37 Facts About Mark Kermode

Mark Kermode is an English film critic, musician, radio presenter, television presenter and podcaster.

Mark Kermode is a member of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts and a founding member of the skiffle band the Dodge Brothers, for which he plays double bass.

Mark Kermode was educated at St Mary's Primary School in Finchley, and at The Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School, an independent school in Elstree, Hertfordshire, the same year as actor Jason Isaacs.

Mark Kermode was raised as a Methodist, and later became a member of the Church of England.

Mark Kermode's parents divorced when he was in his early 20s and he subsequently changed his surname to his Manx mother's maiden name by deed poll.

Mark Kermode earned his PhD in English at the University of Manchester in 1991, writing a thesis on horror fiction.

Mark Kermode began his film career as a print journalist, writing for Manchester's City Life, and then Time Out and NME in London.

Mark Kermode has written for The Independent, Vox, Empire, Flicks, Fangoria and Neon.

Mark Kermode hosted a movie review show with Mary Anne Hobbs on Radio 1 on Tuesday nights called Cling Film.

From 2001 until 2022, Mark Kermode reviewed and debated new film releases with Mayo on the BBC Radio 5 Live show Mark Kermode and Mayo's Film Review.

Mark Kermode has worked on film-related documentaries including The Fear of God; 25 Years of The Exorcist, Hell on Earth: The Desecration and Resurrection of Ken Russell's The Devils, Alien: Evolution, On the Edge of Blade Runner, and The Cult of The Wicker Man.

Until September 2005, Mark Kermode reviewed films each week for the New Statesman.

Mark Kermode sometimes writes for the British Film Institute's Sight and Sound magazine.

Mark Kermode is a film critic and presenter for Film4 and Channel 4, presenting the weekly Extreme Cinema strand.

Mark Kermode writes and presents documentaries for Channel 4, and appears on The Film Review for BBC News at Five.

For BBC Two's The Culture Show, Mark Kermode hosted an annual "Mark Kermode Awards" episode which presented statuettes to actors and directors not nominated for Academy Awards that year.

In 2002, Mark Kermode was critical of the British Board of Film Classification, the censor for film in the UK, for its cuts to the 1972 film The Last House on the Left.

Mark Kermode has stated that the BBFC do a good job in an impossible situation and expressed his approval of their decisions.

In September 2013, Mark Kermode became the chief film critic for The Observer.

In 2019 Mark Kermode presented a movie soundtrack themed show on classical radio station Scala Radio.

Mark Kermode produces an annual "best-of-the-year" movie list, thereby providing an overview of his critical preferences.

Mark Kermode was a regular presenter on BBC Two's The Culture Show and appeared regularly on Newsnight Review.

Mark Kermode co-hosted an early 1990s afternoon magazine show on BBC Radio 5 called A Game of Two Halves alongside former Blue Peter presenter Caron Keating.

Mark Kermode appeared in a cameo role as himself in the revival of the BBC's Absolutely Fabulous on 1 January 2012.

Mark Kermode retired the podcast for its 10th anniversary at the close of 2018, with special episodes on his most and least favourite movies of the previous decade.

Mark Kermode has recorded DVD audio commentaries for Tommy, The Devils, The Ninth Configuration, The Wicker Man and Becket.

Mark Kermode appears in the DVD extras of Lost in La Mancha, interviewing Terry Gilliam and Pan's Labyrinth where he interviews Guillermo del Toro about the film, which he has called a masterpiece.

Mark Kermode has written books, published by the BFI in its Modern Classics series, on The Exorcist and The Shawshank Redemption and his documentary for Channel 4, Shawshank: The Redeeming Feature, is on the film's 10th anniversary special edition DVD.

Mark Kermode is involved with the annual Isle of Man Film Festival.

Mark Kermode became patron of the Sir John Hurt Film Trust in November 2019.

Mark Kermode is a visiting fellow at the University of Southampton.

Mark Kermode is married to Linda Ruth Williams, a professor who lectures on film at the University of Exeter.

Mark Kermode has been described as "a feminist, a near vegetarian, a churchgoer and a straight-arrow spouse who just happens to enjoy seeing people's heads explode across a cinema screen".

Mark Kermode is a patron of the charitable trust of the Phoenix Cinema in North London, which was his favourite cinema during his childhood in East Finchley.

In 2013, Mark Kermode was appointed an Island of Culture Patron by the Isle of Man Arts Council.

In 2016, Mark Kermode was made an honorary Doctor of Letters at the University of Winchester.

In 2018, Mark Kermode was appointed Honorary Professor in the Film Studies Department at the University of Exeter.