Film Critic Judith Crist Dies at 90

Photo courtesy of Associated Press

It’s never an easy thing to review someone else’s work. Even rarer is finding a critic who can critique with such polished finesse while garnering admiration from her peers—even if her reviews tend to be brutally honest. Crist was such a person. She was trusted by millions of people who watched her review films regularly on The Today Show. Crist died Tuesday in her home in Manhattan at the age of 90.

Crist’s reviews appeared in several publications including The New York Herald Tribune, New York magazine and TV Guide. She was the first full-time female critic for a major American newspaper and was a founding film critic and New York magazine.

The New York Times quoted critic Roger Ebert in a Chicago Tribune article that her retaliation to her commentary “led to every newspaper in the country saying, ‘Hey, we ought to get a real movie critic.’”

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