L.A. Times names Joshua Rothkopf as film editor

The following announcement is sent on behalf of Entertainment and Arts Assistant Managing Editor Craig Nakano and Deputy Editor Matt Brennan:

We’re excited to share the news that Joshua Rothkopf has joined the Los Angeles Times to edit our film coverage.

He’ll be working with Deputy Editor Matt Brennan and The Times’ accomplished team to direct our reporting and criticism at a moment of profound flux for the medium, both as an art form and as a business.

Rothkopf, who most recently served as senior movies editor at Entertainment Weekly, brings to the role a wealth of industry contacts forged over a decades-long career in entertainment journalism; an eagerness to understand the changing nature of moviegoing in Los Angeles from the grassroots up; and a commitment to ensuring that The Times continues to lead the conversation about film and film culture in the city, across the country and around the world.

Before Entertainment Weekly, Rothkopf spent 16 years at Time Out New York, where he was film editor and senior film critic. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Observer, Sight & Sound, Empire, Rolling Stone and In These Times, where he was chief film critic from 1999 to 2003. He has served on juries at the Tribeca Film Festival, Venice Film Festival (FIPRESCI), Sarasota Film Festival, Hamptons International Film Festival and others. Currently vice chair of the National Society of Film Critics and a member of the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn., Rothkopf was previously a member of the New York Film Critics Circle, which he chaired from 2012 to 2014.

A graduate of Oberlin College, he also holds an MFA in film and video from Columbia College Chicago. He started Tuesday.