Classic Couple

On Saturday, April 23 during the 2022 TCM Classic Film Festival, the third Robert Osborne Award will be presented to one of the world’s most respected film critics and historians, Leonard Maltin. The award recognizes an individual who has helped keep the cultural heritage of classic film alive for future generations.

“Leonard Maltin continues to be an indispensable source of film knowledge. His books were IMDB and Wikipedia in a pre-internet age. If you didn’t have a copy – or six – of Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide, you weren’t a serious film buff. He made information about movies accessible and compelling to millions of fans. I know because I was one,” said Ben Mankiewicz, TCM primetime anchor and official host of the TCM Classic Film Festival.

Maltin is best known for his widely-used reference work Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide and its companion volume Leonard Maltin’s Classic Movie Guide, as well as his 30-year run on television’s Entertainment Tonight. He teaches at the USC School of Cinematic Arts and hosts the weekly podcast “Maltin on Movies” with his daughter Jessie.

The Robert Osborne Award was established at the 2018 TCM Classic Film Festival in honor of the first primetime host and anchor of TCM, who helped millions of viewers discover and enter the world of classic movies, and dedicated his life to preserving and sharing the movies he loved. Past awards have been presented to Martin Scorsese and Kevin Brownlow.

In conjunction with the honors at the event, Maltin will introduce a screening of Counsellor at Law (1933) starring John Barrymore during the festival.

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Leonard Maltin will be presented with the Robert Osborne Award before a screening of Counsellor at Law (1933) during TCMFF on Saturday, April 23 from 6:00-8:00 pm PT at the Hollywood Legion Theater.