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Ty Burr

American film critic

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 2, 2026
Entity authorityQ3542638 ↗
Source-derived summary

Ty Burr (born August 17, 1957) is an American film critic, columnist, and author who reviews films for The Washington Post and writes the film and popular culture newsletter "Ty Burr's Watchlist". Burr worked as a film critic at The Boston Globe from 2002 until 2021.

Early life

Born on August 17, 1957, in Boston, Burr grew up in Brookline, Massachusetts. He studied film at Dartmouth College and New York University.

Career

From 1982 to 1987, Burr worked at Home Box Office, where he helped program the Cinemax pay cable service as a film evaluator. From 1990 to 2002, he was a senior writer at Entertainment Weekly (EW), where he primarily covered films, video, music, and digital media. An early interest in the Internet led to his hand-coding EW's first webpage and introducing and editing the magazine's New Media section.

From 2002 to 2021, Burr served as the film critic for The Boston Globe. Beginning in January 2015, he also wrote a weekly Sunday column on pop culture. His columns on breaking cultural issues frequently appeared on the paper's front page.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Ty Burr” as american film critic. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Burr, American and film.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1957, 2002, 2021, 1982—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1957-08-17. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Burr, American and film providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Ty Burr”, the useful work is to connect “american film critic” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3542638. VIAF identifies the subject as 23369730. The Library of Congress control number is n00024075. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1957, 2002, 2021 and 1982.

Critical limits

Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

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The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Ty Burr”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Ty Burr primary sources, Ty Burr archive and Burr research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Ty Burr” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.