Chris Knight
Chris Knight brings long-haul film expertise to entertainment coverage, using clear, idea-led criticism to explain what movies and series are doing and whether they succeed. He is chief film critic at the National Post, with reviews carried across Postmedia newspapers and on the film site Original Cin. His beat centres on film and television, but he also tackles awards, festivals and contentious releases when they become cultural stories in their own right.
Film reviews across genres
Knight’s core output is film reviews that move across mainstream studio releases, independent cinema, documentaries and genre films. His archive includes work on science-fiction titles such as World on a Wire, alongside coverage of high-profile documentaries and prestige dramas, signalling comfort with both niche and widely discussed films. He uses numeric ratings and a concise verdict line to anchor each piece, balancing plot description with evaluation of structure, performance and ideas.
Across reviews, he pays attention to tone, pacing and visual style, often highlighting when a production’s concept outstrips its execution or when formal choices sharpen the story’s impact.
His criticism often foregrounds theme and subtext rather than only box office or star power, which makes his film writing useful when a project hinges on a strong conceptual hook or tackles complex subject matter. He is comfortable writing about international cinema as well as Canadian and U.S. releases, and his work reflects more than two decades of sustained engagement with film culture.
The result is coverage that can situate a new release within genre traditions, earlier adaptations or comparable titles without losing the clarity of a straightforward review.
Streaming and television criticism
Knight also writes regularly about television and streaming series, including We Need to Talk About Cosby, Loki, WandaVision, The Great, Tiger King and Tales from the Loop. In these pieces he treats series with the same seriousness as films, assessing narrative structure across episodes, the demands of long-form storytelling and how a show’s format affects its impact.
He comments on how genre elements - superhero narratives, historical comedy, true-crime spectacle or speculative science-fiction - shape audience expectations and the kinds of questions a series can explore.
His television writing often notes when a show rewards close viewing, when it is better suited to binge-watch habits, or when it leans too heavily on novelty at the expense of coherence. He folds in cultural context for high-visibility properties, such as franchise entries or awards-season series, without turning the piece into industry gossip. For stories that straddle film and television, such as limited series or documentaries released on streaming platforms, his coverage helps clarify where they sit on the spectrum between cinema and TV and what that means for how they should be judged.
Festivals, awards and industry stories
Beyond week-to-week reviews, Knight covers film festivals and awards, bringing a long view shaped by years of attending major events.
He has reported from festivals in Toronto, Cannes, Park City, Kingston and the Yukon, which gives him a broad sense of how different circuits function and how festival buzz translates - or fails to translate - into wider audience interest. His awards coverage includes pieces on the Academy Awards broadcast, where he comments on the ceremony as both a television event and a reflection of shifts within the industry.
Knight also writes about films when they become flashpoints for political or cultural debate, such as his National Post piece on a Russian-Canadian filmmaker facing efforts to suppress a controversial work amid an official probe in Ukraine. In that kind of coverage he explains the film’s content and reception while tracing the institutional and geopolitical factors that drive the controversy. These industry-facing stories show that he can move from pure criticism into reported analysis when a project’s life extends beyond the screen.
Pop culture moments in the news
Alongside criticism, Knight sometimes turns to entertainment stories that intersect with political or public institutions, such as the giant UFC fight cage installed near the White House and the questions it raised.[input] He approaches these pieces as explainers, laying out what happened, who is involved and why the spectacle matters beyond its novelty value.[input] The format - framing a striking visual moment and following with “here’s what to know” - fits his direct, fact-driven style and keeps the focus on context rather than opinion.[input]
These non-review features still draw on his understanding of how audiences engage with spectacle, celebrity and branding, but they are structured to answer concrete questions rather than to offer commentary.[input] They sit at the edge of his entertainment beat, connecting film-and-TV sensibilities to broader cultural and political narratives when a media event crosses into the news agenda.[input]
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