1946 - Born on March 25th in Kansas City, Missouri.
1968 - He graduated from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in 1968 and then spent two years in the United States Army as a ceremonial soldier in the 3rd Infantry in Washington, D.C.
1971 - He joined the Baltimore Sun where he worked for 26 years, first as a copy reader, then book review editor and feature writer.
1982 - Became a film critic.
1997 - He joined the Washington Post as a film critic, and won the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) award for distinguished writing in criticism the following year.
2003 - Won the Pulitzer Prize for his work as a film critic for the Washington Post.