- Former BBC radio producer, he has been the film critic of The Observer (British Sunday newspaper) from 1978. He is the father of the writer and critic Sean French.
- Member of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 1986
- His top ten films of all time are: The General (1926), The Grand Illusion (1937), Stagecoach (1939), Citizen Kane (1941), Singin' in the Rain (1952), Seven Samurai (1954), Pather Panchali (1955), Vertigo (1958), Winter Light (1963) and The Godfather (1972).
- He was awarded the OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2013 Queen's New Years Honours List for his services to Film. He is a film critic for the Observer.
- London, England: film critic (December 2012)
- Retired from his long-held post as film critic of "The Observer" newspaper on reaching his 80th birthday in 2013.
- He had become almost completely bald very early in his adult life. During the 1970s, when he was a busy radio producer, this led colleagues at the BBC to give him the nickname "Radio Savalas".
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