Manuel Betancourt
Manuel Betancourt peering over an open copy of Hello Stranger beneath a mirrored sculpture

Film critic & culture writer · Los Angeles

Manuel Betancourt

Essays and criticism about desire, pop culture and the movies. Author of Hello Stranger and The Male Gazed, interim editor at Documentary magazine, and a regular critic on LAist’s FilmWeek.

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Bylines

  • Documentary
  • The New York Times
  • Los Angeles Times
  • Variety
  • Film Quarterly
  • Vulture
  • The A.V. Club
  • The Atlantic

Books

From Judy at Carnegie Hall and jungle gyms to thirst traps and throuples.

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  1. Hello StrangerBetancourt
  2. The Male GazedBetancourt
  3. Cardboard KingdomSell
  4. Judy33⅓

Essays · Catapult · 2025

Hello Stranger

Musings on Modern Intimacies

Witty and winkingly playful, Hello Stranger explores modern queer romance and the expansive possibilities of ephemeral intimacies. At once a personal excavation and a broad cultural critique, it moves from online sexting and real-life cruising to divorces and throuples, asking which intimacies we crave, value, and too often wear down with familiarity.

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“A persuasive and well-researched disquisition on the edifying and seductive potential of those we don’t yet know.”Jake Nevins, The New York Times Book Review

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ISBN 9781646222292 · Paperback out now

Memoir in essays · Catapult · 2023

The Male Gazed

On Hunks, Heartthrobs, and What Pop Culture Taught Me About (Desiring) Men

Featuring deep dives into thirst traps, drag queens, Antonio Banderas, and telenovelas—all in the service of helping us reframe how we talk about (desiring) men—The Male Gazed is an insightful memoir-in-essays that is as much a coming of age tale as it is a coming out book.

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“…deals directly and honestly with the paradoxes surrounding the topic of men.”John Paul Brammer, author of Hola Papi, in The New York Times

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ISBN 9781646222223 · Paperback and audiobook

Graphic novels · Knopf · 2018–2023 · Contributor

The Cardboard Kingdom

A series created, edited, and illustrated by Chad Sell

A neighborhood of kids turns cardboard boxes into costumes and their block into a kingdom. Contributing stories involving the characters of the Prince and the Rogue, Manuel has been a contributor to Chad Sell’s middle-grade graphic novel series since its inception.

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The Cardboard Kingdom cover
The Cardboard Kingdom, 2018
Roar of the Beast cover
Roar of the Beast, 2021
Snow and Sorcery cover
Snow and Sorcery, 2023

33⅓ series · Bloomsbury Academic · 2020

Judy at Carnegie Hall

On Judy Garland’s famed concert album

On April 23, 1961, Judy Garland walked onstage at Carnegie Hall in front of 3,165 fans. The recording became the first concert album, and the first by a woman, to win the Grammy for Album of the Year. Reading the set list, the star’s stage presence, and Garland’s place in gay culture, this small tome examines why that night became a long-running pop cultural phenomenon.

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ISBN 9781501355103

Manuel Betancourt in a black sweater against a pink wall

About

A queer Colombian writer and film critic, raised in Bogotá, based in Los Angeles.

Manuel is the interim editor at Documentary magazine and a regular critic on Larry Mantle’s FilmWeek on LAist. His criticism has been published in Variety, the Los Angeles Times and The A.V. Club, with features in The New York Times, Vulture, Esquire, The Atlantic and the Los Angeles Review of Books.

He was film and TV editor at Remezcla, wrote the “Cineando” column on Latin American cinema as a contributing editor at Film Quarterly, and holds a doctorate in English literatures from Rutgers University.

Programming, juries & affiliations

Programming
Tribeca Festival, U.S. Narrative Features, 2022–2025
Juries
Peabody Awards (2020–2026); Palm Springs, Seattle, New Orleans and Bend film festivals; American French Film Festival
Member
LAFCA · GALECA · LEJA, founding member
Residencies
Sundance Institute Documentary & Story Edit Lab, writer in residence, 2019 · Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, National Critics Institute, 2021
Anthologies & projects
Between Certain Death and a Possible Future (Arsenal Pulp, 2021, Lambda Literary Award finalist) · Rotten Tomatoes: The Ultimate Binge Guide (Running Press, 2021) · Greatest Docs of the 21st Century (Documentary magazine, 2026)

Selected writing

Criticism, features & essays

Reviews, interviews, and long reads on film, television and contemporary pop culture.

On air: FilmWeek and AirTalk with Larry Mantle (LAist), Dan Savage’s Lovecast, That’s a Gay Ass Podcast, Can’t Host.

Contact

Say hello, stranger.

Manuel Betancourt’s eye peeking over the pages of an open book