Top 1200 Film Criticism Quotes & Sayings

I actually did work and produced two short dissertations, one on Faulkner and one on the film criticism of the stream-of-consciousness novelist Dorothy Richardson.

I read every single review, because I love film criticism and I'm interested.

To me, there's a huge difference between criticism and reviewing. I really love reading good criticism of television and film. To me, a critic is someone who analyzes a show, describes it, talks about the people in it, puts it in historical context of other shows like it, compares it and stuff, and then talks about the intent of the show and whether it failed or didn't.

The criticism is what I expect, honestly, because I'm criticizing myself every day when I come in here and watch that film. I'm trying to get better.

People who avoid all criticism fail. It's destructive criticism we need to avoid, not criticism in all forms.

I got into television criticism because I thought it would be easier than film criticism. Film, you had to know 100 years of history, and TV you only had to know 40 when I started. And I thought, "Well, that's going to be so much easier." But film stayed pretty much the same. And television has changed so many times that my head hurts. So I made the wrong call there.

You see an artist, a creative person, can accept criticism or can live with the criticism much more easily than with being ignored. Criticism makes you feel alive. If somebody is bothered enough to speak vituperatively about it, you feel you have touched a nerve and you are at least 'in touch.' You are not happy that he doesn't like it, but you feel you are in contact with life.

I came to the conviction that film criticism, in and of itself, was an art.

I play in New York, man. Criticism is part of the game. You take criticism as a challenge.

Criticism is part of being in the marketplace. If you can't take a bit of criticism, you shouldn't bother publishing a book.

I'll tell you, I think that the Internet has provided an enormous boost to film criticism by giving people an opportunity to self publish or to find sites that are friendly.

Accept criticism. If you do not offer your work for criticism and accept that criticism, meaning give it serious thought and attention, then you will never improve.

Criticism can bother you, but you should be more bothered if there’s no criticism. That means you’re too safe

What embitters the world is not excess of criticism, but absence of self-criticism.

Poetry is about as much a 'criticism of life' as red-hot iron is a criticism of fire.

In the eight years I worked at newspapers, even during a little stretch when I was a film critic, I was never, ever doing exclusively criticism. In the daily newspaper world, much more value is placed on reporting than on thinking abstractly about art. The eight years I was in newspapers, I was mainly a journalist in the conventional sense, and just doing criticism when there were opportunities.

But what is criticism? Criticism is purely destructive; anyone can destroy, but not everyone can build up.

I love the criticism because if there was no criticism then what can you work on and what can you get better at?

I do see value in music criticism. Most of the criticism I have received over the years has been very good.

A strange thing happens when Spielberg discusses his own work. His degree of self-criticism seems a direct reflection of each film's box-office performance. You will not catch him complaining that the audience 'didn't get' a film; if it didn't do well, it generally didn't deserve to.

Though Israel may often be deserving of criticism, what is missing is the comparable criticism of equal or greater violations by other countries and other groups. This constant, often legitimate criticism of Israel for every one of its deviations, when coupled with the absence of legitimate criticism of others, creates the impression currently prevalent on university campuses and in the press that Israel is among the worst human rights violators in the world....it is not true, but if it is repeated often enough, it takes on a reality of its own.

I wouldn't be worth my salt if I weren't attracting some controversy and criticism. Everyone in the world who has done something in life has attracted criticism.

That was one of the big problems in the [Black Panther] Party. Criticism and self-criticism were not encouraged, and the little that was given often wasn’t taken seriously. Constructive criticism and self-criticism are extremely important for any revolutionary organization. Without them, people tend to drown in their mistakes, not learn from them.

Nice criticism is good when it tells you something. A lot of negative "criticism" isn't criticism at all: it's just nasty, "writerly" cliché and invective.

I think where the criticism of videogames come from is where videogames are just Xeroxes of films, and when you get a film adaptation of that game, you've just Xeroxed something twice. I think that's where a lot of the criticism comes from - there are ultra-violent games that are already based on a million films.

What the internet has done is destroy film criticism. I would never have guessed that the profession of film criticism would be going the way of the dodo bird.

The culture of independent film criticism has totally gone down the drain and this seems to come with the territory of the consumer age that we are now living in.

I think where the criticism of videogames come from is where videogames are just Xeroxes of films, and when you get a film adaptation of that game, you've just Xeroxed something twice. I think that's where a lot of the criticism comes from - there are ultra-violent games that are already based on a million films. But there's definitely beauty and art and design in games. I don't think anybody could deny that.

It's hard to see a film one time and really "get it," and write fully and intelligently about it. That's a review. That's not film criticism. And there's so many expectations involved, too. You're going in to see the latest Martin Scorsese or Stanley Kubrick film, you really have high hopes, and you can't help but find that it's not exactly what you had in your head going in. Until you can watch it again, you can't accept the work for what it intends to be. It takes at least a second viewing.

In the spiritual domain, criticism is love turned sour. In a wholesome spiritual life there is no room for criticism. The critical faculty is an intellectual one, not a moral one. If criticism becomes a habit it will destroy the moral energy of the life and paralyse spiritual force. The only person who can criticise human beings is the Holy Spirit.

I love film criticism as an art. I think it's a very important thing.

People are more interested in reading bombastic ideas, whether they're positive or negative. Part of me has sort of lost interest in doing criticism because of that. I've always realized that criticism is basically autobiography. Obviously in my criticism, it's very clear that it's autobiography, but I think it's that way for everybody.

Not wanting to suffer criticism, the judiciary has used its power of contempt to stifle criticism.

There is nothing sacred or untouchable except the freedom to think. Without criticism, that is to say, without rigor and experimentation, there is no science, without criticism there is no art or literature. I would also say that without criticism there is no healthy society.

I always say the strength of democracy lies in criticism. If there is no criticism, that means there is no democracy. And if you want to grow, you must invite criticism. And I want to grow; I want to invite criticism.

Of course the French are making very credible movies and it is still one of the greatest nations in terms of world cinema but the real problem is the decay in film criticism.

I'm always very careful to make the distinction between music criticism and music journalism. A lot of people don't. But criticism doesn't require reporting. You can write criticism at home in your underwear. On the other hand, journalism takes legwork - you have to get out there and see things and talk to people.

You have to have a thick enough skin to cope with the criticism. I'm very self-critical and I have a lot of friends that I trust who are film directors and writers and people in my profession.

I will take all the criticism constructively. It will help me to learn and improve with every film.

I'm a person who takes criticism personally and that had put doubts in my mind about doing a film. I tried to overcome it and give acting a shot.

I don't like to listen to the unthoughtful criticism. When we have thoughtful criticism, I love it.

Self-criticism sessions were held, but these produced more criticism than could usefully be absorbed or accomodated.

In regard to criticism, we are in the world of football and subject to continuous criticism.

Many French directors, having now realised there was no more real criticism, that the standards of the past have gone, are very offended about the quality of film criticism.

It's hard to see a film one time and really "get it," and write fully and intelligently about it. That's a review. That's not film criticism.

Film criticism became the means whereby a stream of young intellectuals could go straight from the campus film society into the professionals' screening room without managing to get a glimpse of the real world in between.

I hate orthodox criticism. I don't mean great criticism, like that of Matthew Arnold and others, but the usual small niggling, fussy-mussy criticism, which thinks it can improve people by telling them where they are wrong, and results only in putting them in straitjackets of hesitancy and self-consciousness, and weazening all vision and bravery.

Becoming critical in the face of criticism, only inspires more criticism.

As for how criticism of Keats' poetry relates to criticism of my own work, I'll leave that for others to decide.

I went to college thinking of maybe pursuing a career in film criticism.

A tailor can adapt to any medium, be it poetry, be it criticism. As a poet, he can mend, and with the scissors of criticism he candivide.

I'm one of those directors who read reviews, even if they're bad, because I started as a film critic as a cinema student. I indulge in the art of criticism in general.

It is important to know that criticism is a natural part of life and speaking out, and to know that a certain amount of the criticism you receive may have nothing to do with you, your argument, or the way you are articulating yourself. Some criticism online and in the physical world is neither constructive, nor balanced or intelligent. Some of it is abuse.

I appreciate good criticism and I think it's really important. I don't like it when it's consumer advocacy, like how you should spend your $60. Great criticism is a kind of literature. I've written some criticism, and I really enjoy it because I think it's important for people to know that theatre is vital. Criticism is really unevenly distributed in this town. Obviously the power of the Times is discouraging. It's killing new plays, demolishing one after another.

Doubt is an element of criticism, and the tendency of criticism is necessarily skeptical.

I don't have a very high opinion, actually, of the world of criticism - or the practice of criticism. I think I admire art criticism, criticism of painting and sculpture, far more than I do that of say films and books, literary or film criticism. But I don't much like the practice. I think there are an awful lot of bad people in it.

Certainly professionally, yes [I was interested more in history]. And literary criticism, the structure of poetry. But it is primarily as a historian that I work, although text criticism and literary criticism are very much a part of my interests.

It's an artist's choice to listen to criticism or not. I'm very sensitive to criticism.

I mean no film is beyond criticism, but I think we've made a very modest movie.

I'm going to get criticism in the future, I've had criticism in the past. Honestly, I genuinely don't care.