The Film Book

The second edition of Ronald Bergan’s The Film Book was published last month, ten years after the first edition, with a slightly tweaked subtitle (A Complete Guide to the World of Movies). The earlier edition included a list of 100 essential films (which first appeared in Bergan’s book Film), and the new edition adds an additional eight recent films to the list.

The extra titles in the “Must-See Movies” list are There Will Be Blood, White Material, Inception, Twelve Years a Slave, Boyhood, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Black Panther, and Parasite (기생충). Bergan also wrote Understanding Cinema and co-wrote 501 Must-See Movies (which has been updated in second, third, fourth, and fifth editions).

1001 MoviesYou Must See Before You Die

The 2020 edition of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die was published earlier this month. Edited by Steven Jay Schneider, the first edition appeared in 2003, minor revisions were made in 2004, and it has been updated annually ever since (2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019).

This year’s edition, revised by Ian Hayden Smith, features thirteen new titles. (It also includes a new introduction, the first since 2013.) All of the new entries, with one exception, were released in 2019: Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood, Parasite (기생충), For Sama (من أجل سما‎), Little Women, The Farewell (别告诉她), Monos, Booksmart, The Lighthouse, Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Portrait de la jeune fille en feu), Joker, Avengers: Endgame, and Toy Story IV. The exception is Lamerica, from 1994.

Although thirteen films were added, only eleven were deleted, because Avengers: Endgame was combined with Avengers: Infinity War as a single entry, and Toy Story IV was added to the single entry for all of the Toy Story films. The eleven deletions are: A Star Is Born (the Bradley Cooper remake); Vice; The Greatest Showman; Crazy Rich Asians; Mother!; The Shape of Water; Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri; Wadjda (وجدة‎); American Beauty; Gangs of New York; and The Blue Kite (藍風箏).

The Essentials (volume 2)

Jeremy Arnold’s book The Essentials, a guide to fifty-two classic films, was published in 2016. The second volume (52 More Must-See Movies and Why They Matter) will be released later this year. Volume two features another fifty-two classics; as in volume one, the films are listed chronologically, and there are no entries from the last thirty years.

The book rectifies some of the first volume’s significant omissions, with entries for Psycho and 2001. On the other hand, the list is too heavily skewed towards 1930s Hollywood and, from that period, relatively minor screwball comedies (Twentieth Century and Ball of Fire) are included whereas screwball classics (Bringing up Baby and His Girl Friday) are missing.

The 52 More Must-See Movies are as follows:

• Sunrise
  
• Steamboat Bill Jr
  
• Freaks
  
• Gold Diggers of 1933
  
• Twentieth Century
  
• Top Hat
  
• Mutiny on the Bounty
  
• Dodsworth
  
• The Awful Truth
  
• The Adventures of Robin Hood
  
• Stagecoach
  
• The Women
  
• The Great Dictator
  
• The Philadelphia Story
  
• The Maltese Falcon
  
• Ball of Fire
  
• Sullivan’s Travels
  
• Yankee Doodle Dandy
  
• Cat People
  
• Laura
  
• Mildred Pierce
  
• Brief Encounter
  
• Notorious
  
• The Ghost and Mrs Muir
  
• The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
  
• The Asphalt Jungle
  
• Rashomon
  
• A Place in the Sun
  
• An American in Paris
  
• The Quiet Man
  
• High Noon
  
• Kiss Me Deadly
  
• The Night of the Hunter
  
• Pather Panchali
  
• Rebel Without a Cause
  
• A Face in the Crowd
  
• Sweet Smell of Success
  
• The Bridge on the River Kwai
  
• Vertigo
  
• Pillow Talk
  
• The Apartment
  
• Psycho
  
• Ride the High Country
  
• The Battle of Algiers
  
• The Producers
  
• 2001: A Space Odyssey
  
• The Sting
  
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
  
• Harlan County, USA
  
• Network
  
• Hannah and Her Sisters
  
• Field of Dreams

The New York Times Book of Movies

The New York Times Book of Movies: The Essential 1,000 Films to See is the third edition of a film guide that was first published in 1999 (not, as the new edition says, 1987). The New York Times Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made was updated in 2004, and the retitled third edition appeared this month. The 1,000 films were selected by New York Times film critics A.O. Scott and Manohla Dargis.

This is not the only guide to 1,000 classic films. Others include: Halliwell’s Top 1,000 by John Walker, Time Out’s 1,000 Films to Change Your Life, The Guardian’s 1,000 Films to See Before You Die, and Have You Seen...? by David Thomson.

1001 MoviesYou Must See Before You Die

The 2019 edition of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die was published last week. Edited by Steven Jay Schneider, the first edition appeared in 2003, and it has been updated annually ever since (2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018).

This year’s edition, revised by Ian Hayden Smith, features twelve new titles: Phantom Thread, The Greatest Showman, Crazy Rich Asians, Capernaum, A Star is Born (the Bradley Cooper remake), Avengers: Infinity War, Roma, Hereditary, The Favourite, Sorry to Bother You, Vice, and BlacKkKlansman. The new entries were all released between 2017 and 2018.

To maintain the 1001 total, a dozen films from the previous edition have been deleted: Buffalo ’66, Three Kings, Magnolia, Kippur, A One and a Two... (一 一), Amores perros, Talk to Her (Hable con ella), Victoria, Spotlight, Dawson City: Frozen in Time, Lady Macbeth, and Under the Shadow. Most previous updates removed only recent films, though this year’s deletions include some twenty-year-old classics (such as A One and a Two... and Amores perros).

There are also a couple of minor changes to the illustrations. The entry for The Burmese Harp (ビルマの竪琴) previously featured an English-language poster, though this has been replaced with the correct Japanese version (page 318); and the poster for The Gleaners and I (Les glaneurs et la glaneuse) has been mistakenly replaced by a duplicated photograph (page 883).

100 Must-See Films

On 7th July, the Sunday People newspaper (a UK tabloid) published 100 Must-See Films, an eight-page supplement listing “the top 100 films of all time.” The list, compiled by Karen Rockett, does not include any silent or foreign-language entries.

The 12 Most InfluentialMovies of All Time

The 12 Most Influential Movies of All Time, by Barbara Krasner, is a guide to a dozen milestone films, arranged chronologically, with two pages devoted to each title. As the book is aimed at children, the twelve films are also child-friendly. (Don't expect to find Psycho, The Godfather, or Taxi Driver here.)

Even accounting for the young target audience, three Disney titles (Snow White, Toy Story, and Frozen) - a quarter of the entire list - seems excessive. Also, there are no foreign-language entries. An appendix lists five additional films: Titanic (the James Cameron version), the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Avatar, and two more Disney titles (Who Framed Roger Rabbit and The Little Mermaid). The bibliography has just two entries: 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die and (surprise, surprise) a Disney book.

Again, this is a children's book, so we shouldn't expect a scholarly tome, though there are plenty of factual errors. The Great Train Robbery has fourteen scenes, not "14 separate shots." Snow White was not "the first full-length animated movie." The Wizard of Oz's prologue is sepia, not "black-and-white film." Citizen Kane is not a "movie with no special effects". Three prop sharks, not one, were used in the making of Jaws. The book's glossary also contains some mistakes: confusingly, it defines a 'shot' as "frames in a movie" and 'footage' as "a specific section of a movie's film."

The twelve influential movies are as follows:

• The Great Train Robbery
  
• King Kong
  
• Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
  
• Gone with the Wind
  
• The Wizard of Oz
  
• Citizen Kane
  
• Singin' in the Rain
  
• Jaws
  
• Star Wars
  
• Jurassic Park
  
• Frozen
  

1001 MoviesYou Must See Before You Die

1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, edited by Steven Jay Schneider, has been revised for 2018. The new edition, updated by Ian Haydn Smith, features eleven new films, and eleven titles have been deleted. 1001 Movies was first published in 2003, and has been updated annually ever since. It was completely revised in 2013, though other editions (2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017) featured only minor changes.

The new films in the 2018 edition are: The Handmaiden; Lady Macbeth; Lady Bird; The Shape of Water; Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri; Call Me by Your Name; Mother!; Blade Runner 2049; Get Out; and Black Panther. While these choices are all justified though predictable, the documentary Dawson City: Frozen Time is a more surprising addition. The deleted films are: No Man's Land; The Consequences of Love; Tsotsi; Lincoln; The Revenant; Hell or High Water; The Jungle Book (the Jon Favreau version); Jackie; Manchester by the Sea; I, Daniel Blake; and Arrival.

100 Greatest Films

Today's issue of The Daily Telegraph features a 100 Greatest Films list compiled by film critic Robbie Collin. The list is organised by genre (from the conventional to the esoteric), and each director is limited to a single film. (Collin also contributed to 500 Must-See Films in 2013.)

100 and One Must See Movies!

In 2016, poster company Skratkz created 100 and One Must See Movies!, a poster featuring 101 classic films, each represented by an icon hidden behind a scratchable symbol. The idea was imitated a year later by Gift Republic's 100 Movies Bucket List poster. DOIY's 100 Movies You Must See Before You Die poster, in the style of an Advent calendar, is a similar concept.

100 Movies Bucket List

Last year, Gift Republic designed a 100 Movies Bucket List poster, featuring 100 classic films, each represented by an icon hidden behind a scratchable window. The idea was presumably based on the Skratkz poster 100 and One Must See Movies! from 2016. DOIY's 100 Movies You Must See Before You Die poster, in the style of an Advent calendar, is also a similar concept.

100 MoviesYou Must See Before You Die

DOIY, a Spanish design company, created a poster in 2016 featuring a hundred classic films. The poster (100 Movies You Must See Before You Die) resembles an Advent calendar, as each film title has a flap that can be opened to reveal a stylised image from the film. Two scratchable posters, Skratkz's 100 and One Must See Movies! and Gift Republic's 100 Movies Bucket List, have a similar concept.

1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, edited by Steven Jay Schneider, has been revised for 2017. The new edition, updated by Ian Haydn Smith, features a dozen new films. Therefore, twelve films have been deleted. 1001 Movies was first published in 2003, and has been updated annually ever since. It was completely revised in 2013, though other editions (2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015, and 2016) featured only minor changes.

The new films in the 2017 edition are: I, Daniel Blake; Manchester by the Sea; La La Land; Hell or High Water; The Jungle Book; 13th; Under the Shadow; Jackie; Toni Erdmann; Arrival; Moonlight; and Victoria. The deleted titles are: Slumdog Millionaire, Black Swan, A Separation, Life of Pi, Ida, Under the Skin, Leviathan, The Look of Silence , Whiplash, Bridge of Spies, Straight Outta Compton, and The Big Short.

101 Movies To Watch Before You Die

101 Movies To Watch Before You Die, written and illustrated by Ricardo Cavolo, is a guide to cult and classic films, arranged chronologically. Each film is briefly reviewed (in handwritten capital letters), alongside a full-page illustration. These illustrations are montages of the main characters from each film, and each character has an extra set of eyes. The book includes ninety-three individual films, seven trilogies, and eight Harry Potter episodes, making a total of 122 films.

100 Greatest Movies

Empire has released the results of its 100 Greatest Movies online readers' poll. The list will be featured in the magazine's July issue, which will be published on 15th June with five different covers: The Godfather, The Lord Of The Rings III, Star Wars V, Pulp Fiction, and Raiders Of The Lost Ark.

This is Empire's eighth greatest-films poll. The previous ones are: 100 Favourite Films Of All Time (1996), Your 100 Greatest Films Ever! (1999), The 50 Best Films (2001), 100 Greatest Movies Of All Time (2004), 201 Greatest Movies Of All Time (2006), The 500 Greatest Movies Of All Time (2008), and The 301 Greatest Films Of All Time (2014).

The 100 Greatest Movies are as follows:

100. Stand By Me
99. Raging Bull
98. Amelia
97. Titanic
96. Good Will Hunting
95. Arrival
94. Lost In Translation
93. The Princess Bride
92. The Terminator
91. The Prestige
90. No Country For Old Men
89. Shaun Of The Dead
88. The Exorcist
87. Predator
86. Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade
85. Leon
84. Rocky
83. True Romance
82. Some Like It Hot
81. The Social Network
80. Spirited Away
79. Captain America: Civil War
78. Oldboy
77. Toy Story
76. A Clockwork Orange
75. Fargo
74. Mulholland Drive
73. Seven Samurai
72. Rear Window
71. Hot Fuzz
70. The Lion King
69. Singin' In The Rain
68. Ghostbusters
67. Memento
66. Star Wars VI: Return Of The Jedi
65. The Avengers
64. LA Confidential
63. Donnie Darko
62. La La Land
61. Forrest Gump
60. American Beauty
59. ET: The Extra-Terrestrial
58. Inglourious Basterds
57. Whiplash
56. Reservoir Dogs
55. Pan's Labyrinth
54. Vertigo
53. Psycho
52. Once Upon A Time In The West
51. It's A Wonderful Life
50. Lawrence Of Arabia
49. Trainspotting
48. The Silence Of The Lambs
47. Interstellar
46. Citizen Kane
45. Drive
44. Gladiator
43. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
42. There Will Be Blood
41. Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind
40. Twelve Angry Men
39. Saving Private Ryan
38. Mad Max: Fury Road
37. The Thing
36. The Departed
35. The Shining
34. Guardians Of The Galaxy
33. Schindler's List
32. The Usual Suspects
31. Taxi Driver
30. Seven
29. The Bog Lebowski
28. Casablanca
27. The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly
26. Heat
25. Terminator II: Judgment Day
24. The Matrix
23. The Lord Of The Rings II: The Two Towers
22. Apocalypse Now
21. 2001: A Space Odyssey
20. Die Hard
19. Jurassic Park
18. Inception
17. Fight Club
16. The Lord Of The Rings III: The Return Of The King
15. Aliens
14. Alien
13. Blade Runner
12. The Godfather II
11. Back To The Future
10. The Lord Of The Rings I: The Fellowship Of The Ring
9. Star Wars IV: A New Hope
8. Jaws
7. Raiders Of The Lost Ark
6. GoodFellas
5. Pulp Fiction
4. The Shawshank Redemption
3. The Dark Knight
2. Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back
1. The Godfather

[Some entries in the list share the same titles as other films or remakes. Some Like It Hot is the Billy Wilder classic, Titanic is the James Cameron version, and The Avengers is the Joss Whedon version.]

Empire's 100 Greatest Movies

Empire has launched another 100 Greatest Movies online readers' survey, after previous polls in 2008 and 2014. The results will be published later this month, in the July issue of the magazine.

500 Must-See Movies

Total Film magazine has published a new film list it describes as "the essential selection every film fan should watch". 500 Must-See Movies is divided into five genres: comedies, thrillers, action, horror, and sci-fi. Three of the individual genre lists have been published previously as Total Film magazine supplements: science-fiction and fantasy (Summer 2016, issue 247), thrillers (August 2016, issue 248), and comedies (September 2016, issue 249).

Only five genres are represented, though films from excluded genres such as musicals, westerns, and animation have not been omitted. Instead, they have been reclassified: Singin' In The Rain appears in the comedies section, Snow White becomes science-fiction, The Searchers is designated an action movie, and Citizen Kane is apparently a thriller.

Other lists of 500 films include Empire magazine's The 500 Greatest Movies Of All Time (2008) and The Telegraph newspaper's 500 Must-See Films (2013). (I've also compiled my own list of 500 Classic Films.) Total Film's previous film lists are: The 100 Greatest Movies Of All Time (2005), The Top 100 Movies Of All Time (2006), The 67 Most Influential Films Ever Made (2009), and 100 Greatest Movies (2010).

1001 MoviesYou Must See Before You Die

Steven Jay Schneider's 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die has been updated for 2016. The 2013 edition was substantially revised, though this year's edition (as in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014, and 2015) substitutes only a handful of very recent films.

There are ten new entries this year: Spotlight, Mad Max: Fury Road, Straight Outta Compton, The Big Short, Bridge Of Spies, Tangerine, The Revenant, Son Of Saul, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and The Look Of Silence. Therefore, ten films have also been deleted: Cave Of Forgotten Dreams, Amour, Django Unchained, The Wolf Of Wall Street, Drive, The Act Of Killing, Senna, Citizenfour, Guardians Of The Galaxy, and The Theory Of Everything.

501 Must-See Movies

The fifth edition of 501 Must-See Movies contains eleven new entries, and therefore eleven deletions. The new films are Bridesmaids, Frozen, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Help, Zero Dark Thirty, Dallas Buyers Club, Twelve Years A Slave, Boyhood, The Revenant, Gravity, and American Sniper. The deleted titles are The Vikings; The Charge Of The Light Brigade; The Mission; A Cock & Bull Story; Knocked Up; Hello, Dolly!; Once; High School Musical III; Green Card; Naked Lunch; and AI: Artificial Intelligence.

There is no editor credited in this edition, though of the six authors, only one (Rob Hill) contributes to every chapter. The third and fourth editions also contained only minor changes, though the second edition was revised more extensively. The first edition was published in 2004.

The 100 Greatest Movies Of All Time

The 100 Greatest Movies Of All Time, by Frank Schnelle and Andreas Thiemann, is ambitiously subtitled The List To End All Lists. The authors have studied film lists from the past decade (many of which are featured on Dateline Bangkok), which they "collected, combined and, in the end, condensed... into one meta-list."

The 100 Greatest Movies are as follows:

1. Citizen Kane
2. The Godfather
3. 2001: A Space Odyssey
4. Blade Runner
5. Apocalypse Now
6. Pulp Fiction
7. Taxi Driver
8. Some Like It Hot
9. Casablanca
10. Singin' In The Rain
11. Chinatown
12. Vertigo
13. Psycho
14. Lawrence Of Arabia
15. The Godfather II
16. Seven Samurai
17. Rear Window
18. Raging Bull
19. Star Wars IV: A New Hope
20. North By Northwest
21. The Third Man
22. Jaws
23. M
24. Dr Strangelove
25. A Clockwork Orange
26. GoodFellas
27. The Searchers
28. Gone With The Wind
29. Sunset Boulevard
30. Alien
31. Tokyo Story
32. Schindler's List
33. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
34. It's A Wonderful Life
35. The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly
36. The Wizard Of Oz
37. Once Upon A Time In The West
38. The Apartment
39. Annie Hall
40. The Lord Of The Rings I: The Fellowship Of The Ring
41. Fight Club
42. ET: The Extra-Terrestrial
43. All About Eve
44. City Lights
45. Rashomon
46. The 400 Blows
47. The Matrix
48. Raiders Of The Lost Ark
49. 8½
50. The Rules Of The Game
51. Breathless
52. Battleship Potemkin
53. The Wild Bunch
54. Bicycle Thieves
55. The Shawshank Redemption
56. Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back
57. Touch Of Evil
58. Sunrise: A Song Of Two Humans
59. The General
60. Metropolis
61. On The Waterfront
62. The Night Of The Hunter
63. Back To The Future
64. The Big Lebowski
65. La Dolce Vita
66. Modern Times
67. The Silence Of The Lambs
68. Amelie
69. Nashville
70. Saving Private Ryan
71. The Shining
72. Double Indemnity
73. Grand Illusion
74. Andrei Rublev
75. Blue Velvet
76. The Seventh Seal
77. Fargo
78. The Deer Hunter
79. American Beauty
80. Terminator II: Judgment Day
81. The Gold Rush
82. Forrest Gump
83. LA Confidential
84. The Dark Knight
85. Les Enfants Du paradis
86. The Passion Of Joan Of Arc
87. Gladiator
88. City Of God
89. Bringing Up Baby
90. Aguirre: The Wrath Of God
91. The Maltese Falcon
92. The Leopard
93. Persona
94. Reservoir Dogs
95. Fanny & Alexander
96. L'Avventura
97. Bonnie & Clyde
98. Die Hard
99.The Usual Suspects
100. Once Upon A Time In America

[The book was first published in German, as Die 100 Besten Filme Aller Zeiten (2007). Note that Some Like It Hot is the 1959 Billy Wilder comedy, and The Maltese Falcon is the 1941 John Huston thriller.]