Ann Hornaday, former Washington Post and Baltimore Sun film critic, dies at 66

Ann Hornaday, the acclaimed former chief film critic of the Washington Post who adored her adopted home of Baltimore, died Sunday. She was 66.

The cause of death was glioblastoma, a form of brain cancer, said her husband, Dennis Greenia. Hornaday died at their Evergreen home in North Baltimore.

Hornaday wrote well-crafted, carefully considered criticism with the everyday moviegoer in mind, former colleagues said, which made her work stand out from film critics who delivered more scathing or pretentious takedowns. In 2008, Hornaday was named a Pulitzer Prize finalist for criticism.

Hornaday — who was also a former Baltimore Sun film critic and appeared on WYPR’s “Midday at the Movies” — was “salt of the earth,” said Liz Seymour, a former managing editor at The Washington Post.

“Ann was a beautiful writer but she was also an extremely accessible writer,” Seymour said.

Hornaday was born March 9, 1960, in Iowa City, Iowa, and grew up in Des Moines with a brother, William. Hornaday graduated from Smith College in 1982 with a degree in government and later moved to New York. There, she worked at the feminist publication Ms. Magazine, where she became co-founder Gloria Steinem’s administrative assistant.

“It was Gloria who urged me to become a freelancer, because she had found the freedom and variety of freelancing to be both fulfilling and fruitful in discovering her own voice as a young writer,” Hornaday wrote in her 2017 book, “Talking Pictures: How to Watch Movies.”

A journalism fellowship took Hornaday to Athens, Georgia, where she met Greenia at a listening party for R.E.M.’s 1994 album, “Monster.”

“A wife of a journalism professor thought that we should meet, and she just introduced us at the event,” said Greenia, her husband of 26 years. “We somehow hit it off.”

After stints at the Austin American-Statesman and The Sun, Hornaday joined The Washington Post in 2002, where she’d go on to write hundreds of reviews over more than two decades.

She loved thought-provoking documentaries and political thrillers, Seymour said. Hornaday regularly described a good rom-com as “delicious.” Even her less favorite genres, like horror, deserved serious consideration.

“She was very willing to give a great review to a genre she wasn’t interested in if she thought it was a well-done movie,” Seymour said.

Hornaday always put the reader first, but she also empathized with the filmmakers, casts and crews who created something new, even if it wasn’t great, said Greenia.

“She was really kind in the way that she approached the art of criticism,” he said.

Hornaday left the Post last year, accepting a buyout.

Throughout her time at The Post, Hornaday stayed engaged with the region’s film scene and community, attending film festivals of all sizes and meeting readers at Post events. “She was just really dedicated to her audience,” Seymour said.

But Hornaday loved Baltimore and her tight-knit neighborhood near Roland Park too much to ever consider moving to Washington in the name of a shorter commute.

“There was always a question as to whether or not Ann was going to move to D.C. because she was so much a part of the community here,” Seymour said. “But the fact is she loved Baltimore. She loved living there. She was very devoted to that city.”

Paul Moore, former deputy managing editor of The Sun, said he’ll miss his “brilliant but unpretentious” friend, whom he spent hours with on her back deck, talking about movies, parenting and the ups and downs of life over wine and food.

“Over the last 50 years, I can’t think of a better time that I’ve had in this city,” Moore said.

Hornaday is survived by Greenia; their daughter, Victoria Greenia; a stepdaughter, Leila Greenia; and a brother, William Hornaday III.

In June 2025, Hornaday began to notice some vision issues. Before the summer was over, she was diagnosed with glioblastoma.

Shortly after her brain surgery that August, Hornaday and Greenia were thrilled to be back doing her favorite activity — walking around Lake Montebello. Hornaday loved passing by families and overhearing Ravens fans dissecting the latest game.

Greenia is grateful they shared those moments together again, before the “god-awful disease” became too much.

“At one point she said, ‘Disneyland is wrong. Lake Montebello is the happiest place on earth,’” he said.

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