Alissa Wilkinson is a movie critic at the New York Times. Her book 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, will be published by Liveright on March 11, 2025.

Before joining the Times, 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 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.

In June 2022, Alissa’s book Salty: Lessons on Eating, Drinking, and Living from Revolutionary Women was published by Broadleaf Books. In 2016, her book How to Survive the Apocalypse: Zombies, Cylons, and Politics at the End of the World was released, co-written with Robert Joustra.

Alissa is a frequent commentator and guest host on radio, TV, and podcasts. Some recent appearances include the New York Times Culture channel, NYT Book Review podcast, and the Modern Love podcast; CBS News; PBS Newshour; CNN International Newsroom; BBC America’s Talking Movies; NPR's Morning Edition, All Things Considered, On Point, and 1A; HBO’s Allen v. Farrow; AMC's James Cameron's Story of Science Fiction; WNYC's The Takeaway; ABC's Religion & Ethics and The Drum; CBC Eyeopener, Vox’s Today, Explained and The Gray Area; and many more. 

For 14 years, until the college ceased offering classes in 2023, Alissa was also an associate professor of English and humanities at The King’s College in New York City, and taught courses in criticism, cinema studies, literature, and cultural theory. 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.