Mark Kermode


Mark Kermode is an English film critic, musician, radio presenter, television presenter, author and podcaster. He is the co-presenter of the BBC Radio 4 programme Screenshot, and co-presenter of the film-review podcast Kermode & Mayo's Take. Kermode is a regular contributor to The Observer, for which he was chief film critic between September 2013 and September 2023.
Kermode is the author of several books on film and music, including It's Only A Movie, The Good The Bad and The Multiplex, Hatchet Job and How Does It Feel?. He is the co-author of Hollywood: Sixty Great Years, The Movie Doctors, and Mark Kermode's Surround Sound. He has also written three volumes for the BFI's Modern Classics series – on The Exorcist, The Shawshank Redemption and Silent Running. Since the late 1980s he has contributed to the BFI's film magazine Sight & Sound and its predecessor The Monthly Film Bulletin, and since January 2016 he has presented a monthly live show, MK3D, at the British Film Institute, South Bank. It is the BFI's longest-running live show.
Kermode previously co-presented the BBC Radio 5 Live show Kermode and Mayo's Film Review, and previously co-presented the BBC Two arts programme The Culture Show. Between 2018 and 2021, he co-wrote and presented three seasons of the BBC Four film documentary series Mark Kermode's Secrets of Cinema, and between 2019 and 2024 he presented a weekly film music show on Scala Radio. He is a member of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts and a founding member of the skiffle band the Dodge Brothers, for which he plays double bass. Since 2008, the Dodge Brothers have provided live accompaniment for silent films such as Beggars of Life, Hell's Hinges, White Oak and The Ghost That Never Returns.

Early life

Kermode was born in the Royal Free Hospital in the London Borough of Camden. He was educated at the state-funded Church of England primary school St Mary's at Finchley, and was granted a Barnet-council-funded free place at The Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School in Elstree, Hertfordshire under the Direct grant grammar school scheme in 1974, at the same time as actor Jason Isaacs.
Kermode's mother was a GP, who was born in Douglas, Isle of Man, and practised in Golders Green, north London. His father, the son of a travelling flour salesman, worked in the London Hospital in Whitechapel. His grandmother was Swiss German. He was raised as a Methodist, and later became a member of the Church of England. His parents divorced when he was in his early twenties, and he subsequently changed his surname to his Manx mother's maiden name by deed poll. He earned his PhD in English at the University of Manchester in 1991, writing a thesis on horror fiction. While in Manchester, he lived in the notorious Hulme Crescents estate.

Film criticism

Kermode began his film career as a print journalist, writing for Manchester's City Life, and then Time Out and NME in London. He has subsequently written for a range of publications including The Guardian, The Observer, The Independent, Vox, Empire, Flicks, 20/20, Fangoria, Video Watchdog and Neon.
Kermode began working as a film broadcaster on LBC in 1988, after which he moved to BBC Radio 5. Between February 1992 and October 1993, he was the resident film reviewer on BBC Radio 5's Morning Edition with Danny Baker. He became the film critic for BBC Radio 1 in 1993, on a regular Thursday night slot called Cult Film Corner on Mark Radcliffe's Graveyard Shift session. He later moved to Simon Mayo's BBC Radio 1 morning show. He hosted a movie review show with Mary Anne Hobbs on Radio 1 on Tuesday nights called ClingFilm.
From 2001 until 2022, Kermode reviewed and debated new film releases with Mayo on the BBC Radio 5 Live show Kermode and Mayo's Film Review. The programme won Gold in the Speech Award category at the 2009 Sony Radio Academy Awards on 11 May 2009. On 11 March 2022, it was announced by Simon Mayo, at the start of Kermode and Mayo's Film Review, that the last episode would be broadcast on 1 April 2022.
Kermode and Mayo launched a non-BBC film and television podcast called Kermode & Mayo's Take in May 2022.
Kermode has worked on film-related documentaries including The Fear of God: 25 Years of The Exorcist, Hell on Earth: The Desecration and Resurrection of Ken Russell's The Devils, Alien: Evolution, On the Edge of Blade Runner, Mantrap: Straw Dogs – The Final Cut, Shawshank: The Redeeming Feature, The Poughkeepsie Shuffle: Tracing the French Connection, Salò: Fade to Black, The Real Linda Lovelace and The Cult of The Wicker Man.
From 2001 to 2005, Kermode reviewed films each week for the New Statesman. Prior to becoming chief film critic in 2013, he wrote "Mark Kermode's DVD round-up" for The Observer, a weekly review of the latest releases. He also writes for the British Film Institute's Sight and Sound magazine. From 1995 to 2001, Kermode was a film critic and presenter for Film4 and Channel 4, presenting the weekly Extreme Cinema strand. He has written and presented documentaries for Channel 4 and the BBC, and until 2023 appeared on The Film Review for BBC News at Five. For BBC Two's The Culture Show, Kermode hosted an annual "Kermode Awards" episode, which presented statuettes to actors and directors not nominated for Academy Awards that year.
In 2002, Kermode challenged the British Board of Film Classification, the censor for film in the UK, about its cuts to the 1972 film The Last House on the Left. In 2008, the BBFC allowed the film to be re-released uncut. He has since stated that the BBFC do a good job in an impossible situation and expressed his approval of their decisions.
In a 2012 Sight & Sound poll of cinema's greatest films, Kermode indicated his ten favourites, a list later published in order of preference in his book Hatchet Job, as The Exorcist, A Matter of Life and Death, The Devils, It's a Wonderful Life, Don't Look Now, Pan's Labyrinth, Mary Poppins, Brazil, Eyes Without a Face and The Seventh Seal.
From September 2013 to September 2023, Kermode was the chief film critic for The Observer.
In 2018, he began to present his own documentary series Mark Kermode's Secrets of Cinema on BBC Four. A second series followed, as well as disaster movie, Christmas, and Oscar winners specials.
Between 2019 and 2024, Kermode presented a soundtrack-themed show on classical radio station Scala Radio.
Kermode produces an annual "best-of-the-year" and "worst-of-the-year" movie lists, thereby providing an overview of his critical preferences. His top choices were:
YearBest FilmCitationWorst FilmCitation
1996Crash
1997Boogie Nights
1998Festen aka The Celebration
1999Audition
2000Erin Brockovich
2001Ghost World
2002Punch-Drunk Love
2003City of God
2004Dogville and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
2005A History of Violence
2006Pan's Labyrinth
2007The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert FordGood Luck Chuck
2008Of Time and the CityThe Hottie and the Nottie
2009Let the Right One InTransformers: Revenge of the Fallen
2010InceptionSex and the City 2
2011We Need to Talk About KevinNew Year's Eve
2012A Royal Affair and Berberian Sound StudioKeith Lemon: The Film
201312 Years a Slave and Good VibrationsPain & Gain
2014The BabadookTransformers: Age of Extinction
2015Inside OutEntourage
2016Under the ShadowDirty Grandpa
2017RawWolves at the Door
2018Leave No TraceShow Dogs
2019Bait
2020Saint Maud
2021Petite Maman
2022Aftersun
2023Past LivesThe Exorcist: Believer
2024The SubstanceMegalopolis
2025Die My LoveTron: Ares

DecadeFilmCitation
1990sLand and Freedom
2000sPan's Labyrinth
2010sBait