James Rufus Agee (AY-jee; November 27, 1909 – May 16, 1955) was an American novelist, journalist, poet, screenwriter, and film critic. In the 1940s, writing for Time, he was one of the most influential film critics in the United States. His autobiographical novel, A Death in the Family (1957), won the author a posthumous 1958 Pulitzer Prize.

Agee is also known as a co-writer of the book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men and as the screenwriter of the film classics The African Queen and The Night of the Hunter.

Born at Highland Avenue and 15th Street (renamed James Agee Street in 1999) to Hugh James Agee and Laura Whitman Tyler, James experienced a significant childhood event when his father died in an automobile accident in 1915, when Agee was six years old. From the age of seven, he and his younger sister, Emma, were educated in boarding schools.