Justin Chang ’04

Justin Chang

Film Critic, Los Angeles Times and NPR’s “Fresh Air”

Justin Chang is a film critic for the Los Angeles Times as well as NPR’s “Fresh Air,” and contributes regularly to KPCC radio’s “Film Week.” Before his gig at the Times, he was the chief film critic at Variety,where he started as an intern.

Chang is the author of FilmCraft: Editing (2011), a book featuring interviews with 17 of the world’s top film editors. He serves as chair of the National Society of Film Critics and secretary of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. In 2014, he received the inaugural Roger Ebert Award from the African-American Film Critics Association.

Chang grew up in Orange County; his mother worked for County+USC Medical Center, and his late father was an aerospace engineer with a passion for movies that he conveyed to his son.

Chang first became interested in film critique in high school, when he realized that “two or three—or 40 or 50—intelligent people could watch a film and come away with completely different reactions to it.” While at USC, he took a film criticism course from his mentor and future colleague at the Times, Kenneth Turan.

Chang met his wife Lameese ’04 at USC; they currently live in Pasadena with their daughter.