Dallas Observer (film coverage)

The Dallas Observer started in 1980 as a small weekly and grew into the city's main alternative paper. In 1991 the New Times chain, which grew out of Phoenix, bought it. A 1998 American Journalism Review profile of the chain described a format built on long cover stories plus heavy entertainment copy, including movie reviews.

The Observer's film coverage drew national notice in the early 1990s through Matt Zoller Seitz. In 1994 he saw Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson's short Bottle Rocket at the USA Film Festival in Dallas and wrote a capsule review. He later described it as the first professional review of an Anderson film, while noting that the short had already played Sundance. Seitz followed with a cover story on the making of the feature version, which he recalled as the longest cover story the Observer had published to that point. It was his last piece before he left for The Star-Ledger in New Jersey. The paper notes that he was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for criticism in 1994. Two decades later his book The Wes Anderson Collection grew out of that early coverage.

Robert Wilonsky joined about a year after the Dallas Times Herald closed in 1991. Over roughly 20 years he worked as music editor, film and TV critic, sports columnist and editor of the Unfair Park news blog. In the 2000s he also interviewed filmmakers for Higher Definition, a talk show on Mark Cuban's HDNet. He left for The Dallas Morning News in March 2012. The Observer also counts Joe Bob Briggs's drive-in writing among its history.

In 2012 executives of Village Voice Media bought the company's papers and formed Voice Media Group, which has owned the Observer since. The paper still publishes film reviews and features under its Film, TV & Streaming section.