Richard Brody (born January 22, 1958) is an American film critic, filmmaker, and author.
Background Brody grew up in Roslyn, New York. He is Jewish and has personally identified as an atheist. Brody attended Princeton University, receiving a BA in comparative literature in 1980. He first became interested in films after seeing Jean-Luc Godard's seminal French New Wave film Breathless during his first year at Princeton. In the early 1980s, after graduating from college, Brody briefly lived in Paris. He is the author of a biography of Godard. Brody has two children with his wife, Maja, who immigrated to the United States from Yugoslavia.
Career Before becoming a film critic, Brody worked as a researcher on documentaries and made an independent film, Liability Crisis, released in 1995. Since 1999 he has written for The New Yorker. In December 2014, Brody was made a Chevalier (Knight) in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for his contributions in popularizing French cinema in America.
Favorite films Brody participated in the 2012 Sight & Sound critics' poll, where he listed as his ten favorite films the following:
Gertrud (Denmark, 1964) The Great Dictator (US, 1940) Husbands (US, 1970) Journey to Italy (Italy, 1954) King Lear (US, 1987) The Last Laugh (Germany, 1924) Marnie (US, 1964) Playtime (France, 1967) The Rules of the Game (France, 1939) Shoah (France, 1985)
In the 2022 Sight & Sound critics' poll, four of the films selected remained the same:
King Lear (US, 1987) Shoah (France, 1985) The Last Laugh (Germany, 1924) The Gold Rush (US, 1925) The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums (Japan, 1939) Citizen Kane (US, 1941) Playtime (France, 1967) Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Belgium-France, 1975) Faces (US, 1968) Daughters of the Dust (US, 1991)
Best films of the year
2007: The Darjeeling Limited 2008: Still Life 2009: Fantastic Mr. Fox 2010: Shutter Island 2011: The Future 2012: Holy Motors and Moonrise Kingdom 2013: To the Wonder and The Wolf of Wall Street 2014: The Grand Budapest Hotel 2015: Chi-Raq 2016: Little Sister 2017: Get Out 2018: Madeline's Madeline 2019: The Irishman 2020: Kajillionaire 2021: The French Dispatch 2022: Benediction 2023: Killers of the Flower Moon 2024: Nickel Boys 2025: Sinners
Bibliography
References
External links New Yorker page