Sarah Ward
Sarah Ward is a film and television critic; arts, entertainment and culture editor and journalist; and film festival organiser.
She is a critic for ABC radio, including chatting about movies and TV weekly on the Spoiler Alert with Sarah Ward segment as part of the Evenings program on ABC Brisbane and Queensland. She is also the Australia-based film critic for Screen International; a critic and writer for ScreenHub, ArtsHub, Flicks, SBS and SBS Movies; and a critic and member at the Alliance of Women Film Journalists.
Sarah is a Tomatometer-approved film and TV critic, and her reviews are listed by Cherry Picks.
Alongside stints as film and television editor at Variety Australia, and as Goethe-Institut Australien’s Kino in Oz critic and writer, Sarah’s work has been published by The Guardian, Birth.Movies.Death, Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Lumina, Senses of Cinema, the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts, Junkee, FilmInk, Broadsheet, Televised Revolution, Metro Magazine and Screen Education, the City of Gold Coast and the World Film Locations book series.
Between 2019–2025, Sarah was Concrete Playground‘s film and television editor, as well as arts and entertainment editor — and also the publication’s film and television critic since 2014. Her time at the publication included working as Brisbane editor, associate editor, editor and acting managing editor.
For more than a decade and a half, she has been heard regularly on radio as a film and TV critic, including on ABC radio nationally, in Brisbane, and on the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast, as well as on Radio National and 4BC — and seen on The Project.
Sarah also co-hosted The Gaz, a podcast about Press Gang.
Sarah has worked in various roles, including as a manager, writer, editor and host, with the Brisbane International Film Festival, Queensland Film Festival, Sydney Underground Film Festival, Brisbane Asia Pacific Film Festival, Melbourne International Film Festival, Sydney Film Festival and Melbourne Festival. She has also been a mentor at the Melbourne International Film Festival’s Critics Campus.
Flavorwire named Sarah one of “15 Great Female Film Critics You Ought to Be Reading” worldwide.
In addition to the Alliance of Women Film Journalists, Sarah is a member of Online Film Critics Society, the Film Critics Circle of Australia and the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts.
Sarah is available for freelance opportunities. Find a partial archive of Sarah’s work at Muck Rack.