One of the most famous film critics in the U.S., who became a fixture of popular culture as an editor and writer for Time magazine, has died. Time reports that Richard Corliss died Thursday night in New York City following a stroke. He was 71.

In a remembrance of Corliss, the magazine reports: “As a movie critic, his tastes were populist but eclectic. He was a fan of Chinese kung-fu movies and Disney animation (he put ‘Finding Nemo’ on his list of the 100 greatest films of all time, along with Jackie Chan’s ‘Drunken Master II’), but also the more demanding works of filmmakers like Ingmar Bergman, Werner Herzog and Rainer Werner Fassbinder. He revered the classical storytelling of Hollywood greats like David Lean, but was also drawn to dazzling, over-the-top stylists like Baz Lurhmann.”

After initially dismissing the 1977 hit “Star Wars,” Corliss “became a champion of the fantasy-adventure films of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas,” the report notes.

Corliss wrote of Spielberg’s 1982 film “E.T.”: “Not since the glory days of the Walt Disney Productions — 40 years ago, when ‘Fantasia’ and ‘Pinocchio’ and ‘Dumbo’ first worked their seductive magic on moviegoers of every age — has a film so acutely evoked the twin senses of everyday wonder and otherworldly awe.”