Houston Film Critics Society

The Houston Film Critics Society was founded in 2007 as a not-for-profit, unincorporated group of print, broadcast and internet critics in the Houston area, the Gulf Coast and beyond. It counts San Antonio as an affiliate city, so San Antonio critics such as Kiko Martinez and his CineSnob colleagues belong. Its stated aims are to encourage substantive criticism in the region, build public appreciation for film, and give annual awards.

The membership mixes veterans of Houston's daily papers with broadcasters and online writers. Joe Leydon, the Houston Post's critic from 1982 until the paper closed in 1995 and a Variety reviewer since 1990, is a member, as are the Houston Press's Pete Vonder Haar and a former senior film critic of KUHF radio. Doug Harris, a Texas Radio Hall of Fame inductee who reviews for NASA's Third Rock Radio, was president from 2020 to 2022. By January 2026 the society had 40 members under president Travis Leamons.

In 2014 the society created the Texas Independent Film Award for feature-length, independently financed narrative or documentary films shot mostly in Texas. A committee screens submissions and puts five finalists before the full membership, which also gives a Texas Visionary Award to a filmmaker it wants to see more from. Joshua Starnes has long coordinated the process. The 2025 finalists were Joseph Kahn's Ick, the documentaries The Librarians, Luv Ya Bum (about Oilers coach Bum Phillips) and Selena y Los Dinos, and Rod Lurie's The Senior. The Librarians won at the 19th annual awards on January 20, 2026, the same night Sinners set a society record with eight wins.