Stanley Kauffmann (April 24, 1916 – October 9, 2013) was an American writer, editor, and critic of film and theater.
[7] Stanley electrified educated people with the news that movies had become one of the high arts again, and that there were contemporary works—by Bergman, Truffaut, Antonioni, and many other directors—the equal of the masterpieces of the silent era.
Kauffmann was a long-time advocate and enthusiast of foreign film, helping to introduce and popularize in America the works of directors such as Ingmar Bergman, François Truffaut, Claude Chabrol, and Yasujirō Ozu.
[10] Kauffmann is noted for his dissenting opinions on otherwise critically acclaimed films, giving negative reviews for Brazil, Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Godfather, Million Dollar Baby, Gone with the Wind, Becket and 2001: A Space Odyssey, films that were heavily praised by other notable critics.
Kauffmann attended DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx and New York University, where he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1935, and he was an actor and stage manager with NYU's 1920s-30s revival of the Washington Square Players.