Mark Kermode is a British film critic, broadcaster and author, born in 1963, one of the most familiar and influential voices in film criticism in Britain.
For many years the chief film critic of the Observer, he is perhaps best known for his long-running radio partnership with Simon Mayo, whose weekly reviews - a beloved blend of passionate criticism and comic double-act - ran on BBC Radio 5 Live for more than two decades before continuing as a podcast. He holds a doctorate in English literature, with a thesis on horror fiction, and plays double bass in a skiffle and rockabilly band, the Dodge Brothers.
His books carry the same enthusiasm and combative wit into print. It's Only a Movie is a memoir of a life spent watching and arguing about films; The Good, the Bad and the Multiplex is a spirited lament for the modern cinema-going experience; Hatchet Job reflects on the craft and future of criticism itself; and, with Simon Mayo, he wrote the playful The Movie Doctors, prescribing films as remedies for life's ills.
Opinionated, erudite and infectiously devoted to cinema, he has done as much as anyone to keep the art of film criticism lively and popular.
