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Richard Corliss, TIME magazine film critic, dies at 71

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Richard Corliss, TIME magazine film critic, dies at 71

Critic Richard Corliss at Cannes Film Festival

Richard Corliss, the film critic for TIME Magazine, passed away at the age of 71 due to complications following a stroke Thursday night. TIME editor Nancy Gibbs sent a note to the staff Friday morning about his passing, which you can read here.

Corliss was a film critic with TIME for 35 years, sharing bylines alongside fellow critic Richard Schickel. Prior to that he was the editor in chief of Film Comment and had written for National Review among many other magazines.

Corliss challenged Andrew Sarris’s auteur theory, despite being one of Sarris’s students, and he likewise penned a scathing critique of the movie review show Siskel & Ebert, “All Thumbs“. Ebert would later include that article in one of his own books, and Corliss spoke highly of Ebert in the tribute documentary Life Itself.

TIME compiled a list of 25 of his greatest movie reviews, all of them classics, but not all of which he was a fan, as well as 10 of his obituaries of other Hollywood royalty like Elizabeth Taylor and James Stewart, as well as recently departed stars Robin Williams and Joan Rivers.