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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Fresh Air film critic Justin Chang says most of his favorite films this year were made overseas, including his No. 1 pick, Sirāt. -
My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow follows Russian journalists who report on the country's abuses. Reviewer Justin Chang calls it one of the most engrossing films he's seen all year. -
A new film, adapted from Maggie O'Farrell's 2020 novel, posits that the death of Shakespeare's 11-year-old son may have inspired one of the greatest fictional tragedies ever written. -
Sirāt tells the story of a man searching for his lost daughter at a rave in the Sahara Desert. Though it carries echoes of earlier cinema, nothing about this film feels derivative or secondhand. -
Joachim Trier's drama centers on the complicated relationship between a filmmaker and his grown daughters. But for every perceptive moment in the film, there's another that feels coy, even complacent. -
In this wickedly funny dark comedy, Emma Stone stars as a high-powered CEO who gets kidnapped by a low-ranking employee, played by Jesse Plemons, who believes she's an alien from outer space. -
From the supernatural to the slightly-too-realistic, it's been a banner year for scary movies, many of which are available to stream from home this Halloween. -
Iranian director Jafar Panahi has been arrested repeatedly in his home country. His shockingly funny new revenge thriller was informed by the stories of people he met in prison. -
Roberts plays a Yale professor whose life unravels after one of her colleagues is accused of sexually assaulting a student. After the Hunt is an academic potboiler that muddles its central issue. -
Paul Thomas Anderson's action thriller starring Leonardo DiCaprio is a loose adaptation of Thomas Pynchon's Vineland. It weaves zany dark comedy, sociopolitical satire and controlled narrative chaos.
