Henry Herx
American film critic
title: "Henry Herx" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1933-births", "2012-deaths", "american-film-critics", "deaths-from-liver-cancer-in-new-jersey", "loyola-university-chicago-alumni", "writers-from-chicago", "people-from-ramsey,-new-jersey", "catholics-from-new-jersey", "writers-from-bergen-county,-new-jersey"] description: "American film critic" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Herx" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary American film critic ::
::data[format=table title="Infobox person"]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| name | Henry Herx |
| birth_date | |
| birth_place | Chicago |
| death_date | |
| death_place | Ramsey, New Jersey |
| :: |
| name = Henry Herx | birth_date = | birth_place = Chicago | death_date = | death_place = Ramsey, New Jersey Henry Herx (June 29, 1933 – August 15, 2012) was an American film critic who specialized in creating brief capsule reviews intended for Roman Catholic moviegoers. During his 35-year career, Herx reviewed thousands of films for the Media Review Office of the Catholic News Service.
Biography
Herx was born in Chicago on June 29, 1933, and graduated from Loyola University Chicago, where he earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in history. In contrast to the National Legion of Decency's model of "the purification of the cinema" in which films deemed to be offensive to Roman Catholics were listed so that they could be avoided, Herx began his film reviewing effort on 1962 together with Rev. Ronald Holloway, when they created the Chicago Center for Film Study as a way to look at films from a perspective that engaged cinema. Herx worked for the Catholic News Service's Media Review Office, which is a successor to the National Legion of Decency and then the National Catholic Office for Motion Pictures, and would become the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Office for Film and Broadcasting after Herx retired.
Herx was proud of the fact that he would watch each movie in its entirety regardless of content and was deeply bothered when he was told that reviewers Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel had walked out on a film. Herx's son noted that "he felt his job was to sit there and watch it and give an honest review" no matter how bad it was. His Our Sunday Visitor's Family Guide to Movies and Videos provided an overview of films based on their content and their conformance to Roman Catholic teachings.
Herx died on August 15, 2012, at the age of 79 in his Ramsey, New Jersey, home of complications of liver cancer.
References
References
- Levin, Jay. [http://www.northjersey.com/obituaries/Henry_Herx_of_Ramsey_film_reviewer_for_a_Catholic_audience_dies_at_79.html?page=all "Henry Herx of Ramsey, film reviewer for a Catholic audience, dies at 79"], ''[[The Record (Bergen County)]]'', August 16, 2012. Accessed September 4, 2012. "Mr. Herx, of Ramsey, retired in 1999 as director of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Office for Film and Broadcasting."
- Hevesi, Dennis. [https://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/03/movies/henry-herx-79-dies-reviewed-movies-for-catholics.html "Henry Herx, Film Critic for Catholic Publications, Dies at 79"], ''[[The New York Times]]'', September 2, 2012. Accessed September 4, 2012. "Henry Herx, who over three decades wrote thousands of movie reviews for Roman Catholic publications, assessing the moral complexities raised on screen through the prism of church tenets, died on Aug. 15 at his home in Ramsey, N.J."
- Clueless]]'' a rating of "O" despite the film's PG-13 rating from the [[Motion Picture Association of America]], while the film ''[[Priest (1994 film). Priest]]'' was given an A-IV rating, despite controversy about the movie's dealings with the homosexuality of a young priest and his crisis of faith.Elsasser, Glen. [https://www.chicagotribune.com/1996/04/07/second-opinion-11/ "Second Opinion; Catholic Church Has Been In The Ratings Game For Years"], ''[[Chicago Tribune]]'', April 7, 1996. Accessed September 4, 2012.
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