Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert were two of the most iconic film critics in history. Both have contributed immensely to the industry and were well respected for their opinions on the best and worst offerings that film and TV had to offer. From 1975, all the way until Siskel's death in 1999, the pair were known for their television show At the Movies with Siskel and Ebert, where they reviewed the latest movies and offered their choices for the best and worst films of every year.

While they often disagreed, both were widely respected for their opinions so if one of these two picked your movie, either for the best or worst list, chances are you could bank on the fact that the film belonged there. In a year when they had a lot of disagreements and overlapping choices both, here's a look back at Siskel and Ebert's best movies for the year, 1998.

15 Waking Ned Devine

Scene from Waking Ned
Fox Searchlight Pictures

A huge hit at the box office, Waking Ned Devine wasn't the kind of film one might have expected to do so well. A comedy film featuring a mostly European cast that wouldn't have been well known to Western audiences, the film's charm carried it through and made it a hit among audiences despite it being something of an outlier.

It was even certified "Fresh" on Rotten Tomatoes. In a truly inspiring story, the film was originally meant to be a 10-minute short film but was later expanded. That seemed to have been a great move since the movie performed wonderfully both critically and at the box office.

14 Life Is Beautiful

A scene from Life Is Beautiful
Cecchi Gori Group

 

For many, Life Is Beautiful was a well-constructed film that beautifully hid its darker themes, just as the main character shielded his son from the horrors of an internment camp during World War II. The film was a huge hit at the box office and among critics. It was also famously nominated for seven Academy Awards, winning three.

The film's lead Roberto Benigni won the Oscar for Best Actor that year for his role in the film — a choice that was both praised and criticized by those who believed Edward Norton deserved the Best Actor win that year for his stunning portrayal of reformed Neo-Nazi Derek Vinyard in the brilliant film American History X. Surprisingly, that Norton film was also left out of both Siskel and Ebert's list of the best films of 1998. Time has not been as well to Life Is Beautiful, as it's included in The Guardian's list of the worst films ever made.

13 Simon Birch

Ian Michael Smith as Simon Birch
Hollywood Pictures

Anyone who's seen the charming and tragic comedy-drama film Simon Birch knows what a little gem of a movie it was. Featuring a sweet performance from Ashley Judd and Oliver Platt, and two well played roles by child actors Ian Michael Smith and Joseph Mazzello, the film was wonderfully bitter-sweet.

Strangely, it bombed at the box office and critically, as it only mustered a 44% rating overall. Despite this, it was probably rightly included by Roger Ebert as one of the best films of 1998 since it was a powerful movie, one that was intriguing and emotionally wrenching from the beginning. Another awesome addition to the film was that it featured a cameo voice-over role from Jim Carrey, who narrated parts of it.

12 Primary Colors

Travolta in Primary Colors
Universal Pictures

Based on a novel and starring John Travolta, Primary Colors was a political comedy-drama film based on a famous first Presidential campaign. Even though the film centered around a fictional Southern State Governor vying for the Democratic Party's nomination for President, the parallels between the film and Bill Clinton's real life campaign were plain to see.

Related: 10 Greatest Movies of All Time According to Roger Ebert

Its close resemblance to real-life characters and events put it more in the realm of being a biopic of sorts and garnered the film mostly positive reviews. Roger Ebert called the film a "smart movie" despite it being a bomb at the box office and praised the dichotomy of the main character, who was clearly flawed but still a brilliant politician despite his personal shortcomings.

11 Antz

Scene from Antz
DreamWorks Pictures
 

If you're a lover of CGI animated kid's films (like many an adult is), you probably loved the 1998 hit animated film Antz from DreamWorks Animation. Not only did the film feature the voice talents of Woody Allen, Jennifer Lopez, and even Sylvester Stallone, it had a great plot and was beautifully made.

Certainly a firm favorite among lovers of animated films, Antz smashed at the box office and was loved by critics too. It was nominated for a host of awards and had a planned sequel that sadly never saw the light of day.

10 There's Something About Mary

There's Something About Mary
20th Century Fox

Having admitted to being a fan of the outlandish and crazy comedic directing duo, the Farrelly brothers, Gene Siskel was no stranger to selecting their films among his favorites. In 1998, it happened again as the wildly entertaining comedy There's Something About Mary cracked his top 10 list.

Featuring Ben Stiller at his comedic best, the film was a raucous delve into the backstabbing and obsession that a beautiful woman (played by the very beautiful Cameron Diaz) evokes in a string of young men who encounter her. The film, while not for everyone's tastes, was a smash hit at the box office and definitely one of the Farrelly Brother's most memorable pictures, if not one of the funniest '90s comedies.

9 The Truman Show

Jim Carrey in The Truman Show
Paramount Pictures

In a dark comedic allegory of commercialization and consumption culture, Jim Carrey's performance in The Truman Show was widely praised. The film still holds a 95% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and was a smash hit at the box office too.

At a time when Carrey was still only known for his off-beat comedy movies and roles that displayed his rubber-faced genius, The Truman Show broke the mold for the enigmatic megastar and showed the world what a diverse range he truly had as an artist. It was nominated for three Academy Awards and a host of other prestigious awards, rightly winning many along the way.

8 A Simple Plan

A scene from A Simple Plan
Paramount Pictures 

Billed as a neo-noir crime film, A Simple Plan was a slightly disappointing entry from acclaimed director Sam Raimi. The film was disappointing in the sense that it bombed at the box office and disappointed fans of Raimi's horror classics. However, it was highly acclaimed by critics and was nominated for a massive amount of awards, including two Academy Awards. While an outlier in Raimi's career, it's one of his most critically lauded films.

Related: The Best Sam Raimi Films, Ranked

Starring Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton, the film revolved around attempts of two brothers to protect millions in cash that they find in crashed plane. Of course, complications arise, and this is where the film truly gets interesting.

7 Shakespeare in Love

Shakespeare in Love
Miramax

Definitely one of the top choices in film for the year, Shakespeare in Love featured on both Siskel's and Ebert's top 10 lists. The film famously went on to be nominated for a staggering 13 Academy Awards, winning seven, including Gwyneth Paltrow's award for Best Actress.

The film straddled lines between being sweet and fantastical, with some truly enchanting elements thrown in as it told the story of a fictional love affair between the legendary William Shakespeare and another woman. Truly worth its weight in Oscar gold, the movie was universally hailed as being one of the best films of 1998 and made Paltrow a household name.

6 Elizabeth

Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth
PolyGram Filmed Entertainment

Just as one stellar actress rose out of 1998 to forever cement herself as a living screen legend, so did another who would go on to become known as one of the greatest actors in history — period! Cate Blanchett would receive her first Best Actress Academy Award nomination in 1998 for Elizabeth.

Although she would lose out to Gwyneth Paltrow that year, Blanchett would go on to be nominated for the prestigious award a further four times, in addition to three other nominations for Best Supporting Actress. Elizabeth was a stirring and richly layered period drama that brought out the best in Blanchett and showed the first signs of the true phenom of Hollywood she would go on to become.

5 Saving Private Ryan

Saving Private Ryan
DreamWorks Pictures

Gene Siskel described Steven Spielberg's classic war epic Saving Private Ryan as a "combat tour de force." The film's depiction of the allied invasion of Normandy was a terrifying and brilliantly chaotic ride that threw the audience directly into the famous battle with no apologies fo the discomfort with which it does so.

The film bagged five Academy Awards, including yet another Best Director Award for Spielberg, and was nominated for five more. The historical accuracy and visceral realism of the horrific battle scenes were praised by veterans and a host of publications.

Chris Kaltenbach of the The Baltimore Sun, captured what historian and advisor on the film, Stephen Ambrose, had to say about it:

As far as historian Stephen Ambrose is concerned, the verdict is unequivocal: "Saving Private Ryan" is the greatest war film ever made. Not simply from an artistic perspective, although Ambrose has nothing but praise for the artistry of director Steven Spielberg. Not simply because Tom Hanks' portrayal of the enigmatic Capt. Miller is as good as it gets. "Saving Private Ryan" is the greatest because it rings the truest, says Ambrose, who served as a consultant on the movie and accompanied Spielberg and Hanks on a trip to Washington last week. Hired after filming was completed, he was the first person to view the completed film. Given veto power by Spielberg over any scene he found objectionable, Ambrose saw no reason to use it.

4 The Thin Red Line

Thin Red Line
20th Century Fox

1998 proved to be a special year for brilliant war epic films. The Thin Red Line was another war film that turned heads and stuck out for its brilliance. Starring Sean Penn, George Clooney, Nick Nolte, John Cusack, and just about every other big actor of the time, the film was nominated for seven Academy Awards itself, although it didn't win any of them.

Regardless, The Thin Red Line was astoundingly good in its own right, Terrence Malick's triumphant and poetic return to cinema after a 20-year absence. While Roger Ebert wasn't as impressed by it, Gene Siskel loved the film and even called it:

The "finest contemporary war film I've seen, supplanting Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan from earlier this year, or even Oliver Stone's Platoon from 1986."

3 Pleasantville

Pleasantville movie
Warner Bros.

Pleasantville was a film that was universally loved by both critics as it featured as number three and number two on Siskel's and Ebert's lists, respectively. Telling the story of an ordinary modern day couple who are magically transported back in time into a 1950s sitcom, the film was nothing if not original. The film bombed badly commercially but was almost universally praised by critics and was certified "Fresh" on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes.

It was described as a subversive satire and was woefully underappreciated at the box office that year. This was made evident by the fact that it never even made back its budget in ticket sales, yet was nominated for three Academy Awards and too many other awards to mention.

2 Dark City

The Strangers in Dark City
New Line Cinema

Billed as the number one pick of 1998 for Roger Ebert, Dark City was a masterful science-fiction film that Ebert described as having the look of a film noir. Featuring the talents of Rufus Sewell, Kiefer Sutherland, and Jennifer Connelly, the film revolved around an alien invasion with a twist.

Related: Dark City: Why This Underrated '90s Sci-Fi Masterpiece Deserves a Reboot

With a screenplay from the brilliant David S. Goyer, In this film, the aliens controlled the memories of their human victims as they wiped their memories clean every morning and essentially started over fresh each day. Ebert, in particular, praised the film's boldness, creativity, special effects, and the way it peeled back layers to reveal the full story, defending it staunchly despite its poor showing at the box office. The film is now considered a cult classic.

1 Babe: Pig in the City

Babe - Pig in the City
Universal Pictures

According to Siskel, the charming sequel to the 1995 hit comedy-drama film Babe was even better. Babe: Pig in the City was loved by Ebert and Siskel both, although a lot more than Siskel since he selected it as his number one film of the year. The differences in taste between audiences and critics is a common phenomenon in the world of filmmaking. The contradiction between Siskel's love of this film and its showing at the box office was another stark example of this trend.

While Siskel couldn't stop raving about how much he loved the film, Babe: Pig in the City was a massive commercial and critical failure - even more so when compared the first film. Babe was a film that smashed at the box office, earning more than $250 million against a $30 million budget and holding a 97% approval rating to date. In contrast, Babe: Pig in the City was abysmal as it made a loss at the box office and only mustered a 65 percent approval rating. Nevertheless, on its own, it was a great movie, so it probably suffered from being caught in the wake turbulence from the success of the first film.