It's not often that a film critic ends up being just as famous as the stars whose films he reviews, but Roger Ebert was certainly one reviewer who fit that bill. Although he sadly passed away in 2013, Ebert's legacy and the amazing body of film reviews he left the world during his stellar career have permanently endowed him with the title of being the most famous film critic in the world.

As a journalist, he was the first critic to ever win the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. He was also nominated for Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Informational Series for the show he shared with fellow critic Gene Siskel, Siskel & Ebert & the Movies. Ebert also won Press Awards, a Webby Award for Person of the Year, a Lifetime Achievement Award, and an Honorary Life Member Award from the Directors Guild of America.

After blessing audiences around the world with thousands of brilliantly reasoned film reviews, Roger Ebert wrote his last one before succumbing to cancer in 2013. His review of To the Wonder, posthumously published in April 2013, echoed his amazing life and proved to be a perfect ending to the extraordinary career of an extraordinary man.

To the Wonder

Ebert in Life Itself
Magnolia Pictures

Whether it was fate or coincidence, Roger Ebert's last review was for the 2012 surreal drama, To the Wonder. The film starred Ben Affleck, Olga Kurylenko, Rachel McAdams, and Javier Bardem, and was made in the typically avant-garde style of its director Terrence Malick — known for his other films such as Tree of Life. While Malick has often been praised for being a filmmaking legend and a visionary director, much of his modern work has been criticized for being too airy and chichi.

Related: Top 20 Movies of the 2000s, According to Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert himself was cognizant of this and didn't stray from the fact that many opinions of the film would likely counter his. In its own way, this thread of honesty and realism in knowing that his own opinion wasn't always lore was what often distinguished him as a critic. Despite being widely regarded as the greatest critic around in his time, and despite Ebert's brilliant views being ones you could usually bank on, there was often a unique tone of humility that ran through the undercurrent of his reviews.

This was apparent in his last review. Through it, he seemed to have woven two significant facts into his prose. The first was that Ebert was humble enough to never force his opinion down readers' throats — usually preferring his love of cinema, film, and the art form itself to inform his views. He didn't have any overarching pretension or grandiosity for his knowledge of the medium like many reviewers often unwittingly do. The second was that, in having an opinion that ran counter to the consensus (and acknowledging it), Ebert humbly displayed the fact that he often saw things in a way that ordinary people simply could not.

The Soul of an Artist

Ebert in Life Itself
Magnolia Pictures

Like the artistic and almost whimsical deftness that To the Wonder tries to convey, Roger Ebert could also be said to have had the soul of a great artist. This, coupled with his almost mystical knowledge of the mechanics, artistry, and gradations of filmmaking, and the entertainment industry in general, gave him the ability to appreciate subtleties and minute details about films that most people could never hope to recognize.

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

One of Ebert's greatest gifts as a critic was often how he seemed able to cut through all the superficiality of a movie and pluck out its very heart and soul. It was by getting to these layers of a film that Ebert was able to provide reviews that usually went beyond the mundane, and provided the reader with genuinely utilitarian insights into it. A perfect example of this came from the way he ended his review of To the Wonder. After acknowledging how most people would see it, he then shows why he saw the film in a different light — one that the reader can't help but then consider since Ebert was so masterfully persuasive.

"There will be many who find "To the Wonder" elusive and too effervescent. They'll be dissatisfied by a film that would rather evoke than supply. I understand that, and I think Terrence Malick does, too. But here he has attempted to reach more deeply than that: to reach beneath the surface, and find the soul in need."

The Last Review for a Perfect End

Eberts Star in Life Itself
Magnolia Pictures

Perhaps it was because Roger Ebert may have known or sensed that his life was ending soon that his final review also seemed imbued with a positive spirit that echoed the way he lived life. Roger's death evoked so many wonderful messages and tributes from so many celebrities and people who were iconic and legendary themselves, that it spoke volumes about how deeply his life and career had impacted the film industry.

In one of the most touching tributes, then-President Barrack Obama and his family had this to say about the news of Ebert's passing.

"For a generation of Americans - and especially Chicagoans - Roger was the movies. When he didn't like a film, he was honest; when he did, he was effusive - capturing the unique power of the movies to take us somewhere magical."

Tributes like these and so many more that came in the wake of his passing showed the world just how much Ebert's opinion meant to so many people. In his final review, he often seemed almost contemplative and said things like the following of To the Wonder and its director.

"We don't need to be told Malick's in an autobiographical vein here; these memories surely belong to the storyteller. In both films, he is absorbed in living and dining rooms, looking out upon neat lawns and neighborhood pastoral peace. As the film opened, I wondered if I was missing something. As it continued, I realized many films could miss a great deal."

It seems clear from these kinds of sentiments that Ebert was still weighing and analyzing life and films in a manner that was so much more deeply appreciative than most of us could muster. It was elements like these, and the fact that he found deeper ways to appreciate the true nature and wonderment of the film he was reviewing, that captured the soul of Roger Ebert, and why it was the perfect send-off for the legend that he was.

In considering the kind of prose he uses in his last review and many of his others, here's an extract of what Ebert had to say about death just a few years before he did pass away.

"I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear. I hope to be spared as much pain as possible on the approach path. I was perfectly content before I was born, and I think of death as the same state. What I am grateful for is the gift of intelligence, and for life, love, wonder, and laughter. You can't say it wasn't interesting. My lifetime's memories are what I have brought home from the trip. I will require them for eternity no more than that little souvenir of the Eiffel Tower I brought home from Paris."