Amy Nicholson

Amy Nicholson approaches film as a living conversation between storytellers and audiences, weighing every movie against what it asks of viewers and what it gives back. She is the film critic of the Los Angeles Times, writing regularly about contemporary cinema, Hollywood storytelling and the experience of watching movies on the big screen. Her work combines clear judgments on craft and tone with an interest in how films fit into larger histories, canons and everyday life at the movies.

Reviews that test movies against story, tone and time

Nicholson’s reviews focus on whether a film’s narrative choices, performances and visual style earn the audience’s time and emotional investment. In her critique of “The Death of Robin Hood,” she calls out the way a familiar legend is turned into a dour, time-stealing experience, underscoring her attention to pacing, mood and respect for the viewer.

Across her recent work, she writes in direct, accessible prose that foregrounds the central question of whether a film truly delivers: she is quick to praise when a story and its characters are vivid and surprising, and equally firm when a movie sinks into gloom, repetition or slack storytelling.

Her reviews often highlight the relationship between a film’s ambitions and its execution, whether she is weighing a studio release, a festival discovery or a streaming title. She pays close attention to how tone is sustained from scene to scene, how actors inhabit archetypes or break them, and how directors frame familiar genres in new ways. Nicholson’s criticism is particularly attuned to the audience’s physical and emotional experience in the theater - how boredom, immersion, fatigue or delight register minute by minute - making her reviews useful barometers of how a film actually plays.

Festival coverage and lists that map the film landscape

Beyond individual reviews, Nicholson builds a broader picture of the film moment through festival dispatches and curated lists. Her coverage of the Toronto International Film Festival, for example, surveys the standout titles from the program, balancing buzzy premieres with quieter debuts and sketching what kind of work might endure beyond the festival circuit.

She is interested in how new films speak to ongoing trends in genre, form and subject matter, and in which voices and stories are breaking through in crowded lineups.

Her contribution to a list of 101 notable Los Angeles movies takes this mapping impulse further, using a canon-style project to explore how the city has been represented on screen over time. In that piece she zeroes in on surprises and omissions, thinking through why certain films matter to the story of L.A. and what their inclusion says about the evolving identity of the city in cinema. This kind of list work mirrors what she does in her podcast and broadcast roles: drawing connections across decades, noting how specific images and narratives persist, and inviting audiences to reconsider which films belong in the conversation.

Essays and features on how people watch movies

Nicholson regularly steps back from individual titles to write about the habits and textures of moviegoing itself. In an essay about falling asleep in movie theaters, she treats drifting off not as a joke but as a clue to how people relate to cinema, blending personal observation with broader reflections on attention, fatigue and the demands films place on viewers. The piece looks at practical factors - runtime, scheduling, the comfort of the venue - alongside aesthetic ones, such as pacing and sensory overload, to understand why some screenings become lulls instead of highlights.

She applies a similar lens in conversational features that connect a performer’s new project to their earlier work. In a profile of actor Cristin Milioti tied to a Sundance film and a television series, Nicholson traces a thread between roles, styles and themes, using the interview format to show how careers develop through specific choices and how those choices land with audiences.

These pieces sit alongside her criticism, giving her readers context on the creative decisions behind the films she reviews and grounding her judgments in reported detail.

Audio, broadcast and the evolving film canon

Nicholson’s work extends off the page into audio and broadcast, where she continues to shape conversations about film history and the current canon. She co-hosts the movie podcast “Unspooled,” a show built around the idea of assembling and rethinking a list of the greatest films of all time.

On the podcast she revisits established classics and makes space for newer contenders, probing how critical consensus forms and how it changes as audiences and contexts shift.

She is also an on-air voice at LAist and KCRW and contributes as a film critic to LAist’s “FilmWeek,” bringing her perspective to weekly discussions of new releases. These roles emphasize her ability to talk about movies in real time, distilling complex reactions into tight segments while still situating films within larger trends.

Her membership in the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the National Society of Film Critics, along with service on juries at major festivals such as Sundance and SXSW, reflects deep engagement with the professional community around cinema and an active hand in how films are evaluated and elevated.

Alongside this work, Nicholson is the author of “Tom Cruise: Anatomy of an Actor,” and a second book, “Extra Girls,” published by Simon & Schuster, projects that mirror her critical focus on performance and on who gets centered in film narratives. Taken together - reviews, essays, lists, interviews, podcasts and broadcast segments - her body of work is defined by a consistent concern with how movies work on audiences, how they slot into or disrupt shared histories, and which stories deserve attention in a crowded, ever-changing film landscape.