Table of Contents

What Is Film Criticism?

Film criticism is the analysis and evaluation of movies as works of art, entertainment, and cultural expression. It ranges from newspaper reviews telling you whether to buy a ticket to dense academic essays deconstructing camera angles and editing rhythms. At its best, film criticism doesn’t just tell you whether a movie is good — it changes how you see movies entirely.

What Critics Actually Do

A film critic watches a movie — often multiple times — and writes about it. That sounds simple. It isn’t. Good criticism requires knowledge of film history, technical understanding of cinematography, editing, sound design, and performance, sensitivity to cultural context, and the writing ability to communicate complex ideas clearly.

Critics ask questions most viewers don’t: Why did the director choose that camera angle? What does the lighting suggest about the character’s emotional state? How does the editing rhythm create tension or release? What cultural assumptions does the film reinforce or challenge?

The answers to these questions constitute analysis — the core of criticism. A review might tell you the acting is good. Criticism explains how the acting achieves its effects and why those choices matter.

A Short History

Film criticism is almost as old as film itself. When movies first appeared in the 1890s, newspaper writers immediately started evaluating them. Early criticism was mostly descriptive — what happens in the film — because audiences had no other way to learn about movies before seeing them.

Serious film criticism emerged in the 1920s and 1930s. In the Soviet Union, filmmakers like Sergei Eisenstein wrote extensively about montage theory. In France, writers for Cahiers du Cinema — including future directors Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut — developed the auteur theory in the 1950s, arguing that the director is the true “author” of a film, imposing a personal vision across their body of work.

American film criticism hit its peak influence between roughly 1960 and 2000. Pauline Kael at The New Yorker wrote with fierce passion and personal conviction, treating film criticism as a form of combat. She championed movies the establishment ignored and savaged sacred cows. Her writing was so vivid and argued with such intensity that reading her was almost as exciting as watching the films she described.

Andrew Sarris at The Village Voice championed auteur theory in America, creating hierarchies of directors that influenced how a generation thought about cinema. His rivalry with Kael — he favored systematic theory, she favored gut response — defined American criticism for decades.

Roger Ebert made criticism accessible to millions through his Chicago Sun-Times column and his television show with Gene Siskel (and later Richard Roeper). Ebert’s genius was writing for general audiences without dumbing down — his reviews were clear, personal, and seriously engaged with film as art. He won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 1975.

Types of Criticism

Journalistic criticism is what most people encounter — newspaper and magazine reviews, online reviews, YouTube video essays. It’s timely, accessible, and consumer-oriented. The best journalistic critics manage to serve both the “should I see it?” question and the deeper analytical one.

Academic criticism appears in journals and university presses. It applies theoretical frameworks — feminism, psychoanalysis, postcolonialism, semiotics — to films. Academic writing tends to be denser and less concerned with whether you’ll enjoy the movie. It’s aimed at other scholars.

Video essays have exploded since the 2010s. YouTube channels like Every Frame a Painting, Lessons from the Screenplay, and Now You See It use clips and voiceover to analyze technique in ways that print criticism can’t match. Showing a specific editing cut while explaining why it works is more effective than describing it in words.

The Rotten Tomatoes Effect

Aggregation sites have changed the field dramatically. Rotten Tomatoes (launched 1998) and Metacritic (launched 2001) compile critics’ reviews into single scores. A film’s Rotten Tomatoes percentage has become a major marketing tool — or liability.

The problem, critics argue, is reductionism. A nuanced review that praises a film’s ambition while noting its flaws gets reduced to “fresh” or “rotten.” Two critics might give a film 6/10 for completely different reasons, but both count the same in the aggregate. The score captures consensus but loses specificity.

Studios have adapted. Marketing campaigns now trumpet Rotten Tomatoes scores. Some studios have reportedly pressured critics to post positive reviews before release. The tail is wagging the dog — a system designed to summarize criticism is now influencing how films are made and marketed.

Does Criticism Still Matter?

The internet democratized opinion. Everyone can post a review. So do we still need professional critics?

The honest answer: more than ever. When everyone has a megaphone, the signal-to-noise ratio drops. Professional critics bring knowledge, context, and writing skill that casual reviewers typically don’t. They’ve seen thousands of films. They understand the traditions a new film is building on or breaking from. They can articulate why something works or doesn’t, not just that it does or doesn’t.

The best criticism also preserves films from obscurity. Without critics championing overlooked work, many great films would disappear. Sight & Sound’s decennial poll of greatest films — voted on by critics worldwide — shapes canon and draws attention to films that audiences might otherwise miss. The 2022 poll named Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman (1975) the greatest film ever made — a film most casual viewers had never heard of.

Film criticism, fundamentally, is an argument about what movies mean and why they matter. That argument is worth having, especially when studios spend billions trying to tell you that meaning doesn’t matter — only opening weekend does.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between a film review and film criticism?

A film review is a consumer-oriented assessment — should you see this movie? Film criticism goes deeper, analyzing a film's techniques, themes, cultural significance, and place within cinema history. Reviews are timely and brief. Criticism can be written years after release and runs much longer. In practice, the best reviewers do both.

Who is considered the greatest film critic?

Roger Ebert and Pauline Kael are the most commonly cited American critics. Ebert, who reviewed for the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013, was the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize. Kael wrote for The New Yorker from 1968-1991 and was famous for her passionate, combative style. Andre Bazin in France is considered the most influential theorist-critic.

Has Rotten Tomatoes changed film criticism?

Significantly. Rotten Tomatoes aggregates critics' reviews into a single percentage score (fresh or rotten), which has become a major marketing tool. Critics worry this reduces nuanced analysis to a binary thumbs-up/thumbs-down. Studios have noticed — films with high Rotten Tomatoes scores can see box office bumps of 10-15%.

Further Reading

• Rotten Tomatoes
• Criterion Collection
• British Film Institute — Sight and Sound