Vincent Canby
(1924–2000)

With his signature combination of dry wit and carefully reasoned judgments, movie critic Vincent Canby was a prominent voice in the cinematic world for more than 35 years. Canby first wrote reviews as a critic for the entertainment periodical Variety. After six years with Variety, Canby landed a job as a critic for The New York Times, where he would spend the remainder of his career in journalism.

As the senior film critic for the Times from 1969 to 1993, Canby wrote thousands of film reviews, passing judgment on everything from Jaws to Star Wars to Rocky to E.T. His reviews could be scathing at times, but were always delivered in an accessible conversational style that was carefully laced with good humor. In his review of Jaws, Canby noted the lack of character development by saying, "If you are what you eat, then one of the sharks in 'Jaws' is a beer can, half a mackerel and a Louisiana license plate…. The other characters in the film are nowhere nearly so fully packed."

In addition to film reviews, Canby wrote theater reviews, feature-length articles, two novels, and a screenplay. His role as a leading critic and writer did not seem to lead to immodesty, though. When the idea arose to compile all of his reviews in a book, Canby humbly stated, "I don't think they would read very well … So there's no point in publishing mine." Many avid readers of his witty, informed criticism would have disagreed.

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