Criticism in literature and cinema is more than a method of evaluating artistic works; it is an evolving intellectual practice that shapes how meaning is created, interpreted, and shared across cultures. Although literary criticism has a much longer history and film criticism emerged only with the rise of cinema in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the two fields have developed in remarkably parallel ways. Both have gradually moved from rigid rule-based judgment toward more interpretive and flexible approaches, from focusing on the author’s intention toward emphasizing the role of the text and the audience, and from national perspectives toward more global and transnational understandings.

At its core, criticism asks a fundamental question: how do artistic works produce meaning? In early traditions, particularly in classical thought, literature was understood through the concepts of imitation and moral purpose. Works were judged based on how faithfully they reflected reality or supported ethical and social values. In this framework, meaning was considered stable, and the critic’s role was to evaluate whether a work met established standards. Early film criticism followed a similar path, often judging cinema in comparison to theatre or photography and valuing it mainly for its technical novelty rather than its artistic complexity.

Over time, however, both literary and film criticism shifted their attention inward, toward the internal structures of works. Critics began to focus on how elements such as narrative, imagery, editing, rhythm, and style generate meaning from within the work itself. This formalist turn marked an important change in critical thinking: instead of asking whether a work was “good” or “bad” according to external rules, critics started to ask how it functions as a system of signs. In literature, this led to close attention to language, metaphor, and narrative form. In cinema, it encouraged detailed analysis of montage, framing, camera movement, and sound.

While formalism brought greater analytical depth, it also raised important questions. If meaning is fully contained within the structure of the text, what role do history, society, or the reader actually play? These questions opened the door to later theoretical approaches that reintroduced context, ideology, and interpretation into critical practice. Structuralism expanded the idea of form into broader systems of meaning, suggesting that individual works are part of larger cultural and linguistic networks. At the same time, post-structural and other critical perspectives argued that meaning is never fixed, but always shifting depending on context and interpretation.

As criticism developed further, it increasingly became a way of examining power and ideology. Literary and cinematic works came to be seen not only as artistic expressions but also as cultural products shaped by social, political, and economic forces. From this perspective, texts and films do not simply reflect reality; they actively participate in constructing it. They may reinforce dominant ideologies or challenge them, often in subtle and complex ways. As a result, criticism expanded into a broader form of cultural analysis, where interpretation is closely tied to questions of representation, authority, and inequality.

Another major shift in modern criticism is the growing emphasis on subjectivity and reception. Instead of viewing readers and viewers as passive recipients of meaning, contemporary approaches highlight their active role in interpretation. Meaning is now understood as something that emerges through the interaction between the work and its audience. Different readers and viewers may interpret the same text or film differently depending on their cultural background, historical context, emotional response, and intellectual framework.

In recent decades, the boundaries between literature, cinema, and other media have become increasingly fluid. Stories now move across novels, films, television, and digital platforms, often changing form as they shift between media. This has encouraged more comparative and interdisciplinary approaches in criticism. At the same time, globalization has expanded the circulation of literary and cinematic works, allowing them to move across national and linguistic borders with unprecedented speed.

In the digital age, criticism itself has also changed. Traditional critical authorities have been complemented—and sometimes challenged—by online platforms, social media, and algorithmic systems that influence how works are discussed and evaluated.

Despite all these transformations, certain fundamental concerns remain central. Both literary and film criticism continue to engage with questions of form and meaning, authorship and interpretation, aesthetic value and ideological function. One of the defining features of contemporary criticism is its awareness of its own limitations: no single perspective can fully capture the complexity of artistic works.Criticism in world literature and cinema has evolved from a practice of judgment into a rich and multifaceted field of interpretation and cultural analysis—one that continues to expand as new media and global contexts reshape how we understand art.

Amir Zadnemat is an Iranian writer with an MA in Literature from the University of Gilan, Iran. His writing engages with cinema as a poetic language shaped by light, shadow, and narrative.