As a student, he started writing film criticism in a student magazine Kinoteka. He studied comparative literature and history at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Zagreb. Jurica Pavičić finished elementary and high school in Split. Pavičić describes his father as non-party atheist leftist, and his mother as a practical catholic. Mother's family is originally from the poor, baroque suburb of Split, Veli Varoš.

Father's family originated from the rural heratland of island Hvar (Vrbanj). His mother was a vocational high-school teacher. His father was chemical engineer working in plastic factories around Split. He described his family as a „typical Socialist middle-class family, product of Socialist modernization“. Pavičić won many awards for his journalist work. on, he publishes that column every Saturday in his home newspaper, Jutarnji list from Zagreb. In Croatia, he is famous for his weekly column Vijesti iz Liliputa ( News From Lilliput).

He works as a film critic, and he published several volumes of books on film criticism. His fiction books are translated in French, German, Italian, Macedonian, Slovakian, Slovenian and Latvian, and published in Serbia. A crime novel Red Water (published in Croatian in 2017) won Le Points award and Grand prix de la litterature policiere for the best European crime novel in 2021. His novels won several Croatian literary awards. Author of nine novels and two short story collections, he gained literary reputation with his unorthodox thrillers and crime novels which mix social analysis with deep insights into morally complex situations and human destinies. Jurica Pavičić is a Croatian novelist, screenwriter, short story writer and journalist.

Jutarnji list vijesti