How to Get Started as a Film Critic: Top Digital Tips

If you love watching movies, you can turn your hobby into a source of income by becoming a film critic. You’ll be thrilled to know that, in 2024, critiquing films and growing a readership is easier than ever. In the past, you would have had to apply to work at an existing publication. While you can still do this, you can also go down the route of starting your movie blog. Besides being incredibly easy to do, this option allows you to talk about whatever you want without needing to go through an editor.

Let’s go through some tips on how to get started as a digital film critic.

Keep Track of the Movies You’ve Watched

As a film buff, you’ve probably fallen into the habit of taking notes about the countless movies you’ve watched. Take advantage of all the information you’ve collected by compiling it into a spreadsheet – a tool that converts PDF files to Excel sheets can be tremendously helpful in doing this.

To make your spreadsheet easily navigable, give your headings clear, descriptive names. For instance, you might want individual sections for movie titles, ratings out of ten and miscellaneous comments.

When starting as a film critic, you might clearly know the movies you want to write about. However, as you begin to write more and more reviews, it gets difficult to think of films you have a strong opinion about. Keeping an extensive list of all the movies you’ve seen ensures you don’t run out of content.

Optimise Your Blog’s Discoverability

While you may enjoy the writing part of your job, building a readership is among the responsibilities of an independent film critic. In order to do this, you’ll want to make sure to follow the best search engine optimisation (SEO) practices when building your blog.

SEO is a massive topic that can take up multiple blog posts on its own. Still, some key principles to be aware of include using high-volume keywords in individual posts and website copy, building links to other reputable sites and ensuring that your technical SEO is up to scratch. Above all, ensure your content provides genuine value to your readers and is written from a position of authority.

SEO is a vital aspect of running a successful website. It’s a huge factor in how much traffic you receive, so you’ll want to read up on ways to optimise your blog to be discovered by your target audience.

Find Your Niche

When starting out as a film critic, focusing on a niche is always best. For instance, you might want to primarily write about reality TV series, romantic comedies, horror movies or another subset of films.

One major benefit of writing about a specific type of film is that it allows you to build up your expertise more quickly. Writing primarily about, for instance, ‘90s romantic comedies allows you to explore the genre’s history, familiarise yourself with less well-known films in the category and build your ability to spot common tropes.

Another reason to find a niche is that it makes it easier for your website to rank on search engines like Google. You’d probably be facing much more competition using ‘movie reviews’ as a keyword than you would with ‘90s romantic comedy reviews.’ Specialising in a particular genre also helps you target a more specific audience, which will guide your other marketing activities.

Reach out to Other Publications

Building a brand-new movie blog without prior experience or an existing reputation is hard, but working with other publications can be incredibly helpful if you’re looking to get your name out into the world.

Start by researching and making a list of blogs you’d like to write for. Don’t worry about being too ambitious: you lose nothing by pitching and failing. If you already have some pre-written articles to submit, ensure they’re edited to match the style of your target publication. Then, start pitching your work.

When looking for a blog to write for, you should prioritise publications with a similar niche to yours. For instance, if you primarily write about Tamil movies, you should pitch your work to blogs that review films in Tamil. Writing for blogs that focus on your chosen genre helps you build an audience for your work and gives you experience reviewing a specific kind of film. Even if your blog posts are rejected, you might still receive valuable feedback from experienced editors.

Talk About the World Surrounding the Movies

As a film critic, your main job is talking about films. However, it’s also important to stay current with the latest happenings taking place in the film industry as a whole. For example, you should read up on actor interviews and be aware of any drama taking place in the movie world.

Being aware of current events helps you stay relevant to your audience and connect with them on a deeper level. It also gives you content to write about when you’re lacking the inspiration to perform in-depth movie analysis. You might even want to dedicate an entire section of your blog to discussions of things taking place in the film world.

In 2024, there are more ways than ever to become a film critic. You can choose to either work for an established publication or strike it out alone and start your blog. Whatever you choose, it’s vital that you develop good writing skills and a comprehensive knowledge of the films you want to critique. If you decide to go down the route of making a blog, you’ll also need to consider factors like the SEO of your website.

Today, we’ve covered some top digital tips to help you get started. Start writing quality movie reviews within your chosen niche and building your online reputation today, and you’ll be well on your way to a successful career as a film critic.