Film Critic Wesley Morris today in the Boston Globe newsroom. Photo by Andy M. Boyle via Instagram.

In a rare stroke of recognition for a film critic, a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism was awarded to Wesley Morris of the Boston Globe today. The news, circulating swiftly via social media, gave many cinephiles a chance to acknowledge a great writer and celebrate an embattled, seemingly endangered, form of journalism. 

Wesley Morris, a 36 year old Philadephia native who studied at Yale, was singled out today for, in the words of the commendation, “His smart, inventive film criticism, distinguished by pinpoint prose and an easy traverse between the art house and the big-screen box office.” 

Journalism’s highest honor has only been bestowed upon a film critic a few times. Previous recipients include Joe Morgenstern of the The Wall Street Journal in 2005, Stephen Hunter of The Washington Post in 2003 and Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times in 1975. 

“I was just doing my job and this is what happened,” Morris offered modestly during an emotional newsroom speech that was recorded and edited for the Globe website. “I am the luckiest guy in the world,” he said, standing on a file cabinet while speaking to colleagues.

Morris wrote for the San Francisco Examiner and then the San Francisco Chronicle before joining the Boston Globe staff ten years ago.

Reviews and essays about The Help, Sidney Lumet, Weekend, Steve Jobs and The Tree of Life were among the writings honored by the panel of peers that selected Wesley Morris as this year’s Pulitzer Prize winner in the category. Click here to read his winning works.

“Movies are visual, aural, they involve people, and life, and ideas and art, they are so elastic,” Wesley Morris said in a statement today, “They can hold anything, withstand everything, and make you feel anything. Other arts can do that, but movies are the only ones that can incorporate other media into cinema.”