Flikipedia A branching dictionary of the moving image

film criticism

noun

The analysis and evaluation of films, spanning journalistic reviewing aimed at guiding audiences and scholarly criticism that interprets works within historical, formal, and theoretical contexts.

Origin A compound of film and criticism, the latter from Greek kritikos (able to discern or judge); the phrase came into use as writing about the moving image developed alongside the medium in the early twentieth century.

  1. Film studies The practice of analyzing and evaluating films, whether for a general readership or within academic scholarship. a weekly newspaper column devoted to film criticism

  2. The body of writing produced by that practice, considered collectively.

Scope

Film criticism is the analysis and evaluation of films. It ranges from short notices written for a general audience to extended scholarly essays, and it addresses individual works, the output of particular directors or studios, national cinemas, and broader categories such as genre. As a component of film studies, it is commonly distinguished from film theory: where theory asks general questions about how cinema produces meaning and how it relates to perception and the other arts, criticism applies interpretation and judgment to specific films. In practice the two inform one another, and critics often draw on theoretical frameworks when analyzing a work.

Reviewing and scholarly criticism

Two broad modes are generally recognized. Journalistic reviewing is written for a general readership, typically on a short deadline and close to a film’s release; it summarizes a work, appraises it, and often advises whether it is worth watching, serving a consumer-guidance function. Scholarly or academic criticism, by contrast, situates a film within historical, formal, and theoretical contexts, argues from close analysis, cites sources, and is generally subject to peer review before publication in books and journals. The categories overlap, as some writers work in both registers, but they differ in purpose, length, method, and audience.

Approaches and figures

Critical writing has taken a number of recurring approaches, including formal analysis of technique and style, auteur-centered criticism that treats a director as the principal author of a film, genre criticism, and readings informed by ideological, psychoanalytic, or feminist frameworks. Influential practitioners have included the French critic André Bazin, a co-founder of the journal Cahiers du cinéma and an advocate of realist aesthetics; the journal is associated with the later development of auteur-centered criticism. American reviewers such as Pauline Kael and Roger Ebert wrote for a general readership and were widely read. These figures are noted as examples of the field’s range rather than as an exhaustive account.

See also

  • film studies— The academic discipline that studies film as an art form and cultural practice, encompassing its history, theory, criticism, and preservation, and distinguished from journalistic reviewing by its scholarly and analytical methods.
  • film theory— The scholarly study of the nature, language, and effects of the moving image, concerned with how films produce meaning and how they relate to perception, ideology, and the other arts.
  • genre— A category of film defined by shared conventions, themes, and iconography, such as the western, film noir, horror, the musical, science fiction, or documentary; genre operates at once as an industrial and marketing category and as a framework for interpretation.

Sources

  1. David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, “Film Art: An Introduction”
  2. Pauline Kael, “For Keeps: 30 Years at the Movies”
  3. André Bazin, “What Is Cinema?”
  4. Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS)

Last revised: September 18, 2026