Manuel Betancourt is a Los Angeles-based queer Colombian writer and film critic.
He’s a contributing editor at Film Quarterly, where he publishes his column, “Cineando,” all about Latin American cinema. His work has been featured in The New York Times, BuzzFeed Reader, The Los Angeles Times, Film Comment, Esquire, The Atlantic, Los Angeles Review of Books and The AV Club, among others. He’s the former Film & TV editor at Remezcla.
His upcoming book is The Male Gazed: What Hunks, Heartthrobs and Pop Culture Taught Me About (Desiring) Men (Catapult, 2023). Featuring deep dives into thirst traps, drag queens, telenovelas, and Antonio Banderas—all in the service of helping us reframe how we talk about (desiring) men—his insightful memoir-in-essays is as much a coming-of-age as a coming out story
Manuel is also the author of Judy at Carnegie Hall (Bloomsbury Press, 2020), a 33 1/3 book on the cultural impact of the iconic 1961 Grammy award-winning double album that looks at Judy Garland’s place in the gay pantheon and examines her storied legacy through her most famous concert recording.
He’s one of the writers of Chad Sell’s critically acclaimed and Eisner Award-nominated graphic novel series The Cardboard Kingdom (Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2018, 2021). A New York Times Summer Pick, the middle-grade title was named one of the best books of the year by Kirkus Reviews (starred review) and the New York Public Library.
Manuel is a member of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA), GALECA, The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics, as well as a founding member of LEJA, Latino Entertainment Journalists Association. In 2019 he was selected to be the Writer in Residence at the Sundance Institute’s Documentary and Story Edit Lab.
Manuel holds a doctorate degree in English Literatures from Rutgers University.
Manuel Betancourt 