The co-chief film critic for the Times, Tony Scott is known for his wide-ranging taste and spot-on sarcastic reviews.

The son of two historians, Scott bounced from college town to college town as a kid before moving to Cambridge to earn his B.A. at Harvard. He later enrolled in a PhD program in American literature at Johns Hopkins, but dropped out and started writing book reviews for The Nation. Editorial posts at Lingua Franca and The New York Review of Books followed, but Scott also contributed freelance film reviews to the Village Voice, Newsday, and Slate on the side. In 2000, he auditioned for the Times job with reviews of The Limey and Flawless, and despite his relative no-name status in film circles, he was hired. In 2004, Scott was elevated to chief film critic amid, and later that year, he became co-chief critic when the paper hired Manohla Dargis away from the Los Angeles Times. By and large, the critic has a solid rep among film buffs: He's generally considered shrewd and reliable, and his criticisms are thought to be fair rather than arbitrary. If he's consistently criticized for anything, it's for not being quite as bold as he could be.

Scott lives with his wife, Justine Henning, a writer who has also freelanced for the Times. They have two children, who both make frequent cameos in his reviews of kids' movies. [Image via Getty]