[3][4] Peary moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1978 to work as a first-string critic for The Real Paper, an alternative weekly, which closed in 1981.
He is married to producer and filmmaker Amy Geller, former artistic director of the Boston Jewish Film Festival.
[6] He was from 1998 to 1999 the Acting Curator of the Harvard Film Archive[2][7] and was general editor of the University Press of Mississippi Conversations with Filmmakers Series.
Peary has also contributed to numerous magazines, including Positif, Film Comment, Cineaste, Sight & Sound, the Boston Review, Flare, and Maclean's.
[2] He has frequently served as president of international critics' juries at film festivals including Rotterdam, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Karlovy Vary, San Francisco, and Mar del Plata.