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Amy Nicholson

Tomatometer-approved critic
Biography:

Amy Nicholson is the film critic of the Los Angeles Times and the host of the podcast "Unspooled." She is a current on-air voice at LAist and KCRW, and a member of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the National Society of Film Critics. Formerly, she was the chief film critic for MTV News and LA Weekly. Her other credits include the New York Times, the Washington Post, Variety, Rolling Stone and the Guardian, plus the podcast miniseries "Zoom," "The Canon," "Quentin Tarantino Presents," "Halloween Unmasked," and "Skillset." She has served on the juries for Sundance and SXSW, as well as the FIPRESCI juries for the Moscow International Film Festival, Cairo International Film Festival and Eurasia International Film Festival, among others. Amy holds a double B.A. in Film Studies and Anthropology from the University of Oklahoma as well as a Masters in Professional Writing from USC.

Reviews

Movies TV Shows
Ready or Not 2: Here I Come (2026) 76% EDIT “No spoilers, but it’s no coincidence that "Here I Come" finally gets more interesting once it tires of hide and seek. Finding a fresh plot twist is the only way it ekes out a draw.” – Los Angeles Times Mar 19, 2026 Full Review Project Hail Mary (2026) 95% EDIT “While Stanley Kubrick’s unsentimental "2001: A Space Odyssey" inspired the iPad, Lord and Miller want to inspire a better version of us.” – Los Angeles Times Mar 18, 2026 Full Review Reminders of Him (2026) 56% EDIT “You can’t help rooting for Colleen Hoover heroines, bless their bruised hearts. ” – Los Angeles Times Mar 12, 2026 Full Review undertone (2025) 72% EDIT “I’d love to understand why horror films that I find excruciatingly dull give others the heebie-jeebies.” – Los Angeles Times Mar 12, 2026 Full Review THE BRIDE! (2026) 57% EDIT “"The Bride!" is a maniacal assemblage of ’30s musicals, ’40s noirs, 19th century literature and 21st century ideology. Every wacky second, you’re well aware how perilously close it is to falling apart at the seams. ” – Los Angeles Times Mar 4, 2026 Full Review K-Pops! (2024) 86% EDIT “This is the right time — and .Paak could be the right star — to earnestly explore what it means that the Top 40 is shifting eastward. But this adventure in Seoul is simply an ego trip.” – Los Angeles Times Feb 26, 2026 Full Review Scream 7 (2026) 31% EDIT “Maybe in the boldest meta twist of all, the inventor of "Scream" wants to kill it off himself.” – Los Angeles Times Feb 26, 2026 Full Review EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert (2025) 97% EDIT “I think Luhrmann is praying that in a thousand years, some alien civilization will discover this footage and build a whole religion around the thrall Elvis’ hip thrusts had over a crowd.” – Los Angeles Times Feb 20, 2026 Full Review How to Make a Killing (2026) 43% EDIT “"How to Make a Killing" boasts an opening so strong that it buys enough audience goodwill to coast through nearly its entire running time. That’s priceless in a screwball murder movie in which everyone’s soul is for sale.” – Los Angeles Times Feb 18, 2026 Full Review Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die (2025) 82% EDIT “So intricate and angry — and so shamelessly ambitious — you can’t believe someone in today’s Hollywood was willing to put up the money to get it made. ” – Los Angeles Times Feb 12, 2026 Full Review Wuthering Heights (2026) 57% EDIT “I tried, and failed, to merge Robbie’s miscasting into the film’s delirious artificiality alongside the apple-sized strawberries, the gowns of opalescent and latexy fabrics” – Los Angeles Times Feb 11, 2026 Full Review Pillion (2025) 99% EDIT “Perhaps you’d like to be taken to dinner first, but "Pillion" is about Colin’s needs — specifically his need to please — and first-time feature filmmaker Harry Lighton challenges us to root for his bliss. ” – Los Angeles Times Feb 6, 2026 Full Review A Useful Ghost (2025) 86% EDIT “This snaky, surprising fable starts with a sneeze and explodes into a saga about bureaucracy, modernization and moral corruption. It’s electrifying.” – Los Angeles Times Feb 4, 2026 Full Review Melania (2026) 11% EDIT “"Melania" plays like a sizzle reel for her post-political (post-spousal?) future career in which she may rouse herself to be a guest judge on a reality competition show. ” – Los Angeles Times Feb 2, 2026 Full Review The Moment (2026) 66% EDIT “The Charli XCX mockumentary "The Moment" is a satire that feels like a snuff film. ” – Los Angeles Times Jan 30, 2026 Full Review 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (2026) 92% EDIT “Gruesomely both low and highbrow, it’s the movie equivalent of Jell-O wrestling an anthropology professor at Burning Man, which may have been the inspiration of one of its standout characters, Ralph Fiennes’ spry and mesmerizing Dr. Ian Kelson” – Los Angeles Times Jan 15, 2026 Full Review Primate (2025) 78% EDIT “One chimpanzee with a typewriter could pound out the script for "Primate" in an hour. ” – Los Angeles Times Jan 9, 2026 Full Review Dead Man's Wire (2025) 92% EDIT “Skarsgård plays the role somewhere between a soapbox preacher and a "Scooby-Doo" episode that imagines Shaggy unmasking a money-grubbing bad guy and threatening to beat him to death. ” – Los Angeles Times Jan 8, 2026 Full Review Father Mother Sister Brother (2025) 82% EDIT “If you're tracking the happiness of generations, it feels like Jarmusch definitely feels like everybody's happiness has gone a lot downhill since their parents who are doing glamorous, interesting things.” – FilmWeek (LAist) Dec 31, 2025 Full Review The Plague (2025) 97% EDIT “A story that takes you back to being in middle school in the most horrendous way... Very well done on behalf of the director.” – FilmWeek (LAist) Dec 30, 2025 Full Review The Testament of Ann Lee (2025) 86% EDIT “I loved seeing the fleshliness of religion in this movie... I think where I kept tripping over the film was that the character of Ann Lee herself is such a zealot that once she decides who she is and what she wants, she just goes for it.” – FilmWeek (LAist) Dec 30, 2025 Full Review No Other Choice (2025) 97% EDIT “I couldn't get a grasp on the tone that it wants to have. There's scenes that are mixing tension, pathos, and slapstick all at once, and I felt like it kind of watered them all down instead of making me feel like I was gripped by it. ” – FilmWeek (LAist) Dec 30, 2025 Full Review Song Sung Blue (2025) 77% EDIT “You won’t see a movie with better music and worse dialogue this holiday season than the bizarrely charming "Song Sung Blue"” – Los Angeles Times Dec 24, 2025 Full Review Marty Supreme (2025) 93% EDIT “When you weigh his selfish desires against any other character’s needs, Marty is as hollow as a ping pong ball. It really is all about his balls. Their embossing reads: "Marty Supreme — Made in America."” – Los Angeles Times Dec 23, 2025 Full Review Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025) 66% EDIT “What really feels like Cameron’s daredevil creative risk is his insistence on treating the impossible like it’s mundane, like the sight of all 9-foot-5 inches of Quaritch casually chilling out in a hoodie” – Los Angeles Times Dec 16, 2025 Full Review
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