Reed’s razor-sharp wit and penchant for savage takedowns placed him among the most widely read critics of his generation.

Rex Reed, outspoken film critic and At the Movies cohost, dies at 87

Reed's razor-sharp wit and penchant for savage takedowns placed him among the most widely read critics of his generation.

By Ryan Coleman

Ryan Coleman

Ryan Coleman is a news writer for with previous work in MUBI Notebook, Slant, and the LA Review of Books.

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May 12, 2026 9:57 p.m. ET

Rex Reed in 1973 in the Bahamas. Credit:

Slim Aarons/Getty

- Film critic Rex Reed has died at 87.

- Reed's provocative pen delighted some readers but caused plenty of controversies across his six decades of reviewing.

- He even appeared in several films, cameoing as himself in Richard Donner's *Superman *and starring as a pre-transition Myra Breckenridge in the 1970 film of the same name.

Rex Reed, the spitfire film critic who took no prisoners across six decades of spirited reviews, has died. He was 87.

Reed's death was confirmed on Tuesday by Merin Curotto, his editor at his longtime editorial home, *The New York Observer*. He died in his sleep on May 12, Curotto shared in the *Observer*'s official obituary for its chief critic, news that was confirmed by Reed's friend William Kapfer, "who remained by Rex’s side until the very end."

Rex Reed in New York City in 2013.

D Dipasupil/Getty

With his death, the business of film criticism has lost one of its most singular voices — a voice that many bristled against and outright resented, but one that few ignored.

Rex Taylor Reed was born to an oil man and a homemaker in Forth Worth, Texas, on Oct. 2, 1938. He moved frequently during childhood and adolescence, attending over a dozen schools before graduating from Natchitoches High School in Louisiana in 1956. He set down roots in the Pelican State, obtaining a journalism degree from Louisiana State University, where he began writing his first film reviews.

Reed was unfiltered from the start, and by 1968, Newsweek bestowed him with the honor of "the hottest byline in town" (per *The Chicago Tribune*). Verve and wit were never in short supply in Reed's distinctive writing, which could be endlessly effusive about his favorite subjects — a Southerner to the bone, he named *Gone With the Wind** *as his pick for the best film in American cinema history in 1978. But in the same feature, when asked to name the best Western, he wrote, "No choice in this category. The Western is basically an infantile genre."

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Reed eventually took up a post as a critic for the *Observer *at its inception in 1987, which he'd keep until his death, issues blistering takedowns of the latest Hollywood offerings on a weekly basis.

"Edited with a blowtorch, on the rare occasion when anything resembling a scene threatens to amount to something, the dominant theme emerges again: When in doubt, sing another terrible song," he wrote in a zero-star review of *Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again* in 2018.

But Reed could be downright cruel, as when he referred to Melissa McCarthy as "tractor-sized" and a "female hippo" in a 2013 review of *Identity Thief*. Reed's words sparked a fierce backlash, with McCarthy eventually responding, "I felt really bad for someone who is swimming in so much hate. I just thought, 'That's someone who's in a really bad spot, and I am in such a happy spot.'"

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Reed's influence over the American movie scene was nevertheless substantial. He even appeared in several films, most prominently starring as a pre-transition Myra Breckenridge in the 1970 adaptation of Gore Vidal's novel of the same name.

Reed published his last piece, a memorial of *Observer *founder Arthur Carter, last December.

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