Tony Rayns

Antony Rayns (born 1948) is a British writer, commentator, film festival programmer and screenwriter. Much inspired in his youth by the films of Kenneth Anger, he wrote for the underground publication Cinema Rising (its name inspired by Anger's Scorpio Rising) before contributing to the Monthly Film Bulletin from the December 1970 issue until its demise in 1991. He has written for the British Film Institute's magazine Sight & Sound since the 1970s, and also contributed extensively to Time Out and to Melody Maker in the late 1970s.

Known for his expertise in East Asian cinema, he provides commentary tracks for DVD releases of Asian films. He coordinated the Dragons and Tigers competition for Asian films at the Vancouver International Film Festival from 1988 to 2006. In the 1980s, he presented a series called New Chinese Cinema on British television, showing (sometimes rare) films and biographies of eminent Chinese directors. He has also worked as a translator for English subtitles on films from Hong Kong, Japan, Korea and Thailand. For example, he wrote the English subtitles for the films of Huang Ming-chuan in the 1990s in Taiwan.