Janet Maslin

Janet R. Maslin (born August 12, 1949) is an American journalist, best known as a film and literary critic for The New York Times. She served as a Times film critic from 1977 to 1999 and a book critic from 2000 to 2015.

Maslin graduated from the University of Rochester in 1970 with a Bachelor of Arts degree and a major in mathematics. She began her career as a rock music critic for The Boston Phoenix and Rolling Stone.

Maslin was the longtime film critic for The New York Times, serving from 1977 to 1999. Her film-criticism career, including her embrace of American independent cinema, is discussed in the documentary film For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism (2009). In the film, Entertainment Weekly critic Lisa Schwarzbaum recalls the excitement of having a woman as the lead reviewer at The New York Times.

Maslin continues to review books for The New York Times. Among the best-known of her reviews is the 2011 essay on the widowed Joyce Carol Oates' memoir, A Widow's Story, which was widely discussed.