Twenty years ago, film critic Justin Chang received an email from a reader telling him to take a page out of film critic Roger Ebert’s book and write movie reviews that were easier for readers to understand. After all, Ebert had a Pulitzer Prize in criticism and Chang didn’t — up until now, that is. 

On May 6, Chang, a former Daily Trojan staff member, film critic for The New Yorker and adjunct professor at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in criticism for his work as a film critic for the Los Angeles Times. Chang won the award for his “richly evocative and genre-spanning film criticism that reflects on the contemporary moviegoing experience,” the Pulitzer Prize committee wrote. 

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“I felt like I was levitating and in freefall at the same time. It was a life-changing moment. Winning a Pulitzer Prize in journalism is every journalist’s dream, of course, and I just couldn’t believe it,” Chang said. “I was at home with my wife and two kids and we were literally about to fire up the grill on Sunday, and then that’s when I got the news. And we still barbecued. It was great. It was just a little more celebratory.” 

Up until the moment the committee officially announced that he had won the award, he thought it was a hoax or mistake, Chang said. However, not everyone in his life was surprised upon hearing the news that he’d won.

“Justin was submitted for the Pulitzer Prize every year he was at the Los Angeles Times, and he was at the Times for eight years,” said Joshua Rothkopf, film editor at the L.A. Times. “I was thrilled, but I was also not surprised. Can I say that in a way that doesn’t sound like a jerk? I’m not surprised that Justin won a Pulitzer because he is the most deserving film critic on the planet.”

Before Chang was a professional film critic, he started as a child who loved movies. He found that his passion for criticism grew alongside his passion for film, and he credited a significant part of that passion to his father.

“My dad was a big lover of old Hollywood,” Chang said. “I’d be watching old movies a lot of times with him, watching Hitchcock movies, watching ‘Citizen Kane’ with him, and he would be a fount of trivia, facts and gossip. He knew his stuff. He really loved old movies, and that was something that he helped instill in me.” 

Growing up, Chang recalls reading film critics such as Kenneth Turan, because he felt that, by reading other people’s thoughts, it could help him sort out his own. In doing this, he learned just how different people’s opinions about something could be, and felt liberated by the fact that, in criticism, “there is no single right answer,” Chang said.

When he got to USC in 2000, Chang was given the opportunity to take a film criticism course taught by Turan. From there, their relationship became much closer as Turan saw what a gifted critic Chang was, and they became friends, Turan said.

“Even as a student, he was the best student, the most promising student I had,” Turan said. “The way the class works is that students hand in reviews. You hand in one review a week and then workshop them in the class. From the first week, Justin’s reviews were the best in the class.”

When Turan heard his former student and friend had won the Pulitzer, he felt delighted and said he was happy to see Chang’s excellence finally being rewarded. Turan said it was up to Chang to decide how much of an impact he had on Chang’s writing. 

“Kenny Turan, my dear friend, always said that as a critic, you’re ultimately writing for an audience of one, and that’s a way of being true to yourself, even if everyone disagrees with you,” Chang said.

Chang said a good critic does more than recap a plot or tell an audience whether they should watch something — they should aim to evoke the experience of experiencing the work. It doesn’t matter if a film is a simple blockbuster or a complicated work of art; the critic should still seek to evoke that experience through vivid language. 

A critic is supposed to play a part in the conversation; they encourage discussion, but nothing they write is the final, definitive statement, Chang said. 

“You’re not supposed to tell the artists what they should or should not have done,” Chang said. “My job is pretty simple: just ask questions and say, ‘I’m a little troubled by this, are you?’ That’s kind of my role.”

The most rewarding piece that Chang wrote when at the Times was a piece on “Oppenheimer” (2023) — an article that was included in his package for the Pulitzer — discussing director Christopher Nolan’s choice of not showing the bombings on screen, but it quickly became about much more than that, Chang said.

“It became something about how we look at movies that deal with real events and what our expectations are as moviegoers, and what we bring into the theater with us and [if] we expect an artist to hold our hand through everything,” Chang said.

Chang said it is vital for a critic to try to be knowledgeable about as many different things as possible. He often strives to read criticism on other art forms because art is in conversation with everything in the world. Travel, especially, has broadened his mind and made him look at the whole of cinema. 

“There’s a whole world of movies out there that the public in Los Angeles rarely gets a chance to see or even hear about,” Chang said. “I try to advocate for really great artists who don’t necessarily have the megaphone, and who are from other places and who maybe struggle to be taken seriously or to be recognized at all.”

Chang sees himself as a “general interest” movie critic. Due to his natural curiosity, he feels it is part of his duty to explore cinema beyond Hollywood and the entire cinematic spectrum of the world. 

“I think that in this country, we have a conversation about diversity and inclusion, and I think it’s hugely important, but it’s really funny how that sometimes seems to stop at the American border,” Chang said. 

Chang has tried to remove the “foreign film” label from his vocabulary because he feels that it’s an “otherizing” phrase. He knows that for many, tackling films not made in English can be a challenge or boring, but if they stick with it, they’ll be able to discover more about another culture and grow as a person. 

Chang produces an annual “best of the year” movie list, and since 2018, his picks for best movie have been non-American movies with more popular titles like “Parasite” (2019) but also lesser-known films like ”No Bears” (2022) and “Vitalina Varela” (2019).

“Movies really mean a lot to him; I think that’s the simplest way I could put it,” Rothkopf said. “I was struck by how he was able to advocate for the most sophisticated, tricky international titles by filmmakers that are not easy to appreciate … [There’s] lots of foreign cinema that really requires a certain patience, and he was able to make those films accessible.”

There is no such thing as an average viewer, Chang said. There is very little that separates him from anyone else who goes to see a movie because, Chang said, at the end of the day, when he reacts to a movie, he’s reacting to it in a way that isn’t all that different from anyone else. 

“I really do think we are all critics,” Chang said. “I really do think we benefit by bringing critical insight and a critical eye to bear on everything we watch. I do think artists are critics, and I do think critics are artists. I do think viewers are critics, too.”

Chang writes criticism from a perspective of humility rather than a place of ego like many other critics, Rothkopf said. When he writes, he invites his readers into his enthusiasm and invites them to a conversation on art. When Chang criticizes a movie, he writes from a place of wanting better from filmmakers, and as an editor and a fellow critic, Rothkopf finds it refreshing.

“When I was first turned on to the idea of film writing, my hero was Pauline Kael …  I think that Justin is a new Pauline Kael,” Rothkopf said. “I think that he, we kid him about this, but just like there are Paulettes, there are going to be Changians. I’m the first Changian, and there’s going to be a group of people who find themselves inspired by Justin.”