Rex Reed Dies at 87, Ending Six Decades of Film Criticism
Rex Reed died in his sleep on May 12, 2026, in New York City at 87. For six decades, rex reed was one of the most recognizable voices in American cultural journalism, a critic whose sharp wit and uncompromising taste made him hard to ignore.
William Kapfer and New York City
William Kapfer, Reed’s longtime friend, said the death came after a stretch in which Reed had already spent several weeks in the hospital. Kapfer called three days before a January 12, 2026 visit to say Reed had been at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital for weeks, and Reed was back in the hospital a few weeks after that visit.
Reed had described the final stretch in his own blunt terms. After a fall at a gas station hurt his foot, he told the writer, “I’ll either get better or I’ll die,” and “I’ll let you know which one.”
Michael’s and Sardi’s
On earlier trips to New York, Reed often had lunch at Michael’s in Midtown or Sardi’s in Times Square, usually ordering a Cobb salad with no blue cheese and iced tea. If the restaurant had hot fudge, he finished with ice cream, a routine that fit a critic who treated repetition like a personal signature rather than a habit.
That consistency helps explain why his death lands as more than a personal loss. Reed was described as a legendary film critic and journalist with a six-decade run that made him a constant presence in American cultural life, and his absence leaves a gap in a corner of journalism built on voice as much as coverage.
Reed at 87
Born in 1938, Reed spent the kind of long career that gave readers a recognizable point of view and gave editors a critic who could command attention with a sentence. At 87, his death closes that run in the clearest possible way: no farewell column, just a final hospital stay, a death in New York City, and a body of work that outlived the era that first made him famous.
