Los Angeles Times' former film critic, Justin Chang, was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for criticism on Monday. Chang was honored for his work published last year, led by an August article that defended director Christopher Nolan’s controversial decision to avoid depictions of the horrific atomic bombings of the Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Nolan's epic movie “Oppenheimer,” which went on to win the Academy Award.
Photographer Christina House was also awarded a Pulitzer in feature photography in 2023 for her striking and empathetic images of a young unhoused woman who was living alongside the Hollywood Freeway while dealing with drug issues and child birth. In 2022, Times photographer Marcus Yam was bestowed the breaking news photography award for his sobering images of the U.S. departure from Afghanistan that capture the human cost of the historic change in the country.