It was produced by Tribune Entertainment and was created by Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert when they left their show Sneak Previews, which they began on Chicago's PBS station, WTTW, in 1975.

For At the Movies, Siskel and Ebert adopted the same format they had used in their previous series, Sneak Previews: two critics from opposing newspapers view clips from the week's new movies, discuss them, then pass judgment expressed in thumbs up (to approve) or thumbs down (not worth seeing).

Siskel and Ebert would also occasionally feature an "X-Ray segment," in which they discussed current trends happening in the movies.

They were replaced on At the Movies by film critics Rex Reed and Bill Harris, the latter a gossip correspondent for Entertainment Tonight (ET).

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