John Powers
John Powers is the pop culture and critic-at-large on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross. He previously served for six years as the film critic.
Powers spent the last 25 years as a critic and columnist, first for LA Weekly, then Vogue. His work has appeared in numerous publications, including Harper's BAZAAR, The Nation, Gourmet, The Washington Post, and The New York Times.
A former professor at Georgetown University, Powers is the author of Sore Winners, a study of American culture during President George W. Bush's administration. His latest book, WKW: The Cinema of Wong Kar Wai (co-written with Wong Kar Wai), is an April 2016 release by Rizzoli.
He lives in Pasadena, California, with his wife, filmmaker Sandi Tan.
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Daniel Roher's film about Russian dissident Alexei Navalny offers intimate, sometimes amazing access to the bravery — and human cost — of opposing a despot.
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Todd Haynes' inventive, immersive movie is full of interesting ideas. The Velvet Underground neatly sidesteps the usual rock-doc banalities as it plunges us into the Velvets and their world.
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Few things haunt a critic more than loving something and not being able to share it. This year, Fresh Air critic John Powers circles back to Unbelievable, Atlantics, Where the Light Falls and more. -
A new film chronicles what happens when a Chinese billionaire reopens a former General Motors plant in Ohio. John Powers says it's an old-school observational documentary in the very best sense. -
Hatidze Muratova lives in a remote area of Macedonia and has one simple rule: When you harvest honey, you take half — and leave the other half for the bees. An elegant new documentary tells her story. -
Meryl Streep joins the Big Little Lies cast as the mother of the man killed at the end of Season 1 — complicating things for the Monterey Five, who are still processing the aftermath of the death. -
Ruth Wilson stars in the PBS drama based on the story of her own grandmother, who discovered, after 22 years of marriage, that her spy-turned-author husband may have been married to someone else. -
Every year, critic John Powers is haunted by the things he wishes he'd reviewed. The themes his 2017 "Ghost List" range in spirit from cosmic surrealism to ripped-from-the-headlines immediacy. -
Every year, Fresh Air critic John Powers is haunted by all the terrific things he didn't get a chance to talk about on air. As 2016 winds down, he "un-haunts" himself with these six recommendations. -
Critic John Powers discusses the Italian documentary, Fire at Sea, and the novel, These Are the Names. The works take very different — but nonetheless poignant — approaches to the refugee situation.
