Alissa Wilkinson is a movie critic at the New York Times. She is the author of We Tell Ourselves Stories: Joan Didion and the American Dream Machine, a cultural history of American myth-making in Hollywood through the life and work of Joan Didion (Liveright, 2025) and Salty: Lessons on Eating, Drinking, and Living from Revolutionary Women (Broadleaf, 2022). She’s currently working on her next book, about art and beauty in an anti-wonder world, which will also be published by Liveright.
Before joining the Times in 2023, Alissa was a senior correspondent and critic at Vox.com, where she mostly wrote about film, TV, and culture. She’s contributed essays, features, and criticism to a wide variety of publications, including Rolling Stone, Vulture, Bon Appetit, Eater, RogerEbert.com, Pacific Standard, The Dallas Morning News, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Books & Culture, Christianity Today, and others. In 2016, her book How to Survive the Apocalypse: Zombies, Cylons, Faith and Politics at the End of the World, co-written with Dr. Robert Joustra, was published by Eerdmans.
Alissa is a frequent commentator and guest host on radio, TV, and podcasts. She regularly appears on KCRW’s Press Play. Other recent appearances include Morning Joe; CBS News; The Daily; PBS Newshour; CNN International; BBC America’s Talking Movies; NPR's Morning Edition, All Things Considered, On Point, and 1A; WNYC's The Takeaway and The Brian Lehrer Show; Vox’s Today, Explained and The Gray Area; and many more.
Alissa is an adjunct professor in the XE: Experimental Humanities and Social Engagement program at NYU, where she teaches research-based creative nonfiction writing courses and supervises master’s theses. From 2009 to 2023, she taught undergraduate courses in postmodern theory, criticism, cinema studies and cultural anthropology at the King’s College, where she was an associate professor of English and humanities. Alissa also regularly teaches workshops and seminars for adult learners with a variety of organizations, including the Center for Fiction and Library of America.
In 2017-18, Alissa was an inaugural writing fellow with the Sundance Institute’s Art of Nonfiction initiative. She’s served on juries at the Sundance Film Festival, DOC NYC, Sheffield Doc/Fest, the Hamptons International Film Festival, and others, and selection committees for groups including the Gotham Awards and the Sundance Documentary Film Program.
Alissa earned an M.F.A in creative nonfiction from Seattle Pacific University, an M.A. in humanities and social thought from New York University, and a B.S. in information technology from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
For media commentary, speaking engagements, or reading inquiries, contact Alissa directly. For literary inquiries, please contact Laura Mazer (laura@wsherman.com) at Wendy Sherman Associates.