Faculty

Stephen Farber teaches film criticism in the Department of Film, Television and Digital Media.

He is a past president of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and one of the country’s leading film critics and historians. He is currently a film critic for The Hollywood Reporter. Farber has also written reviews and articles on film for The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Daily Beast, Movieline’s Hollywood Life, Esquire, New York, New West, Harper's Bazaar, Premiere, Film Comment, and other national publications.

Presented in partnership with Landmark Theatres, Farber is the host and producer of Reel Talk, a popular film series that features screenings and discussions of new movies, with their directors or stars in attendance. Farber previously taught a similar “Sneak Preview” class for UCLA Extension. He has also lectured on film at several other American universities, at the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles, at the Swedish Film Institute in Stockholm, the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation in Oslo, and throughout Australia and New Zealand in a program sponsored by the Australian Film and Television School and the New Zealand Film Commission.

Farber has led tours to film festivals in Venice, Havana, San Sebastian, Berlin, New York, Telluride, Montreal, Buenos Aires and Palm Springs. He has hosted celebrity tributes at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and at AFI Fest, the San Francisco International Film Festival, the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, and the Seattle International Film Festival.

Farber produced three episodes of A&E’s acclaimed Biography series in conjunction with Peter Jones Prods.: Anthony Perkins: A Life in the Shadows (January 1999), Spencer Tracy: Triumph and Turmoil (June 1999) and Roman Polanski: Reflections of Darkness (February 2000).

Farber has written screenplays for directors Sydney Pollack, Herbert Ross and Barry Levinson. His most recent screenplay, Daniel Deronda, was written for director Philip Kaufman and Fox Searchlight Pictures.

Farber has written several acclaimed books on film including The Movie Rating Game (1972, Public Affairs Press), Hollywood Dynasties (1984, Delilah/Putnam), Outrageous Conduct: Art, Ego, and the Twilight Zone Case (1988, Arbor House/Morrow) and Hollywood on the Couch (1993, Morrow).

Farber graduated magna cum laude from Amherst College, and received an M.A. in English at UC Berkeley and a second M.A. in theater arts at the UCLA College of Fine Arts, now the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television.