A film critic watches movies, thinks hard about them, and writes arguments readers can use — whether that means a ticket, a skip, or a fresh way to see a film they already loved. The job is closer to a working writer's schedule than to a red-carpet fantasy. Most of the day is spent watching, rewatching, note-taking and rewriting.
It is also a job people misread constantly. A critic is not a review aggregator, and not a hot-take machine. The difference matters, and it starts with how the day is actually spent. Even the grammar of the job is plain: as Cambridge Dictionary notes, "does" is simply the present-tense form of "do" used with he, she or it — a critic does the work, steadily, one film at a time.
This explainer walks through a realistic working day, then separates the craft from the score-counting that often gets confused with it. For a deeper look at the role itself, see our guide to what a film critic actually does, and our hub covering critics more broadly.
How does a critic's day usually start?
Most critics work to a screening calendar. Studios and distributors hold press screenings in the days before a film opens, and a working critic slots those into the week like appointments. Some screenings happen in the morning; evening premieres and festival screenings fill the rest. The schedule, not the mood, decides what gets watched when.
Before the lights go down, there is homework. A critic may skim press notes, check who directed and wrote the film, and note the key performers. This is not to be told what to think. It is to watch with the right context — knowing, say, that a film is a director's first feature changes what its rough edges mean.
Then comes the screening itself, often phone-free and note-free. Many critics write nothing during the film. They watch the way the audience is meant to. The real note-taking starts after, in a lobby or a car, when the first impressions are still sharp.
What happens after the credits roll?
The hours after a screening are where the actual critical work begins. First impressions get written down fast — a scene that landed, a performance that felt off, a choice that divided the room. These raw notes are messy on purpose. They capture the honest first reaction before it softens. We covered a connected angle in Why some streaming shows get canceled after one season while others run for years.
Next comes the second look, when time allows. Rewatching a film on a screener or at a second screening lets a critic test the first reaction. Did the ending still work? Did the performance hold up? Some films improve on reflection; others fall apart. Both findings are part of the review.
Context gathering fills the rest of the block. That can mean an interview with a director, a read of the production history, or a look at how a film fits an actor's recent run of roles. Our guide to actor career arcs through a critic's eyes shows how that longer view shapes a single review.
What does the writing actually look like?
A review is an argument, not a verdict. The writer has to make a case: what the film is trying to do, whether it does it, and why that matters. That takes drafting. A typical review goes through several passes — one for the argument, one for the evidence, one for the prose.
Deadlines shape everything. A review of a film opening Friday may need to file within hours of the first screening. Festival coverage is even tighter, with critics filing the same day they watch. The writing is fast, but the thinking behind it is not; the notes and the second viewing do the heavy lifting earlier.
Style varies widely. Some critics write long, essayistic pieces. Others file tight, 600-word reviews built for a reader deciding between two showtimes. Both are criticism. The shared core is the same: a stated judgement, backed by specific evidence from the film itself.
How is criticism different from a Rotten Tomatoes score?
This is the most common mix-up. An aggregator collects many critics' reviews and converts them into a single number — a percentage of reviews that were positive, in Rotten Tomatoes' case. The aggregator does not judge anything. It counts. Our explainer on what a Rotten Tomatoes score actually measures breaks down that math.
A critic's job is the opposite of counting. It is to explain why a film works or does not, scene by scene, choice by choice. Two critics can both rate a film positively for completely different reasons, and an aggregate flattens that difference into one number. The number is useful for a quick read of the mood. It is not a substitute for the argument.
That gap also explains a familiar puzzle: why a film can score well with critics and poorly with audiences, or the reverse. Our piece on why critics and audiences score the same film so differently digs into that split.
Where do hot takes fit in — or not?
A hot take is a reaction optimized for speed and attention: a verdict posted before the argument exists. Criticism runs the other way. It accepts the delay of watching, rewatching and drafting, because the judgement is only as good as the reasoning behind it.
Social media has blurred the line. A critic's short post and a stranger's hot take can look identical in a feed, which is part of why the profession gets misread. Our look at review culture in the social media era traces how that blur happened.
The practical difference for readers is testable. Ask whether the piece cites specific scenes, performances or choices. Ask whether it explains its reasoning, not just its rating. A review that answers those questions is criticism, whatever its length. One that only declares is not.
What this means for the reader
What this means is simple: a critic's day is built around watching carefully and writing honestly, on a deadline. The screening is the visible part. The notes, the second viewing and the drafting are the job's real engine.
For readers, the takeaway is to treat criticism as a conversation partner rather than a scoreboard. A good review gives you language for what you felt watching a film, and a reasoned case for what to see next. The evidence for that value sits in the work itself — the specific, argued, dated writing a critic produces every working day. What remains unknown to any outsider is exactly how much rewatching and rewriting went into a given piece; that labor rarely shows, which is part of why the myths persist.
