Ty Burr Biography
Ty Burr is an American cinema reviewer, journalist, and author who presently publishes the film and popular culture newsletter “Ty Burr’s Watchlist” on Substack. Burr formerly worked as a film reviewer at The Boston Globe from 2002 until 2021.
How old is Ty Burr? – Age
He is 66 years old as of 17 August 2023. He was born in 1957 in Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States.
Ty Burr Family – Education
In Brookline, Massachusetts, Burr was raised. He attended New York University and Dartmouth College to study film.
Ty Burr Career
Burr worked at Home Box Office from 1982 to 1987, where he was a film evaluator and helped program the Cinemax premium television service. From 1990 to 2002, he was a senior writer at Entertainment Weekly, where he focused on film, video, music, and digital media. His early interest in the Internet led him to hand-code the first EW web page, as well as introduce and edit the magazine’s New Media section.
Burr worked as The Boston Globe’s film critic for two decades, ending in July 2021. Beginning in January 2015, he also authored a weekly Sunday piece about a wide range of pop culture topics. His columns on breaking cultural problems often featured on the paper’s front page. Burr was a 2017 Pulitzer Prize in Criticism finalist.
Burr left the Globe in July 2021 to launch “Ty Burr’s Watch List,” a Substack newsletter dedicated to reviewing and commenting on theatrical and streaming films, television, and other popular culture.
Burr is a member of both the Boston and National Societies of Film Critics. He has authored articles for a variety of periodicals, including The New York Times, Spin, and The Boston Phoenix. He has appeared on NECN, MSNBC, WGBH’s Greater Boston, NPR’s Here and Now, Bloomberg Radio, and other local and national radio shows to discuss films and cultural issues.
Ty Burr Books
Burr has authored or contributed to five books. The Hundred Greatest Stars of All Time (1998) and The Hundred Greatest Movies of All Time (1999) are Entertainment Weekly “bookazines,” authored primarily by Burr (with supplementary content by various staff writers) during his stint at the magazine.
Burr wrote The Best Old Movies for Families: A Guide to Watching Together in 2007, an essay-based reference book for parents and grandparents who want to introduce their young children to classic films. It earned unanimously good feedback from critics and readers. Burr’s 2012 book, Gods Like Us: On Movie Stardom and Modern Fame, is a critical examination of celebrity spanning a century of film and cultural history. The New York Times gave it a wide-ranging, good review. Burr’s e-Book The 50 Movie Starter Kit: What You Need to Know if You Want to Know What You’re Talking About, a handbook for novice cinema fans, was published in 2012.