Headshot by Alex Krook.

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

Introducing Claudia Weill’s Girlfriends at BFI Southbank, February 2025.

I’ve written for BBC Culture, Empire magazine, Little White Lies, the Curzon print journal, GQ and more. As of 2024 I’m a member of the London Film Critics’ Circle. In 2024 I was commissioned to write my first book, Icons of Cinema: Greta Gerwig, to be published in October 2025.

Long form pieces include a feature for Little White Lies magazine on depictions of sexual violence in cinema, and articles for BBC Culture on Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog and on folk horror in the novels of Alan Garner. 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 and regularly appear on podcasts, including Little White Lies’ Truth and Movies podcast.

I’ve also interviewed award-winning talent such as Matt Smith, Meera Syal CBE, Oscar-nominated director Joshua Oppenheimer (The Act of Killing, The Look of Silence), Oscar-nominated animation 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, 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, and until recently I worked as the Office and Membership Coordinator for Women in Film and TV UK, an organisation supporting women working in the media industries. As well as day-to-day admin, my role included script reading, writing the newsletter which went out to 10k subscribers, and curating the programme for members’ short film evenings.

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 , or you can always drop into my DMs on Twitter/X (@laura_venning) or Bluesky (@lauravenning.bsky.social).