfly	4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days	Ratatouille	There Will Be Blood	No End in Sight	Margot at the Wedding	The Bourne Ultimatum	The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford	Knocked Up and Juno
2008	WALL-E	The Class	A Christmas Tale	Let the Right One In	The Flight of the Red Balloon	Alexandra	Man on Wire	Snow Angels	Still Life	The Dark Knight
2009	Up	Where the Wild Things Are	Of Time and the City	The Hurt Locker	A Serious Man	Adventureland	A Single Man	Sugar	In the Loop	Me and Orson Welles
2000s	There Will Be Blood	Ratatouille	Climates	Once	Y Tu Mamá También	Zodiac	United 93	Mulholland Drive	Gosford Park	Minority Report
2010	The Kids are All Right	The Secret in Their Eyes	Boxing Gym	Last Train Home	Greenberg	Carlos	The Social Network	The King's Speech	The Ghost Writer	The Fighter
2011	Poetry	Moneyball	Certified Copy	The Descendants	The Interrupters	Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench	A Separation	The Tree of Life	Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy	Weekend
2012	Zero Dark Thirty	Lincoln	Once Upon a Time in Anatolia	The Master	Amour	Chico and Rita	The Color Wheel	Searching for Sugar Man	Flight	Moonrise Kingdom
2013	Her	12 Years a Slave	Consuming Spirits		Stories We Tell	Fruitvale Station	American Hustle	Post Tenebras Lux	Inside Llewyn Davis	Let the Fire Burn	The Gatekeepers
2014	Boyhood	The Grand Budapest Hotel	Winter Sleep	Whiplash	The Lego Movie	Listen Up Philip	Force Majeure	Mr. Turner	Dear White People	Heaven Knows What
2015	Spotlight	Anomalisa	Love & Mercy	The Diary of a Teenage Girl	Son of Saul	Carol	Beasts of No Nation	Creed	Heart of a Dog	Tangerine
2016	Moonlight	La La Land	Manchester by the Sea	Toni Erdmann	O.J.: Made in America	Krisha	The Witch	Hell or High Water	Don't Think Twice	The Fits
2017	Lady Bird	A Ghost Story	Get Out	Phantom Thread	Rat Film	Mudbound	Good Time	Raw	The Florida Project	Call Me by Your Name
2018	The Rider	Roma	Can You Ever Forgive Me?	The Favourite	Minding the Gap	Widows	First Reformed	Sorry to Bother You	Zama	Black Panther
2019	Parasite	Marriage Story	Ash Is Purest White	Portrait of a Lady on Fire	The Irishman	One Child Nation	Waves	Present.Perfect.	The Last Black Man in San Francisco	Little Women
2020	Lovers Rock	First Cow	American Utopia	Nomadland	City So Real	Ma Rainey's Black Bottom	The Assistant	Mangrove	The Vast of Night	Never Rarely Sometimes Always
2021	A Night of Knowing Nothing	The Underground Railroad	Drive My Car	Passing	West Side Story	The Lost Daughter	Licorice Pizza	Summer of Soul	It's a Sin	The Green Knight and The Tragedy of Macbeth
2022	All the Beauty and the Bloodshed	Compartment No. 6	EO	Kimi	Let the Little Light Shine	Marcel the Shell with Shoes On	Saint Omer	Tár	Turning Red	The Woman King
2023	Past Lives	The Boy	Killers of the Flower Moon	Barbie	Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.	The Zone of Interest	Return to Seoul	The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar; The Rat Catcher; The Swan; & Poison	Oppenheimer	May December
2024	All We Imagine as Light	Anora	The Brutalist	Challengers	Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World	Green Border	Janet Planet	My Old Ass	Nickel Boys	A Real Pain

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2006-2010	At the Movies	Guest Host/Co-Host	91 episodes
2008	Entourage	Himself	Episode: "Fantasy Island"
2010	Who Wants to Be a Millionaire	Guest Expert	5 episodes
The View	Himself	1 episode
Charlie Rose	Guest	1 episode
2011	The Early Show	Himself	1 episode
2013	TCM Friday Night Spotlight: Future Shock!	Host

Notes

References

Fragoso, Sam. (September 13, 2016). "Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso - Episode 24: Michael Phillips". Movie Mezzanine.
"Michael Phillips".
"Michael Phillips".
"'Talking Pictures. Conversations about film, the bad and the beautiful.' by Michael Phillips". Chicago Tribune.
"The Film Score: The Host: Michael Phillips". [[WFMT]].
Scott, A.O.. (April 13, 2008). "Roger Ebert, The Critic Behind The Thumb". [[The New York Times]].
(August 5, 2009). "'At the Movies' Drops Hosts Lyons, Mankiewicz". [[ABC News (United States).
Rosenthal, Phil. (August 5, 2009). "Tower Ticker: Chicago Tribune's Michael Phillips, N.Y. Times' A.O. Scott take over 'At the Movies'". [[Chicago Tribune]].
Rosenthal, Phil. (March 24, 2010). "Tower Ticker: Disney-ABC cancels 'At the Movies,' Siskel and Ebert's old show". [[Chicago Tribune]].
"Michael Phillips". DePaul University College of Communication.
"Michael Phillips Episodes". Telegraph Road Productions, Inc..
"The Film Score: The Host: Michael Phillips". [[WFMT]].
"Soundtrack". [[WTTW]].
Knapp, JD. (August 19, 2025). "Chicago Tribune Eliminates Film Critic Role, Michael Phillips Takes Buyout".
Phillips, Michael. (August 20, 2025). "Column: The Tribune's film critic Michael Phillips says so long for now".
Phillips, Michael. (August 14, 2025). "'Highest 2 Lowest' review: Spike Lee and Denzel Washington re-team for a heist movie that pays off".
Phillips, Michael. (September 4, 2025). "Movies for fall 2025: Our top 10 picks, from 'Smashing Machine' to a Springsteen story".
Ryan, Tim. (September 22, 2009). "Five Favorite Films with Michael Phillips".
Seidman, Robert. (28 December 2009). "'At The Movies' Best of the Decade Picks". [[Zap2it]].
Phillips, Michael. (March 28, 2012). "10 best movies of 2011". Chicago Tribune.
Phillips, Michael. (March 14, 2013). "Photos: Best movies of 2012". Chicago Tribune.
Phillips, Michael. (December 17, 2013). "Photos: Best movies of 2013". Chicago Tribune.
Phillips, Michael. (December 18, 2014). "Photos: Best and worst movies of 2014". Chicago Tribune.
Phillips, Michael. (December 18, 2015). "Photos: Best movies of 2015". Chicago Tribune.
Phillips, Michael. (December 15, 2016). "Michael Phillips reveals the movie triumphs, disasters of 2016". Chicago Tribune.
Phillips, Michael. (December 13, 2017). "10 best movies of 2017". Chicago Tribune.
Phillips, Michael. (December 12, 2018). "10 best movies of 2018". Chicago Tribune.
Phillips, Michael. (December 19, 2019). "The best - and worst - movies of 2019". Chicago Tribune.
Phillips, Michael. (December 16, 2020). "Top 10 movies of 2020, from the Chicago Tribune's Michael Phillips". Chicago Tribune.
Phillips, Michael. (December 9, 2021). "The Tribune's Top 10 best movies of 2021: You haven't heard of the year's best film. I guarantee it.". Chicago Tribune.
Phillips, Michael. (December 14, 2022). "The Top 10 best movies of 2022 (plus a few of the worst)". Chicago Tribune.
Phillips, Michael. (December 6, 2023). "The top 10 best (and worst!) movies of 2023". Chicago Tribune.
Phillips, Michael. (December 4, 2024). "Top 10 movies of 2024: In a time of scoundrels, 'Brutalist,' 'Challengers' and the movie about the exotic dancer". Chicago Tribune.

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1961-births american-columnists american-film-critics national-society-of-film-critics-members american-television-personalities living-people writers-from-chicago people-from-kenosha,-wisconsin writers-from-racine,-wisconsin 20th-century-american-journalists 20th-century-american-male-journalists

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