21st century people inevitably need to critically take the content offered to them by the media they are in contact with. This situation requires individuals to have some competencies in terms of both media literacy and critical reading. In this study, the relationship between media literacy competencies and critical reading self-efficacy perceptions of teacher candidates of Turkish language was examined. New Media Literacy Scale for University Students and Critical Reading Self-Efficacy Scale were used as data collection tools. 445 participants studying at 14 different state universities in Turkey, participated voluntarily in the study. Statistical software program was used to analyze the data. Findings derived from the research illustrated that there was a positive significant relationship between the media literacy competencies of Turkish teacher candidates and their critical reading self-efficacy perceptions. No significant relationship between the media literacy competencies and critical reading self-efficacy perceptions of Turkish teacher candidates was observed in terms of gender. The media literacy competencies and critical reading self-efficacy perceptions of Turkish teacher candidates differ in favour of the participants studying in the upper category compared to the participants studying at middle and lower category universities.