Walter Francis Kerr (July 8, 1913 – October 9, 1996) was an American writer and Broadway theater critic. He also was a writer, lyricist, and director of several Broadway musicals.

Kerr was born in Evanston, Illinois and graduated from Northwestern University. He became a theater critic for the New York Herald Tribune in 1951, then began writing theater reviews for the New York Times in 1966. He wrote for the New York Times for seventeen years. Kerr won a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1978.

In 1990, the old Ritz theater on West 48th Street was renamed the Walter Kerr Theatre in his honor.