Kenneth Turan

Kenneth Turan is a veteran film critic whose coverage focuses on movies as an art form and on how individual films fit into a larger cinematic tradition. He wrote about film for the Los Angeles Times and public radio for nearly three decades, becoming one of the masthead’s leading critical voices. His work now concentrates on selective essays, director profiles and curated recommendations that draw on that long view rather than on daily entertainment news.

Long-view film criticism built on decades of reviewing

Turan spent close to 30 years as a film critic at the Los Angeles Times, serving as a central voice on movies for the paper during that period. Over that tenure he developed a critical style that treats films as part of an evolving canon, weighing new releases against decades of viewing experience and prior coverage.

His farewell essay for the masthead focuses on the “comfort of movies in times of crisis,” pairing current events with a list of time-tested classics, which illustrates his habit of using cinema history to contextualize the present. Colleagues and industry profiles describe him as one of the most prominent film critics in a city defined by its cinematic legacy, underlining the authority and reach behind his reviews.

He also serves as director of the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes and has edited the masthead’s book review section, which reinforces his orientation toward criticism and cultural evaluation rather than entertainment gossip.

Director and festival coverage

Turan regularly writes and speaks about filmmakers in ways that connect their latest work to long-running creative obsessions, such as his feature on Christopher Nolan’s recent epic that frames the film as part of a career-long storytelling odyssey. He has long been a presence at major film festivals, providing reports on stand-out titles and the shape of lineups rather than focusing on red carpets. His conversations on public radio about the Cannes Film Festival center on which films merit attention and how they fit within the broader landscape of contemporary cinema. Earlier critic’s notebook pieces delve into the challenges of maintaining professional distance from filmmakers he encounters at festivals, showing that he is self-aware about the ethics and pressures of close access.

This combination of director-focused features, festival dispatches and process-oriented commentary marks him out from more routine beat reporting on releases and box office.

Lists, recommendations and canon-building

Alongside traditional reviews, Turan frequently assembles curated lists that signal which films he believes deserve a place in the modern canon. His retirement coverage at the masthead highlights a selection of “time-tested classics to get movie fans through the hardest of times,” using brief capsules and historical framing rather than plot-heavy summaries.

Seasonal segments on public radio, including discussions of “This Time Of Year, There’s Plenty To See At The Movies,” focus on recommending a small set of titles he considers especially worth audiences’ time during periods of heavy release traffic. These recommendation pieces tend to balance widely discussed awards contenders with less-hyped films he argues merit attention, reinforcing his role as a curator rather than a trend-chaser.

His long engagement with awards culture and festival programming feeds directly into these lists, giving them more weight than generic roundups assembled from marketing buzz.

Critical debates and advocacy for films

Turan’s criticism often enters public debates around high-profile films, and he is willing to stake out positions that challenge prevailing narratives. The masthead’s coverage of his retirement notes that he famously panned “Titanic” while championing films like “The Piano” and “Black Panther,” a pattern that shows his readiness to separate personal judgment from consensus enthusiasm. In commentary on “Zero Dark Thirty,” he describes the film as the victim of a smear campaign, aligning his criticism with a defence of the work’s artistic and moral seriousness.

Radio reviews of films such as “Spotlight” likewise treat them as vehicles for examining institutions and ethics, not just as prestige drama. He has written candidly about how personal relationships with filmmakers can complicate a critic’s work, acknowledging the tension between access and independence rather than pretending it does not exist.

Taken together, this track record marks him as a critic who uses his platform to advocate strongly for films he believes in and to interrogate those he sees as overrated, with an emphasis on the long-term reputation of the work rather than its opening-week reception.

Professional background and current focus

Beyond his primary role at the Los Angeles Times, Turan has provided film reviews for NPR’s Morning Edition for many years, extending his influence to a national radio audience.

He has also worked as a staff writer for other major publications and edited book coverage, which complements his film writing with broader cultural journalism experience. He teaches film reviewing and nonfiction writing at a university writing program, bringing his critical methods into the classroom and reinforcing his reputation as a mentor within the field. He is the author of multiple books, many of them focused on cinema, festivals and Hollywood history, deepening the historical perspective that runs through his reviews and essays.

Although he retired from daily film reviewing at the Los Angeles Times in 2020, he continues to contribute to its film coverage and to appear as a critic on public radio, maintaining an active voice in discussions of contemporary movies.