Bob Mondello
Bob Mondello, who jokes that he was a jinx at the beginning of his critical career — hired to write for every small paper that ever folded in Washington, just as it was about to collapse — saw that jinx broken in 1984 when he came to NPR.
For more than three decades, Mondello has reviewed movies and covered the arts for NPR, seeing at least 300 films annually, then sharing critiques and commentaries about the most intriguing on NPR's award-winning newsmagazine All Things Considered. In 2005, he conceived and co-produced NPR's eight-part series "American Stages," exploring the history, reach, and accomplishments of the regional theater movement.
Mondello has also written about the arts for USA Today, The Washington Post, Preservation Magazine, and other publications, and has appeared as an arts commentator on commercial and public television stations. He spent 25 years reviewing live theater for Washington City Paper, DC's leading alternative weekly, and to this day, he remains enamored of the stage.
Before becoming a professional critic, Mondello learned the ins and outs of the film industry by heading the public relations department for a chain of movie theaters, and he reveled in film history as advertising director for an independent repertory theater.
Asked what NPR pieces he's proudest of, he points to an April Fool's prank in which he invented a remake of Citizen Kane, commentaries on silent films — a bit of a trick on radio — and cultural features he's produced from Argentina, where he and his husband have a second home.
An avid traveler, Mondello even spends his vacations watching movies and plays in other countries. "I see as many movies in a year," he says, "as most people see in a lifetime."
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A look at some of the highlights and discoveries at this year's Sundance Film Festival, which concludes this weekend.
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The social forces are pervasive but subtle in Lukas Dhont's Close — no overt bullying or homophobia, just internalized pressures on still-developing psyches. -
NPR's Bob Mondello shares the movies that stood out to him in 2022. He says ten is an arbitrary number and generally ignores it, and this is no exception.
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Director Sarah Polley's adaptation of the novel by Miriam Toews is about women in an isolated religious colony who break the silence about abuse at the hands of the colony's men.
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Director Damien Chazelle's "Babylon" is a comically over-the-top look at scandal-ridden 1920s Hollywood. It's a celebration of an art form in turmoil as silent films give way to talkies.
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Two new films about men who find flexibility late in life, "Living" and "A Man Called Otto," are remakes of acclaimed foreign films: Director Akira Kurosawa's "Ikuru" and Sweden's "A Man Called Ove."
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Director Damien Chazelle's "Babylon" is a comically over-the-top look at scandal-ridden 1920s Hollywood. It's a celebration of an art form in turmoil as silent films give way to talkies.
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At this time of year, people travel to be with their families. And Broadway and Hollywood have been giving them something to sing about: Traveling-song show tunes.
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Whether you plan to head out to the theater, or binge from the couch, our critics have gathered together their favorite films and TV shows of the year. Happy watching!
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Filmmaker James Cameron's sequel to the biggest worldwide box office hit of all time, "Avatar: The Way of Water," has been in the works for more than a decade.
