Headshot by Alex Krook.

Hi! I’m a queer freelance film critic and experienced coordinator/admin in the cultural and charity sectors based in North London.

Speaking at the BFI Southbank’s annual Woman with a Movie Camera summit, January 2026.

Speaking on a panel as part of the BFI’s Too Much: Melodrama on Film with the BFI’s Cultural Programme Manager Ruby McGuigan and critic and broadcaster Simran Hans at BFI Southbank, November 2025.

Acting as Head Juror for The Final Film Festival, August 2026.

I’ve written for Sight and Sound, BBC Culture, Empire magazine, Little White Lies, the Curzon print journal, GQ and more. I’ve been a member of the London Film Critics’ Circle since 2024 and my first book, Icons of Cinema: Greta Gerwig, was published in October 2025.

Long form pieces include a feature for Little White Lies magazine on depictions of sexual violence in cinema and a piece for BBC Culture on Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog. I also wrote an essay included in Second Sight's Limited Edition Blu-ray of Jennifer Kent's The Babadook and have contributed an essay to the book Big Smoke, Big Screen: 20 Film Writers on London & Cinema.

I’ve introduced films at both BFI Southbank and The Garden Cinema, written programme notes for Dundee Contemporary Arts and regularly appear on podcasts, including Little White Lies’ Truth and Movies podcast. In 2025 I served on the awards jury for the inaugural OffBeat Folk Film Festival and in August 2026 I served as Head Juror for the inaugural Final Film Festival.

I’ve also interviewed award-winning talent such as Matt Smith, Francesca Scorsese, Meera Syal CBE, director Hlynur Pálmason (Godland, The Love That Remains), Oscar-nominated director Joshua Oppenheimer (The Act of Killing, The Look of Silence), Oscar-nominated director Adam Elliot (Mary and Max, Memoir of a Snail) and Oscar-winning cinematographer Linus Sandgren (La La Land, Saltburn, No Time to Die).

I’ve contributed to critics’ surveys, such as Sight and Sound’s historic Greatest Films of All Time poll in 2022, Sight and Sound’s best films of 2025, Massive Cinema’s top 10 British films of the 21st century and Little White Lies’ top 50 original films of the 21st century.

I have a MA degree in Film Studies from the University of East Anglia, where I was awarded a Distinction.

I’m available for film criticism work across multiple mediums and I would love the opportunity to collaborate with you! Please email me at venninglaura@gmail.com :)