Michael Phillips (critic)

Michael Phillips (born 1961) is a film critic for the Chicago Tribune newspaper. Previously he 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.

Phillips was born in Kenosha, Wisconsin and spent most of his early years in Racine, Wisconsin. 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 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, in an attempt to return the show to its roots after a year-long ratings drop and heavy criticism, particularly of Ben Lyons, who was perceived to lack depth of knowledge about movies. The new show, however, lasted only one season.

Top ten lists

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

	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009 (It differs slightly from his list at Metacritic.)	2000s
1	Capote	Climates	Once	Wall-E	Up	There Will Be Blood
2	King Kong	United 93	The Diving Bell and the Butterfly	The Class	Where the Wild Things Are	Ratatouille
3	The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada	Little Children	4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days	A Christmas Tale	Of Time and the City	Climates
4	Nuit noire 17 octobre 1961	The Death of Mr. Lazarescu	Ratatouille	Let the Right One In	The Hurt Locker	Once
5	The 40-Year-Old Virgin	Letters From Iwo Jima	There Will Be Blood	The Flight of the Red Balloon	A Serious Man	Y Tu Mama Tambien
6	The Squid and the Whale	Borat	No End in Sight	Alexandra	Adventureland	Zodiac
7	Junebug	The War Tapes	Margot at the Wedding	Man on Wire	A Single Man	United 93
8	Le Grand Voyage	Casino Royale	The Bourne Ultimatum	Snow Angels	Sugar	Mulholland Drive
9	Pride and Prejudice	The Queen	The Assassination of Jesse James	Still Life	In the Loop	Gosford Park
10	Brokeback Mountain	Caché	Knocked Up and Juno	The Dark Knight	Me and Orson Welles	Minority Report

External links

• Michael Phillips at the Internet Movie Database
• Michael Phillips at the Chicago Tribune