The Pulitzer Prize for Criticism has been presented since 1970 to a newspaper writer in the United States who has demonstrated 'distinguished criticism'. Recipients of the award are chosen by an independent board and officially administered by Columbia University. The Pulitzer Committee issues an official citation explaining the reasons for the award.
Winners and citations
The Criticism Pulitzer has been awarded to one person annually except in 1992 when it was not awarded—43 prizes in 44 years 1970–2013. Wesley Morris is the only person to have won the prize more than once, winning in 2012 and 2021.
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|The Philadelphia Inquirer
|"for her fascinating and convincing architectural critiques that boldly confront important topics, from urban planning issues to the newest skyscraper."
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|The Boston Globe
|"for his fresh, accessible and energetic reviews on the New England art scene, creating for readers a sense of discovery even as he provides discerning analysis."
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2010s
{| class="wikitable sortable"
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!Year
!Name(s)
!Publication
!width=50% |Rationale
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!rowspan=3 |2010
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|The Washington Post
|"for her refreshingly imaginative approach to dance criticism, illuminating a range of issues and topics with provocative comments and original insights."
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|The Village Voice
|"for his engaging, authoritative drama reviews that fuse passion and knowledge as he helps readers understand what makes a play or a performance successful."
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|The New York Times
|"for his incisive film reviews that, with aplomb, embrace a wide spectrum of movies and often explore their connection to larger issues in society or the arts."
|- style="background-color:lightyellow;"
!rowspan=3 |2011
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|The Boston Globe
|"for his vivid and exuberant writing about art, often bringing great works to life with love and appreciation."
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|LA Weekly
|"for his delightful, authoritative restaurant reviews, escorting readers through a city's diverse food culture."
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|The New York Times
|"for his well honed architectural criticism, highlighted by ambitious essays on the burst of architectural projects in oil-rich Middle East countries.""
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!rowspan=3 |2012
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|The Boston Globe
|"for his smart, inventive film criticism, distinguished by pinpoint prose and an easy traverse between the art house and the big-screen box office."
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|The Washington Post
|"for his ambitious and insightful cultural criticism, taking on topical events from the uprisings in Egypt to the dedication of the Ground Zero memorial."
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|ArtsJournal.com
|"for work that reveals passion as well as deep historical knowledge of dance, her well-expressed arguments coming from the heart as well as the head."
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!rowspan=3 |2013
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|The Washington Post
|"for his eloquent and passionate essays on art and the social forces that underlie it, a critic who always strives to make his topics and targets relevant to readers."
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|The New York Times
|"for her enlightening movie criticism, vividly written and showing deep understanding of the business and art of filmmaking."
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|Los Angeles Times
|"for her searching television criticism that often becomes a springboard for provocative comments on the culture at large."
|- style="background-color:lightyellow;"
!rowspan=3 |2014
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|The Philadelphia Inquirer
|"for her criticism of architecture that blends expertise, civic passion and sheer readability into arguments that consistently stimulate and surprise."
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|The Stranger
|"for her visual arts criticism that, with elegant and vivid description, informs readers about how to look at the complexities of contemporary art and the world in which it's made."
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|Los Angeles Times
|"for her trenchant and witty television criticism, engaging readers through essays and reviews that feature a conversational style and the force of fresh ideas."
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!rowspan=3 |2015
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|Los Angeles Times
|"for savvy criticism that uses shrewdness, humor and an insider's view to show how both subtle and seismic shifts in the cultural landscape affect television."
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|The New York Times
|"for film criticism that rises from a sweeping breadth of knowledge—social, cultural, cinematic—while always keeping the viewer front and center."
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|The Village Voice
|"for film criticism that combines the pleasure of intellectual exuberance, the perspective of experience and the transporting power of good writing."
|- style="background-color:lightyellow;"
!rowspan=3 |2016
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|The New Yorker
|"for television reviews written with an affection that never blunts the shrewdness of her analysis or the easy authority of her writing."
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|The New Yorker
|"for theater reviews written with such erudition and linguistic sensitivity that they often become larger than their subjects."
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|The New York Times
|"for reviews and essays that take on the sacred cows of film culture with considerable style and admirable literary and historical reach."
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!rowspan=3 |2017
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|The New Yorker
|"for bold and original reviews that strove to put stage dramas within a real-world cultural context, particularly the shifting landscape of gender, sexuality and race."
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|The Boston Globe
|"for a wide range of finely cut reviews of films and other cultural topics written with wit, deep sensibility and a refreshing lack of pretension."
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|Tampa Bay Times
|"for lively restaurant reviews, including a series that took on the false claims of the farm-to-table movement and prompted statewide investigations."
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!rowspan=3 |2018
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|New York
|"for a robust body of work that conveyed a canny and often daring perspective on visual art in America, encompassing the personal, the political, the pure and the profane."
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|The New York Times
|"for writing, both downbeat and uplifting, that demonstrated the critic's sustained dedication to exposing male dominance in Hollywood and decrying the exploitation of women in the film business."
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|The Washington Post
|"for criticism that dug deep into the books that have shaped political discourse—engaging seriously with scholarly works, partisan screeds and popular works of history and biography to produce columns and essays that plumbed the cultural and political genealogy of our current national divide."
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!rowspan=3 |2019
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|The Washington Post
|"for trenchant and searching reviews and essays that joined warm emotion and careful analysis in examining a broad range of books addressing government and the American experience."
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|The New York Times
|"for authoritative film criticism that considered the impact of movies both inside the theater and in the wider world with rare passion, craftsmanship and insight."
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|The New Yorker
|"for critical, yet restrained, explorations of incredibly varied subjects, from Frankenstein to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, that combined literary nuance with intellectual rigor."
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2020s
{| class="wikitable sortable"
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!Year
!Name(s)
!Publication
!width=50% |Rationale
|- style="background-color:lightyellow;"
!rowspan=3 |2020
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|Los Angeles Times
|"for work demonstrating extraordinary community service by a critic, applying his expertise and enterprise to critique a proposed overhaul of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and its effect on the institution's mission."
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|New York
|"for architecture reviews marked by a keen eye, deep knowledge and exquisite writing, as exemplified by his essay on Manhattan's Hudson Yards development."
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|The Undefeated
|"for essays on theater and film that bring a fresh, delightful intelligence to the intersections of race and art."
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!rowspan=3 |2021
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|The New York Times
|"for unrelentingly relevant and deeply engaged criticism on the intersection of race and culture in America, written in a singular style, alternately playful and profound."
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|New York
|"for writing on a range of popular topics, including social media, music and comedy, contending with the year's disarray and exploring how culture and conversation can both flourish and break down online."
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|Los Angeles Times
|"for a series of critical essays that broke through the silence of the pandemic to recommend an eclectic array of recordings as entertainment and solace essential to the moment, drawing deep connections to seven centuries of classical music."
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!rowspan=3 |2022
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|The New York Times
|"for learned and stylish writing about Black stories in art and popular culture—work that successfully bridges academic and nonacademic critical discourse."
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|The Atlantic
|"for articles that bring clarity and insight to questions concerning gender norms, feminism, and popular culture."
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|The New Yorker
|"for accessible and dedicated art criticism that introduces or revisits painters, institutions and movements, offering tender appreciations and unflinching dissents."
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!rowspan=3 |2023
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|New York
|"for book reviews that scrutinize authors as well as their works, using multiple cultural lenses to explore some of society's most fraught topics."
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|The New York Times
|"for art criticism, especially for taking a critical eye to the frontlines of Ukraine to explore the cultural dimensions of the war, including verifying damages to architecture and other sites and explaining Russia's efforts to erase the Ukrainian identity."
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|Detroit Free Press
|"for rigorously reported coverage of restaurant openings and recommended dishes that also serve as an immersive cultural portrait of a vital American city."
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!rowspan=3 |2024
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|Los Angeles Times
|"for richly evocative and genre-spanning film criticism that reflects on the contemporary moviegoing experience."
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|The New Yorker
|"for theater reviews that reflect a formidable knowledge of the stage and the mechanics of performance along with canny observations on the human condition."
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|The New York Review of Books
|"for a review of the film Tár that addressed with wit and ease such consequential themes as mortality and the clash of generations."
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!rowspan=3 |2025
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|CityLab
|"for graceful and genre-expanding writing about public spaces for families, deftly using interviews, observations and analysis to consider the architectural components that allow children and communities to thrive."
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|The New Yorker
|"for illuminating and personal reviews of work that appears on television, streaming services or social media, trenchant criticism that explores contemporary issues and society."
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|New York
|"for insightful theater criticism that combines a reporter's eye and a historian's memory to inform readers about current stage productions."
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!rowspan=3 |2026
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|The Dallas Morning News
|"for his rigorous and passionate architecture criticism, using wit and expertise to amplify his opinions and advocate for city residents."
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|The New Yorker
|"for sophisticated, accessible essays on the media, with an emphasis on television, that address shifts in culture, politics and American life with clear-eyed authority."
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|The Wall Street Journal
|"for informed and insightful writing about architecture that brings the inanimate to life and reflects a deep understanding that buildings are at once visual and civic spaces."
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