Justin Chang
Justin Chang is a film critic for the Los Angeles Times and NPR's Fresh Air, and a regular contributor to KPCC's FilmWeek. He previously served as chief film critic and editor of film reviews for Variety.
Chang is the author of FilmCraft: Editing, a book of interviews with seventeen top film editors. He serves as chair of the National Society of Film Critics and secretary of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.
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Steven Spielberg puts his parents' divorce front and center in a new film about a young filmmaking prodigy. Based on his own childhood, the movie is funny, melancholy and altogether marvelous. -
Craig has been a terrific James Bond, maybe even the best. But there's something a little too strained about the tragic emotional arc his character has carried with over the past several movies.
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Even well-worn notes can sound freshly resonant in the right hands. A new film about Franklin's early years doesn't entirely avoid biopic conventions, but there's real intelligence and feeling in it.
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Set during a record-breaking New York City heat wave, this vibrant screen adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda's stage musical pulses with musical numbers that blend of hip-hop, Latin pop and salsa.
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John Krasinski's follow-up to his 2018 thriller about aliens who hunt by sound showcases humanity at its best and worst — and feels particularly relevant as we slowly emerge from the pandemic.
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Gerwig gives us the warm, homespun pleasures of Louisa May Alcott's beloved novel, but she also holds the well-worn text up to the light to consider some of its flaws and compromises.
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In a year where wealth, inequality and class rage were hot movie topics, few had more to say than Parasiteand Knives Out —two films that seemed to be in conversation with each other.
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Though her physical transformation is hardly definitive, the actress's profound empathy for her subject elevates Judyfrom a standard celebrity biopic to an unusually fascinating film.
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Kelvin Harrison Jr. plays a popular teenager who was adopted from Eritrea as a kid. But underneath Luce's charming smiles and polished speeches is the trauma of a former child soldier.
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Disney's Lion Kingis so realistic-looking that, paradoxically, you can't believe a moment of it. The computer-generated blockbuster feels like the world's most expensive safari-themed karaoke video.
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An American couple attends a mysterious festival in the Swedish countryside in Ari Aster's new thriller. The haunting, hypnotic film will slowly seep into your nervous system.
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Claire Denis' sci-fi thriller is like no outer space movie you've seen; it opens with an astronaut caring for a baby in space — then flashes back to reveal the strange story behind their journey.
