"Have You Seen...?": A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films

by David Thomson

In 1975, David Thomson published his Biographical Dictionary of Film, and few film books have enjoyed better press or such steady sales.

Now, thirty-three years later, we have the companion volume, a second book of more than 1,000 pages in one voice—that of our most provocative contemporary film critic and historian.

Juxtaposing the fanciful and the fabulous, the old favorites and the forgotten, this sweeping collection presents the films that Thomson offers in response to the question he gets asked most often—“What should I see?” This new book is a generous history of film and an enticing critical appraisal written with as much humor and passion as historical knowledge. Not content to choose his own top films (though they are here), Thomson has created a list that will surprise and delight you—and send you to your best movie rental service.

But he also probes the after one hundred years of film, which ones are the best, and why?

“Have You Seen . . . ?” suggests a true canon of cinema and one that’s almost completely accessible now, thanks to DVDs. This book is a must for anyone who loves the silver the perfect confection to dip into at any point for a taste of controversy, little-known facts, and ideas about what to see. This is a volume you’ll want to return to again and again, like a dear but argumentative friend in the dark at the movies.

Genres: Film, Nonfiction, Media Tie In, Reference, Essays, Criticism, History

1024 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

David Thomson, renowned as one of the great living authorities on the movies, is the author of The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, now in its fifth edition. His books include a biography of Nicole Kidman and The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood. Thomson is also the author of the acclaimed "Have You Seen . . . ?": A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films. Born in London in 1941, he now lives in San Francisco.

Reviews

[Paul Bryant]

2016 AT THE MOVIES


PART ONE : HOLLYWOOD

THE BEST

Love And Mercy – As a Brian Wilson fan I resisted seeing this, I thought it was really quite a creepy idea - he has been turned into a suffering saint - but finally I crumbled & was humbled – it was great, could not have been better.

The King’s Speech - as a hearty disliker of the British Royal family I resisted seeing this – what, a movie which inculcates sympathy for these tiresome parasites? but finally I crumbled & was humbled – it was great, could not have been better… hmmm

Room - ew, one of those capture-a-young-woman-and-rape-her-at-your-leisure stories which pop up in the news from time to time? No thank you, haven’t we had a plateful of female suffering on our screens already? But finally I crumbled & was humbled – it was great, could not have been better… er, didn’t I just say that already?

Love And Friendship – you’re kidding, a costume drama based on a Jane Austen short story? Gotta be so borrrringgggggg…. No thank you. But finally I crumbled & was humbled – it was great, could not have been better…. Er, I’m seeing a pattern here.

Joy – this was head and shoulders the best movie about the development and manufacture of mops I saw all year

Sing Street - musical of the year if that’s what it is – effortless and completely charming, must see if you don’t mind dreadful 1980s hair-dos



Plus these well-known winners

Brooklyn
Carol
Spotlight
The Big Short
Arrival

THE WORST

Sisters – Tina Fey, a comedy hero of mine, crashes and burns in painfully unfunny, crass
and crude disaster. Oh, Tina.

Fifty Shades Of Grey – it had to be seen and having been seen does not need to be seen any more by anyone else ever

Kill Your Darlings and On the Road – I read a great Jack Kerouac biography so I had to watch these two, and lo, they were really ghastly, as you probably could have told me

Independence Day : Resurgence - well, we like a good disaster movie, so we got hornswoggled

45 Years – got so much love and but it was like outtakes from a British version of The Walking Dead -okay, that’s a little harsh

PART TWO : FOREIGN STUFF

THE BEST

Rams (Iceland) – two sheep farming brothers have some unresolved issues in deepest Iceland; no really, you need two elderly Icelandic sheep farmers in your life! Trust me on this



Second Mother (Brazil) – the estranged daughter, now a hipster student, finally visits her mother and finds to her horror that she’s a live-in maid who’s treated like a dishcloth by the rich family. Everybody gets what they deserve. Five stars.

Dear Diary (Italy) – a discovery from 1993 – wayward, wacky & wonderful – just a modest little autobiographical movie which shows effortlessly how movies can be. Five stars.

About Elly (Iran) – tense stuff about a missing woman – stuff your Gone Girl, this is more like it

Beyond The Hills (Romania) – if you’re looking for a great drama about a Romanian nunnery here it is – the 2 and a half hours will flash by in a trice.

What We Do In The Shadows (New Zealand) – Shaun of the Dead is now 12 years ago and how many really funny horror comedies have there been? Finally here is another.



Mustang (France/Turkey) – enthralling drama about five orphaned teenage sisters; the aunt and uncle can’t cope with them in rural Turkey & so decide to marry them off; great stuff



Girlhood (France) – everybody loved this one about girl gangstas in ruff tuff Paris and everybody was right

The Golden Dream (Mexico) – tough heartbreaker about three kids trying to get across Mexico to the USA

THE WORST

A Pigeon Sat On A Branch Contemplating Existence - avoid
I’m So Excited! - avoid
A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night - avoid

THE FIVE BEST FOREIGN MOVIES I FINALLY GOT ROUND TO SEEING

Europa Europa – Young Julie Delpy as a Nazi – how good is that
The Double Life Of Veronique
Le Trou
Nosferatu
Cleo From 5 To 7

THE WEIRDEST

Enter The Void – I’m a big fan of Irreversible, which I can see many people would really hate, it's a really great sort-of-horror movie, if you can take it; but I couldn’t take this lunatic froth with the camera perched perpetually two feet behind the head of the protagonist the entire time, plus all the acid trip stuff, ugh

PART THREE : CATCHING UP WITH CLASSIC OLD HOLLYWOOD

THE BEST

Grand Hotel
Roman Holiday



Nothing Sacred


THE WORST

How Green Was My Valley – words cannot express how bad etc etc
Shanghai Express – words cannot express how annoying etc etc
The Magnificent Ambersons – words cannot express how tedious etc etc

PART FOUR : AMERICAN INDIES

Three good ones:

Diary Of A Teenage Girl – cringemaking but sort of beautiful

Captain Fantastic – all about either the best dad in the world or the worst dad in the world, you decide

James White – glumfest in which hipster tries desperately to look after his dying mother – I’m not really selling this one too well

2016 was a crap year for me on a personal level but a very good one for movies. So let Hank Williams sum it up :

The land's so poor so hard and yeller
You have to set on a sack of fertilizer to raise an umbrella
And it rains out here nearly every day
But we're still a-livin', so everything's okay

The hogs took the cholera and they've all done died
The bees got mad and they left the hive
The weevils got the corn and the rain rotted the hay
But we're still a-livin', so everything's okay

The porch fell down that's more expense
The darned old mule he tore down the fence
The mortgage is due and I can't pay
But we're still a-livin', so everything's okay




PS

this is in response to Kirk's summary here

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Jill Hutchinson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am not fan of film critics (except the late Roger Ebert) but this book caught my attention. My mistake!

It appears that the author is quite famous but since I don't usually follow critics, I am unfamiliar with him. I realize that his opinions are just that....his opinions but it appears that he finds something with which to find fault in every entry in this collection. The films included here are not necessarily those you find in other books and he does mention that the reader may be surprised that he omitted some of the greats. Although he did review some classics, it seems that he only put in ones that he didn't like. Some of his reasoning for fault-finding escaped me totally and frankly, it got old very fast.

I'm sure there are other movie buffs out there who liked this book but count me out!

[Sketchbook · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thomson blogs. It's like reading GR, which is both good, bad and that's enough for now.

I did not finish reading 1,000 reviews, but I did abt 200. So far. Thomson has written film revs for The Guardian and The New Republic that I've admired, so his effort to rival The Kael (and her "5001 Nights at the Movies," 1982), intrigued me. Plus his tome, 2008, takes us into the 21st century. But it's disappointing. The essays, all about 1,200 words each, read like humdrum "homework." Or improv bloggery.

Graham Greene, who reviewed films for about 4 years, strongly felt that that a critic should entertain as well as inform. Kael could be a nasty bitch, but she is a superb writer and stylist. Andrew Sarris, a generous critic, usually, liked somersaulting with phrases (he even got himself tangled up), but his viewpoints are always keen.

A sort of committee, Thomson reports, and his Knopf editor Bob Gottlieb, helped suggest the movies herein. A serious problem is that all the essays are of the same length. Whose bad idea was that? Was this to separate Thomson fr books by Kael & Sarris? Result: it produces a staggering sameness. It also means that when Thomson has nothing to say (which often happens), he rambles on with credits which take up a lot of space. He avoids discussing "plot," and instead tells chatty backstage stories/ gossip that can be of minor interest. (I didnt realize that Garbo's last movie, a fluff comedy flop, "Two-Faced Woman," 1941 , opened 3 weeks after Pearl Harbor). Further, I didnt know that the wretched Lillian Hellman had written a version of "Streetcar," 1951, that had a happy ending! On the other hand, is it really interesting that Gene Tierney turned down the Preston Sturges wacky comedy, "Unfaithfully Yours," 1948, so the role went to Linda Darnell....He also lets us know that King Vidor was having a romance with Miriam Hopkins...didnt everyone ?

There's some damn good stuff, but not enough. He refers to Chabrol's crimer "Le Boucher" (1970) as "magnificent...with savage beauty," and I heartily concur. And he notes that the Natalie Wood character in "Splendor in the Grass" (1961) goes mad from not having sex. I hadnt seen this deadly, but riotous comment in print before... He praises "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," 1953, for the adroit partnering of Monroe & Jane Russell (middlebrows sniff at this musical), so "glamour was in full sail...I treasure the film."

He reveres the great Robert Bresson, who often used unknowns. Reviewing "Pickpocket," 1959, ("a heaven of a movie") he thinks the camera is in love with the stunning actor playing the pickpocket -- and then he suddenly asks: "Am I crazy, or was Bresson gay?" The bisexual drama, "Sunday, Bloody Sunday," 1970, provokes him to announce, "John Schlesinger was gay, and I suspect..he was itching to get that onscreen." 2005, "Brokeback Mountain," he continues, "doesnt work for me." Why? "There's no reason why these two thwarted lovers [cowboys] dont quit Wyoming and go off to Los Angeles together." -- Methinks Thomson has a particular problem...

When all is said and done, I must state that the best book of film reviews is surely the TimeOut Film Guide fr Penguin Books, which enlists about 100 smart contributors who are allowed only 200-350 words. The writing is accomplished, vivid and should be studied in writing classes.

[Charles Matthews · Rating 3 out of 5]

Everybody loves a list. The American Film Institute, for example, gets a couple of TV specials every year out of listing the 100 best movies in some genre or other. And every film critic in the country is annually obligated to come up with a list of the top ten movies of the year.

But a list of 1,000 films? The vastness of such a project betrays its absurdity: No one's critical sensibility is so fine-tuned as to allow a convincing distinction in quality between the thousandth film on the list and the dismissed thousand-and-first.

David Thomson is the author of numerous film books – biographies, histories, essays, even novels – all marked by passion, curiosity, scholarship and wit. His Biographical Dictionary of Film, with its blend of factual information and critical insight, is one of the essential movie books, and “Have You Seen...?” was proposed by his editors as a kind of companion volume. Thomson says in the introduction that he designed it to answer the question he's asked frequently: “What should I see?” But really, the book is an excuse for Thomson to wander around the gargantuan buffet table of movies, gleefully picking and choosing, sampling, savoring (and sometimes spitting out) whatever catches his fancy. He also makes it clear from the beginning that he's not going to be tied down by any list-making principle other than that there have to be 1,000 entries of approximately 500 words each. The first entry – the book is arranged alphabetically -- is Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, which he says is there because a friend told him he couldn't lead off the book with any film so solemn and earnest as the one he first chose: Abe Lincoln in Illinois. High seriousness is not Thomson's typical mode, so to set the right tone for the book, Bud and Lou replaced Abe and Mary.

Blithely making up the rules for inclusion as he goes along, he slips in entire TV series (“Monty Python's Flying Circus,” “The Sopranos”) when it suits him and when he can make a point (e.g., “The Sopranos” shows how much better the Godfather films are). There were to be no documentaries until he decided to include one because it was made by Orson Welles (F for Fake). And he even includes a film that he hasn't seen for more than 30 years and hasn't been able to find a print of: Roger Vadim's Sait-On Jamais..., which Thomson admits is “not a great movie,” but remembers for its great jazz soundtrack. The entry leaves you wondering about the thousand-and-first movie that got dropped so one he saw nearly half his lifetime ago could be included.

To put it succinctly, “Have You Seen...?” is a big, glorious, infuriating and illuminating mess. You'll be happiest with it if you're on Thomson's wave length, that is, if your favorite directors include Renoir, Hawks, Welles, Hitchcock, Preston Sturges, Ozu, Mizoguchi, Antonioni, Bergman. You'll be less happy if you prefer Ford, Wilder, David Lean, Woody Allen, Scorsese, Kubrick, Kurosawa or Fellini, all of whom he finds wanting in one way or another. He acknowledges what he regards as their best work, but even then his preferences can be startling. He thinks, for example, that Otto Preminger's Exodus is better than Lean's Lawrence of Arabia. His favorite Allen film is Radio Days, which he calls “a masterpiece.” Annie Hall, on the other hand, he regards as “disastrously empty.” Taxi Driver, he says, “is a great film ... hallucinatory, beautiful and scarring.” Whereas the movie a lot of people think of as Scorsese's masterpiece, Raging Bull, he finds “fascinating, but truly confused.” You don't come to such books just to sate your complacent taste, but to bristle at the things you disagree with and to whet your counter-arguments.

But with a universe of films to choose from, it's sad that Thomson wastes space and energy getting in a few more kicks at a movie like The Sound of Music, which has been stomped on by every reputable critic for the past 43 years and still keeps cheerfully toddling along, chirping about raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens. It's the Teflon musical, and Thomson's treatment of it is more like bullying than criticism. He says he includes it because “millions of the stupid and aggrieved will write in to the publisher, 'Where was The Sound of Music?'” But so what if they do? This belies the advice he had given only a few entries earlier, writing about why he includes Vincente Minnelli's Some Came Running instead instead of his Gigi: “If you love Colette, Gigi is ghastly. If you don't love Colette, put this book aside.”

In the end, everyone who doesn't put it aside will find much to like and learn from. Thomson is, after all, an incisive observer and a tremendously clever writer, and his enthusiasms have taken him into dusty corners: He's a great fan of film noir, for example, so the book is dotted with obscure melodramas from the 1940s. There are also films in the volume that only a few fanatics like Thomson have even heard of, let alone seen. But everyone will also find something missing. For example, he stints on the great genre of animation, including only a few Disney classics, an odd little essay on the Tom and Jerry short “The Cat Concerto,” and a nice tribute to Sylvain Chomet's The Triplettes of Belleville, in which he disses the Pixar films because he finds their “sunniness ... boring and complacent.” That's his prerogative, but why no acknowledgment of the work of Chuck Jones and others at Warner Bros.? Or the miraculous films, like Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke, of Hayao Miyazaki?

See, that's the thing about lists. Give us a thousand films to think about, and we'll still think about the ones you left out.

[Kirk]

Update 12/31/17:
Three more movies seen before the end of the horrid year 2017:

Guardians of the Galaxy 2 - ***
Die Hard (r)
My wife had never seen it, and it was playing in Bury St. Edmunds one night only. Holds up amazingly well, given how many action movies of that era are cringe-inducing now. Yippekayee.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
I never thought I would type these words: Mark Hamill is great in this movie. Seriously. I'm not even kidding.

Annual check on glass ceiling of directing films: 105 movies seen, 12 directed by women. Which is actually a slight improvement on 2016, in which it was 6 out of 94.
____________________________________________________________
And it’s time for part 2 of my 2017 State of Cinema, logging movies seen from July thru December. Part 1, January thru June, is here:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
Again I’m posting this early before a two week break in the UK, and I’ll update at the end of the month with any flicks seen between now and the blessed end of 2017.
bold = five stars or nearly so.
Rewatches are noted as such, all others seen for the first time.


The Year's Bigger Releases

Baby Driver
About two inches deep but very entertaining.

War for the Planet of the Apes
So I saw all three of the Ape reboots, and they're all good and more-or-less recommended, but this is also an epic Bechdel Fail. There's a six-year-old mute human girl who is the only significant female in the entire film. Do better, movies.

Dunkirk
Yep everyone else is right, one of the best of the year, incredibly immersive.

Detroit
Grueling but excellent, shot to look so real it's almost like watching a documentary. Good thing we solved race in the ensuing decades, right?

Atomic Blonde
Screw all the sniffy reviews, Charlize Theron can do action flicks on par with about anyone. Really, if you can't enjoy this, why are you watching action flicks at all?

Battle of the Sexes
I watched the Billy Jean King - Bobby Riggs match as it happened, along with 90 million other people (I was ten). No one I knew was rooting for him. Anyway, this is really enjoyable, it plays as a light comic drama while being clear-eyed as to what '70s chauvinism was like. Weirdly, it shows how a blatant gimmicky exhibition carried real consequences if Billy Jean didn't win. She did.

Lady Bird
Greta Gerwig's directoral debut, this might be nothing special except that every detail is so right. Even characters with just one scene are drawn so specifically. It adds up to something great.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Another great one, starring national treasure Frances McDormand. Somehow it's very funny while also often being horrific or unbearably sad. Highly recommended.

The Shape of Water
A Cold War dark romantic fantasy with Sally Hawkins & The Creature from the Black Lagoon. It's pretty fabulous.


Dual Reviews of Blade Runner 2049

1) If the movie existed in a vacuum: It's very good, first reaction is relief they didn't botch it up. Captures the original's tone of awe mixed with melancholy disillusionment. Denis Villeneuve is one of my favorite current directors, his previous five films (Incendies, Prisoners, Enemy, Sicario, Arrival) are all highly recommended. The one big misstep is Gosling's fake hologram girlfriend, who's given way too much screen time. Sorry, but after Archer, there needs to be a moratorium on fake hologram girlfriends.
2) But it doesn't exist in a vacuum: Thing is, Blade Runner is one of my favorite films ever, one I'll continue to go back to and never tire of. 2049, in the months since I saw it, I've hardly thought about it. The main storyline is ok but not that resonant. I may eventually watch it again but I'm in no hurry to do so.


Everything Right with Indie Flicks

Columbus
Hard to describe without making it sound dull, but you could say it's about human connection, and one of the best films about a non-romantic relationship I've ever seen. The sleeper of 2017.


Everything Wrong with Indie Flicks

Mr. Nobody
Quirky, precious, and twee, plus it's two and a half interminable hours. Avoid avoid avoid.


I also saw

Boxcar Bertha **
The Big Sick ***
Nobody Knows ***
The Little Hours ***
The Missing Picture ***
Day of the Outlaw ***
God's Own Country ****


Horror, inspired by reading Kier-la Janisse’s House of Psychotic Women

Defenceless: A Blood Symphony
Nope. Australian extreme horror, I took a chance on this based on its gimmick of being entirely without dialogue. That worked well enough, but the violent scenes were truly sickening and gratuitous, plus the movie seems to have been filmed on videotape, giving everything a cheap, graceless feel. Not recommended.

Dracula's Daughter
1936 sequel to Dracula. Fairly uninspired, notable only for being maybe the first depiction of a sympathetic vampire.

Alucarda
Utterly bonkers Mexican horror flick. 74 minutes of screaming, blood, nudity, screaming, satanism, and more screaming. By no reasonable measure is this a good movie, but I'm not sorry to have watched it. It's never boring.

Don't Deliver Us from Evil
Ok, so remember the real life murder case that inspired Heavenly Creatures? Well in 1971 this French film was also inspired by that case, then threw out anything factual and went its own way. Two Catholic schoolgirls decide to worship Satan and spend the summer doing various bad things. What's fascinating is there is no actual supernatural element to the movie. The two girls do things that are cruel and wrong, though the only time they kill anyone, it's a guy who was trying to rape one of them. And while the script is ordinary the actresses manage to suggest that they're less than sure of themselves but committed to their pact anyway. The story proceeds to an unblinking inexorable climax that's stunning. Flawed but definitely worth seeing.


Other Horror

Raw
French extreme horror, sort of. Much talked about cannibal-themed flick, mostly lives up to hype. There are a few scenes that are hard to watch, but really this plays more as an intense drama about people who don't act like they're in a horror film. Recommended if the violence quotient doesn't put you off. Most memorable for the relationship between the main character and her sister, which could have been leaned on even more.

The Dunwich Horror
I love '70s horror movies because so many were made without a template or formula. That said, some efforts work, some don't. This one is truly terrible. Vague Lovecraft nonsense in New England, with Dean Stockwell as the least threatening Satanist ever, menacing Sandra Dee. Yes, Sandra Dee.

Of Unknown Origin
This is a cheap Canadian schlock horror, but as such is fairly entertaining. Peter Weller is a white collar type A trying to rid his brownstone of a (rather large) rat. That's it, and it's surprisingly pretty good.

From Beyond the Grave
One of those anthology horror flicks they liked to make in the '70s. Mostly forgettable, but one segment (out of four) is quite good, about an unhappy husband who befriends a veteran and his daughter, played by Donald Pleasance and his real life daughter Angela Pleasance.


Horror Rewatches

The Fly
Cronenberg's superior remake, still brilliant, gory as hell, disgusting, and in the end wrenching.

Evil Dead 2
Still gonzo insane, hilarious, and entertaining as hell.

Nosferatu
1922 silent, still eerie and effective, with half a dozen brilliant visual images.


Other rewatches

Runaway Train
As great as I remembered, one of Jon Voigt's best roles, and a fantastic ending.

Zulu
Well my wife was bored silly but I still think it holds up. Admittedly old fashioned but committed to its story and impressively filmed.

Story of Women
Atypical Claude Chabrol film, a straight drama about an abortionist in Nazi-occupied France. Isabelle Huppert adds to her gallery of unlikable heroines.

Gun Crazy
Among my favorite film noirs, star-crossed outlaw lovers on a highway to a bad end. Makes a great bookend to They Live By Night. Peggy Cummins is nearly as great as Jane Greer in Out of The Past.

Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean
I remembered this as my second favorite Altman movie (after McCabe & Mrs. Miller) but hadn't seen it in 20+ years. Happy to say it's still great. Everyone has a secret but Karen Black has the best secret. This is probably the best role she ever had. Recommended.


Other foreign language films

Moka
French psychological thriller, very like something Chabrol might have made. In fact, it has a similar plot to Chabrol's This Man Must Die.

Yella
One of a half dozen films Nina Hoss has done with director Christian Petzold. All are worth seeing, the best of these is Phoenix. This one relies on a twist you might guess, but is recommended anyway. Hoss might be the best actress out of Europe since Isabelle Huppert.

Umberto D.
One of the saddest dog films this side of Old Yeller, though at least the dog doesn't die.

Summer With Monika
Early Bergman film, with Harriet Andersson indelible as a force of nature. One of those characters who does some really bad things in the last act yet you somehow can't quite root against her.

Branded to Kill
Another surreal '60s yakuza mashup by Seijun Suzuki, made the year after Tokyo Drifter which I saw last year. I enjoyed both but understood neither. This one got Suzuki fired by his studio. Guess they didn't understand it either.

Thelma
Norwegian psychodrama about a sheltered girl who goes off to college and things get weird. Except the weird seems to emanate from her. A similar family dynamic to Raw, where no one is truly bad but intentions often go awry. Vividly filmed and highly recommended.

Weekend
So until now my entire history with Godard was seeing Breathless decades ago, finding it pointless and stupid and avoiding Jean-Luc ever since. Weekend is much better, anarchic and strange, very of its time but at least it's saying something. (Check with Jean-Luc as far as what that is.)


And the rest of what I saw

10 Rillington Place
About British serial killer John Christie. I guess this works, as it leaves you feeling as squalid and grimy as John Christie's soul. Not one I'm likely to rewatch this century.

Lady MacBeth
Yet more feel bad cinema, though expertly done. A knockout lead performance by Florence Pugh, who I imagine will be going places.

Top Hat
I'd somehow never seen any Fred Astaire musicals. Now I have; this is lighter than air, alot of fun. Astaire is somehow self-satisfied yet very likable, and pairs well with Ginger Rogers who's earthier and more grounded.

Distant Voices, Still Lives
A year ago I saw The Long Day Closes (both autobiographical Terence Davies films), this one I liked better for being more linear. It shows lives desperately poor and miserable yet people who have an amazing capacity to be happy. Not sure how he does it.

Auto Focus
Paul Schrader film about Bob Crane, the star of '60s sitcom Hogan's Heroes who was a sex addict and was murdered in 1978. A supremely odd true story. What's arresting about this is how hard you had to work at it to be a sex addict in pre-internet days. From our vantage point of 2017, it looks exhausting.

Margin Call
I've seen three movies about the recent financial meltdown (the others: Too Big to Fail & The Big Short), all are very good, this one is probably the best. No fewer than four outstanding performances by Kevin Spacey, Zachary Quinto, Paul Bettany, and Stanley Tucci. When Spacey's character provides the moral conscience of the film, you know you're swimming with sharks.

Doomsday
I like the films of Neil Marshall, who made The Descent (horror, brilliant), Dog Soldiers (werewolf horror, very good), and Centurion (Roman soldiers under siege, underrated). Well, those are all better than this one. Doomsday is a post-apocalypse action flick, and has a certain pulp entertainment value, but still comes off as Mad Max Goes to Scotland.

Performance
Very of its time, I can squint and see how it was a big deal back in the day, but I have to say I grew rather impatient with it in the end. "Memo From Turner" is a great song though.

The Duke of Burgundy
On the surface a lesbian dominance and submission drama, but beneath that it's actually not exploitive at all and is more concerned with the genuine emotions of the characters. Not much plot, but wow, this film is so visually exquisite it makes Carol look like a Kevin Smith movie. Production design up the yin yang.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer
Maybe the most unnerving film of the year. Everything is just slightly off, people talk like if aliens made a movie trying to sound like humans and almost managing it but not quite. The actual story, I don't even know how to begin...

The Iceman Cometh
1973 version of Eugene O'Neill's play. I mean it's good, but Christ four hours (yes, four hours) of male drunken self-loathing gets to be a bit much. The standout in the cast is Robert Ryan, maybe my favorite character actor of all time. He's fantastic, and this was his swan song, he was dying of lung cancer when he made it and died before the film's release.

A Story of Children and Film
After watching Mark Cousins' opus The Story of Film (essential viewing that deserves its own review), we watched this related project, quite useful in that it seemed like 90% of the films discussed I haven't seen and many many of them I'd never heard of.


Two lists.
The Best 2017 Films I Saw in 2017

Get Out (this has to be my film of the year as I saw it in February and almost a year later I'm still thinking about it)
Tower
Julieta
20th Century Women
Beware the Slenderman
Dunkirk
Columbus
Lady Bird
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Thelma
The Shape of Water


Underappreciated People and Films in My Cinema Year

Chris Stamp, the brilliant raconteur and interview subject of Lambert & Stamp
Sennia Nanua, the title character in The Girl With All the Gifts
Blue Ruin
Colossal
Don't Breathe
Haley Lu Richardson & John Cho in Columbus
Columbus
The sublime visual elegance of The Duke of Burgundy
Thelma

[Jarvo · Rating 5 out of 5]

David Thomson enjoys an enormous reputation as a film critic, fed, above all, by his Biographical Dictionary of Film, voted the best film book ever by a panel of his peers in Sight and Sound. Its perhaps telling then that he has chosen to complement that with a book of similar size, this time dedicated to films themselves. And these are, I believe, his most successful books by some distance. Is there, perhaps, something in his approach that is at its best when dealing with the details, rather than in constructing grand narratives?
Its worth saying what this book is not. It is not a 'best of' or listing of a 1,000 films that you ought to see. It is not encyclopaedic (no encyclopaedias, a limited number of animations) nor is it balanced. By the author's own admission it has a disproportionate number of films from the 40's and 50's, and there are far more American films than anything else. Other national traditions are not overlooked - Thomson is enamoured of classic Japanese cinema of the 50's (Ozu and Mizoguichi in particular) and reserves some of his highest praise for 'difficult' European directors including Antonioni and Godard. But he doesn't include much of what we now call 'world cinema' (presumably to distinguish it from films made on Mars or Venus). What the book is is a collection of short-ish (500 to 600 word) entries on films which the author found interesting enough to write about. The results are at times idiosyncratic, often very entertaining, but taken together they provide an insight into what a broader grand narrative for film might need to take into account. These include:
- there is something to auteur theory, the notion that the director is the key author of a film and that it represents her point of view, and that this can be as true of a Hollywood comedy by Preston Sturges or Howard Hawks as it is of some arthouse classic by Bunuel or Truffaut;
- but the director has to be backed up an extensive team of technicians (people who do the lighting, the photography, who write and perform the music, and design the sets and the costumes). Most reviews contain lists of these people which can seem like padding at first but have a cumulative effect - I knew, for example, that Edith Head was a costume designer I'd never have guessed that I'd seen her work on at least 13 occasions;
- for better or worse the people collaborating on film's include the actors, who, to be frank I tend to ignore. I watch a lot of films but only rarely would I watch something because of a favourite actor (Robert Mitchum, Cary Grant, and Monica Vitti are the only exceptions I can think of). Thomson is fairer to the thespians and for a lot of people they are the movies;
- the numbers matter, especially in American cinema and Thomson often says how much a film cost and how much it made;
- technique on its own doesn't carry you very far, you have to be interested in something in the world. Stanley Kubrick and the Coen brothers get short shrift on this front;
- Hollywood is a staggeringly poor judge of what it does well, as frequent discussions of the Oscars make clear. Hollywood comedies, musicals and the species of melodrama known as a 'woman's picture' have lasted better than most self consciously important or serious films;
- regular film goers (and certainly film critics) spend a long time in the dark looking at images of unusually (unrealistically?) attractive people, which might lead to you thinking things better left unsaid, and definitely left unwritten. This is true of several of the author's comments on Nicole Kidman, and other actresses besides. Notwithstanding you can't seriously contemplate cinema without covering gender and sexuality.
And this leaves so, so much out. Like how many good French films there were before the New Wave rewrote history. Or how you might want to write a history of the migration of European filmmakers to Hollywood (and back again), noting that this was happening from the 20's onwards, that this took Hitchcock and Lang to new levels, even if it didn't do much for Renoir or Ophuls.
A quick note on my approach to the book. At first I thought it was something to dip in and out of but that was far from satisfactory - Thomson doesn't set out to write objective reviews, and the book works better when you begin to pick out the themes. I ended up reading a print version (beginning at the end) and a Kindle version (beginning at the beginning). And even though Thomson isn't trying to be objective you nearly always end up agreeing with him, and he has a knack of completely 'nailing' a film in a sentence. When it is awful (The Matrix...'is the enactment of its own warning'); when it is great (L'Atalante 'not so much a masterpiece as a definition of cinema'); or something perched precariously in between ('Yes it was a disaster...It is also a wounded monster').
Without doubt my reading experience of the year.

[Robert Beveridge · Rating 5 out of 5]

David Thomson, Have You Seen...?: A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films (Knopf, 2008)

I am enough of a film geek that I have a favorite critic, Jonathan Rosenbaum. He's witty, acerbic, and all too clear-eyed (enough to make an amateur like me wonder where I, or he, has gone so horribly wrong on certain movies). But after reading David Thomson's capsule notes on a thousand movies ranging from stuff everyone's written column inches on to movies even you have never heard of, Rosenbaum has some competition for the top spot. Why? If I tried to answer that question with quotes from Have You Seen...?, we'd be here all day. I have spent the last month (I started the book on January 11th, and I finished it on February 10th) throwing quotes from it out as Facebook status updates, usually three or four a week, when Thomson spouted something exceptionally witty, or when he'd come up with a way to say something I'd tried to get across in a review and failed. And yes, just like Rosenbaum, I found myself wondering where on Earth one of us had gone wrong in looking at a particular movie on a fairly regular basis. Thomson does state at the outset that a lot of these recommendations are of the “you had to be there” variety (and as I'm thirty years younger, that's not possible for me), but his version of “you had to be there” is solid through and through. Not enough to make me think I could ever be convinced that Godard is anything other than a crashing bore, for example, but at least I can understand what Thomson sees in him.

Understand, as well, that this is not a thousand-best list. Thomson (and, he tells us at one point, a team of friends he had lob titles at him to give him a master list from which he chose a thousand pictures) selected many of the movies in this book because they're so popular with critics or with the public, not because he's overly fond of them. And in those notes, we get anything from clearheaded dissection of why a movie isn't aging well (Anthony Mann's later pictures often get this treatment) to sheer, unadulterated vitriol (The Sound of Music). Anyone who reads and enjoys reviews knows that vitriol, while ultimately baseless (Thomson tells us nothing of why he thinks The Sound of Music is garbage, really), is some of the most pleasurable criticism to read.

There are times when I disagree with him, and if you've got a decent breadth of film-watching beneath your belt, there are times when you will as well, but that makes this no less worth being on your short shelf of favorite film books. There are sections of this you will read again and again. Maybe even the whole 1007-page thing. It is one of literature's, and film's, sublime pleasures, and has secured a place on my ten best reads of the year list. But I still think, though we both seem to revere the film, his final paragraph on Werckmeister Harmonies is entirely off the mark. **** ½

[Spencer Rich · Rating 4 out of 5]

Certainly one of the best of its kind. I found I had to keep pen and paper nearby to keep a list of all the things I needed to see and hadn't. His attention to detail, from production and studio details to set design to minor cast members is uncanny. The other fascinating thing is his lack of attachment to any particular time period or part of the world. He is equally at home in studio system Hollywood as post-Iron Curtain Eastern Europe. And while I don't always agree with his opinions, they are generally well-founded. I only have one issue and it seems shallow and petty. But the guy doesn't seem to know much about drug culture. He can peel away at Hawks or Kirosawa like an onion, but when we get to Rosemary's Baby or 2001 or the Graduate, he seems to draw a blank. But aside from that, whereas in most genres, he manages to dig up all kinds of relatively unknown gems, in the heart of the 60's, when the cult movie reigned, he manages to ignore Barbarella, Head, Wild in the Streets, and, oddest of all, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, which, being co-written by Roger Ebert seems like serious low-hanging fruit for a film critic. But overall, a great book to read in its entirety and a great book to keep as a reference.

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Critic David Thomson had been an ardent cinephile for half a century by the time he wrote this book in 2006–2007. Though the one thousand films briefly discussed are virtually all part of the established canon of international film art, this is not the author’s “Top 1000”, for not infrequently Thomson’s opinion on the given film is a negative one.

Each film gets about five solid paragraphs where Thomson shares his personal views. The entries vary widely. Sometimes Thomson wants to situate the film in its historical context and he compares it to the given director’s other works or notes what Hollywood productions eclipsed it in the Oscars that year. Sometimes Thomson discusses some small peculiarity of the film, such as when he muses that Harry Dean Stanton is rather too old for the role he plays in Paris, Texas.

Thomson’s opinions about certain directors are often interesting and provocative: Mizoguchi was superior to Kurosawa, Fellini peaked early and was already sloppy by 8½; Kubrick was too cold and unfeeling to hail completely. That said, a lot of entries were clearly tossed off quickly – it was the only way Thomson could have met his publisher’s deadline – and so it is hard to rate this book too highly.

[Steve Bowbrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not the kind of book you finish. You keep it near the TV or your favoured video device (when I was a kid this position was occupied by Halliwell's). It's David Thomson and I love David Thomson. A grumpy humanist who loves films that honour ordinary as well as extraordinary lives. The book is heavy on the French directors of the popular front and afterwards - Thomson opens the book with a quote from Robert Bresson, which is a good thing (also Sartre, so you'll get a sense of where he's coming from). But every genre is here, with no snobbery, ever. Each film gets a page or so and there are some lovely, fascinating inclusions and some very surprising exclusions. The introduction is a mini-history of the form and worth a read on its own.

(it's still in print but it's not been updated since 2008 - and I suspect we might not see a new edition - so you're missing a decent chunk of current film - but it starts in 1895, so stop complaining!)

[Lewis Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful reference book for film fans. It consists of one page reviews of 1,000 films selected by Mr Thomson from the many thousands that he must have watched. They have been chosen either because they are personal favourites or because they are have particular significance in the history the cinema. Also included are the occasional TV series (The Sopranos) or TV drama (A Question of Attribution).
It is the perfect coffee table book. It can be picked up for 2 minutes or 20 - the hard part is putting it down. Every page contains a mixture of fact, acute observation and personal opinion. You can read it to find a film to watch, but it is also fun to watch a film and then turn to the book to see where your opinion diverges from Mr T's.
Perhaps most importantly and usefully, this is a chance for those of us without Mr T's vast knowledge and eidetic memory to pick his brains about 1,000 memorable movies.

[Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

This makes for fascinating reading. I stumbled upon this compendium of reviews at an Exclusive Book sale, picked it up, and it was not long before I was hooked. At first I simply wanted to check Thomson's views against my own on many of my favourite movies; now I'm using it to guide me through my own classic film curriculum. I love this man's erudite turn of phrase and the compact manner in which he delivers his extensive knowledge and expertise.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

In answer to the title question, I haven't seen all one thousand of the films Thomson chooses to discuss, but I have seen a lot of them (about 600, I believe). I can barely (if at all) remember some of those, but I did see them.

The 1000 films aren't "the best" or anything similar; they are the films Thomson wanted to discuss. Each film gets less than one full page. Thomson writes that the first movie discussed in the book (which is arranged in alphabetical order) is Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein because a friend talked him out of beginning with Abe Lincoln in Illinois, saying that the first entry should be "something wilder, something far greater or far sillier." Thomson does not say if his friend then added, "Or possibly a piece of crap," or if he made that decision entirely on his own.

Some of the entries aren't really films at all. The Sopranos and The Singing Detective, for example, were multi-episode television productions; Into the Woods is a made-for-television recording of a live stage performance.

Thomson starts with an assumption: someone reading this book likely knows something about, and cares about, movies. There is hardly an entry here that will not seem better to a reader with some prior knowledge (and a decent level of intelligence).

With a thousand films under consideration, Thomson and I have different opinions on too many for me to try to mention them all. I will, however, quote from one entry (which is not actually about the film Thomson refers to here):

Nineteen fifty-eight was the year of Gigi. It won the Oscar for Best Picture. It was the one time that Vincente Minnelli won for Best Director. It got nine nominations and nine Oscars, and we are supposed to curl up like contented spaniels when we hear it. It makes me sick. I despise its prettified view of Paris. I find the Lerner and Loewe score grating. Leslie Caron has always been a mystery to me in films. And Maurice Chevalier delights himself more than he ever will me.

(This was all from Thomson's entry about Some Came Running, another Minnelli-directed movie from the same year as Gigi.)

Everyone, they say, is entitled to his or her own opinion. This time Thomson's opinion just happens to be egregiously wrong.

But that is hardly the worst thing about this book. The major flaw is simple: the book needs an index. Please let me repeat:

THE &) %#$/* BOOK NEEDS AN INDEX!

(And before somebody points out that this is virtually the same comment I made about The Merril Theory of Lit'ry Criticism: Judith Merril's Nonfiction, quite so. Books of this type do require indices.)

I like the witty cover of this edition, designed by Richard Green. (The edition is a 2008 paperback, published by ALLEN LANE, part of Penguin Books.)

David Thomson is a bright, knowledgeable, idiosyncratic author whose Have You Seen...? is a bright, knowledgeable, idiosyncratic and entertaining book.

[Antonio Nunez · Rating 5 out of 5]

This mammoth essay collection reviews 1000 movies since the origins of this art form. The author strived to cover every year from 1895 when the Lumière Brothers originated it to 2009, the last year to make it into the book, all main geographies, directors, key actors and genres.

Needless to say it’s highly uneven. I am a movie lover and have seen hundreds of the movies in the book. Yet, some of the essays were obscure or highly annoying as the author seems to enjoy rubbishing well loved movies and peddling obscure ones that, from his description appear to be unwatchable. Also, he insists perhaps too much on the gay subtext of movies that seem to bear no such interpretation and also in his own Republican (anti-monarchic sentiment), a matter much more fascinating to himself than to the readers of his book.

Still, one reads books by critics to have one’s beliefs and preferences challenged by experts with a more refined sensibility and greater knowledge. I do agree with many of his judgements, including his jaundiced views about the staging of the West Side story movie. Also, that Natalie Wood and Catherine Deneuve were almost painfully lovely when young. And that James Stewart was always superb. Or that Wings of Desire is the best movie by Wim Wenders if a bit limited, or that Ingmar Bergman was perhaps the greatest master of this art if generally dark, dour and heavy going (but not in the Seventh Seal, which is overrated). I feel enriched after reading the book and am left with quite a bit of homework concerning films I haven’t yet watched.

Overall, a must for movie fans.

[Jim Nirmaier · Rating 4 out of 5]

1,000 movie reviews. Quite expansive and intelligent. Written by esteemed cinema critic and scholar Brit David Thomson in 2008, the 79-year-old has been called by "The Atlantic Monthly" as "probably the greatest living film critic and historian" who "writes the most fun and enthralling prose about the movies since Pauline Kael."

I've seen a lot of movies and I have seen about a third of the films included in the book. Maybe a bit too much of an emphasis on international cinema, as well as silent-era films for my taste, but it made me realize I need to expand my motion picture horizons.

Mr. Thomson is quite an eccentric critic and definitely writes thru and thru with a strong British style filled with famous sharp English wit and biting criticism.

For example; a portion of his review of "2001 A Space Odyssey" - "The film cost $10 million and has earned at least twice that in US rentals. The Academy regarded it as a technical exercise, though Kubrick was nominated as Best Director. I believe now, as I did in 1968, that "2001" was a lavish travesty and an elaborate defense of vacancy or the reluctance to use real imagination. Of course, space can still work on film - "Alien," "E.T," and others, but the lack of humanity is a dead end. So Kubrick was positioned now as a master, but too masterly for known material."

So there.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I cannot say that I read every review of the 1,000 films described in this epic work. David Thomson devotes a whole page each film, so this is quite a labour of love. What I have done is to list the forty-eight movies that I do want to see. I have discounted all those that are too familiar or are just not to my taste. So, the first on my list is Charlie Kaufman's "Adaptation" starring Nicolas Cage. I thought I had seen this film before, but the trailer suggested I had not. It was probably "The Player" that I was thinking of. And the last is Antonioni's "Zabriskie Point".

There are some on my list to watch that I have seen before, but either too long ago or I would like to see again. For example, "Ben-Hur", "Blade Runner" and "Brazil". I'm not sure how long it will take for me to catch up on all the forty-eight, but I have either recorded the first three or ordered a cheap DVD. They are not in any particular order, alphabetical or otherwise. Then I might get round to listing the huge number that were too familiar.

[Will · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are looking for one book of movie recommendations in the age of streaming, blu-ray etc then this is what I would recommend.

Written for the DVD age, it is timeless because of the idiosyncratic, pithy entries (limited to a page) that each film (or in some cases, TV series) gets. I first read the book on it's release 10 years ago (2008) and with the brilliant HD restorations of movies available on blu-ray or via sites such as BFI Player, Mubi and FilmStruck (soon to be closed, sadly) I bought the book as a go-to throughout a year of 'further watching', going further into movie history. Particularly, I found this book enjoyable to go back and check what Thomson had written about it after re-watching. You may not always agree with him, and sometimes he swings and misses, but when he hits - it's a fresh viewpoint on movies that have been discussed endlessly as well as hidden gems.

[Greg L Goldstein · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful essays on 1000 films. It's insightful, informative, witty, and only very occasionally pretentious... or ponderous. The 80-year old Thomson is our greatest film writer, a national treasure, and should be preserved forever in the Library of Congress. If only.

I typically read most "prose" (fiction or non-fiction) books on the Kindle. But...I was today years old when I learned that you should always know the actual size of a book in a print edition before you start the digital version. It took me the entire month of January to pour through it, which is fine, but I wish I had known its scope and planned accordingly. Whew. (And, truthfully, I skimmed a few essays of foreign or silent films that I am not likely to ever pursue.)

I ultimately bought a print version as well. It belongs on the bookshelves. It's a "must-have" for anyone who loves film.

[Jillian · Rating 3 out of 5]

I briefly flirted with the idea of studying film. The flirtation didn't last long because of reasons, but I still have a deep and encompassing love for movies and the study of them. Because of that, I decided that if I couldn't study film I'd read every book about film on the subject I could find and watch all the great films (or at least the films critics say are great).

Therefore, a book like "Have You Seen...?" is right up my alley. I don't know anything about David Thomson's work, but he reads like a film critic who knows what he's talking about. However, I do have a few complaints.

First, I felt like Thomson wanted readers to think this is an objective list of 1,000 movies you should watch, but it wasn't because he would criticize the films he disliked in his entries. I accept that these lists have biases, so why not just include films you like and think I should see? The entries sometimes made me wonder why he even included the film.

Second, Thomson included a few TV series in here, which I consider to be out of place in a book about great films. Is some TV cinematic? Yes. But it is not film. Keep your TV away from my film book.

Third, the way Thomson talked about certain actresses and gender dynamics in film rubbed me slightly the wrong way. I rolled my eyes a couple of times because he only seemed to compliment actresses based on their looks and nothing else. I think this is just a case of an old, white guy being old and white, which is a larger problem with film historians and critics and not just Thomson.

Overall, I would recommend "Have You Seen...?" if you get it for a dollar at a book sale or you check it out from the library. It's a well-organized if slightly predictable collection of films with interesting entries.

[Rohit · Rating 5 out of 5]

A small matter of the copy of the book received being dusty, musty and looking-like-a-used-one should not stand in the way of 5 stars being accorded to ‘Have You Seen?’. Many cinematic gems and cinematic faux-gems have been lent an ‘opinion’ by David Thomson; and opinionated he is. Its a book which should find an appeal with everyone..film buff or otherwise. The author provides at times a cultural or sociological or economic or literary twist to the theatrical entertainer (or non-entertainer) and this is where it triumphs. One can read it purely for the thrill of reading and in the bargain get introduced to geniuses of moviedom. Best enjoyed if sipped languorously. All thumbs up!!

[Ad · Rating 4 out of 5]

A guide to 1,000 films, from established classics to forgotten curiosities. The emphasis of the page-long introductions is on the circumstances under which the films were made: studio, director, actors, etc., rather than the detailed plot or artistic aspects of film making. Besides the unavoidable emphasis on Hollywood (as the book is written by an American film writer), there is a relatively generous amount of European and Japanese films included as well, although by far not enough to my taste. But even so, a useful guide to new discoveries.

[Shtwaan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Self-important prattle from a typical British pseudo-intellectual, who mistakes indiscriminate disdain for class, while extremely low on both information and insight.

[JerryDeanHalleck · Rating 2 out of 5]

1000 movies, about 1/2 page for each movie (although some get a whole page). These aren't Thomson's favorites, he includes movies like "The Sound of Music" and "West Side Story" which he dislikes, and leaves off some well known ones. His choices range from the silents to the 21st Century, from Westerns to Musicals. For a Guardian/New Republic film critic he likes a suprising number of Westerns and Adventure films.

An interesting mix of movies and opinion. However, Thomson doesn't have the slashing wit of John Simon or the vivid prose of Kael. The prose is thoughtful, clear, and concise. And he just gives us his opinions. And thankfully, without any annoying "As a X...." or "As a member of the X community".

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

A personal collection of 1,000 films that have some sort of significance in the life of the author.

What I felt like reading through this long list was that I was just hearing the same old movies over and over. Of course there will all the great ones your would expect that already fall into the Oscar winners and AFI’s Top 100 Films of All Time, but there thrown in were a bunch of movies with a bunch of people I’ve never even heard about, and even more foreign films.

While some of the dialogue and critiques were interesting, most of the time my favorite movies or at least ones I enjoyed were being bashed on an considered terrible or not worth anyone’s time.

I consider myself a serious movie buff. I will usually give everything a chance, but I always start what what is familiar and not some random foreign film from a book. This book didn’t convince me to watch any movie but was more just a reason for the author to ramble on about whatever movies he feels like.

In that case, I might as well make my own book filled with 1,000 of my favorite films … once I’ve seen 1,000.

It was an interesting read, but after about letter L I was tired of not knowing names and titles. If you’re big into movies, it’s worht checking out and wondering why this guy keeps making books about movies with only his opinion in them and nothing else.

[Adam Henry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes, Mr. Thomson! Thanks to you, I HAVE seen every film you mention! To non-casual filmgoers - use this as a checklist and see them for yourself (it took me about 3 years)!

I loved both agreeing and disagreeing with David Thomson, EASILY the most pretentious (but often hilarious!) film critic ever. He writes very unpredictably and conversationally, and was always surprising me (he hated The Sound of Music, preferring Grease and/or Moulin Rouge; he applauds Antonioni and Renoir any given time, but rejects nearly all of Fellini; he unapologetically crushes on Nicole Kidman [soon I’m reading his biography of her] AND James Mason). Never have I read reviews like these!

This is an excellent, diverse list of films, and the book itself was just so much fun!

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

I mentioned that reading this was like eating potato chips--but how many potato chips can you eat in one sitting? After the second bag (the Ds), it got a bit much. I'll get back to it.

He is fun to read because he's seen Everything, and so has a comprehensive view of the whole film tradition of most of the world. Of course, just because you have experience and a consistent view and a critical vision doesn't mean you're right. Very similar to reading Edmund Wilson, Robert Christgau, others who think they know everything. If not always thoroughly convincing, at least inspiring and instigating.

[John Kennedy · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are many entries in this book that I'll never watch because of their unavailability, primarily silent and foreign films. Yet Thomson has several suggestions of hidden gems from the 1930s through the 1950s to watch. He has an appreciation for Golden Age of Hollywood stars such as Joel McCrea and Jean Arthur that many modern critics have forgotten. Beware that Thomson has multiple listings for his favorite directors, Nicholas Ray, Otto Preminger, Anthony Mann, George Cukor, Fritz Lang, and King Vidor.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting!

Films are arranged in alphabetical order. The date that the film was released is in ( ) after each title. Each film rates a 3/4 page "review". Of the 1000 movies in the book, I have seen approximately 200.

Some noteworthy absences: Chicago, A Chorus Line, Ghosts of Mississippi, Harry Potter, Laurence Olivier's MacBeth, Mississippi Burning, Philadelphia, Private Benjamin, Risky Business, Top Gun.

[Hope · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting catalog of movies. I don't know anything about Thomson, but he seems to suffer from the same disease as most film reviewers: that of believing the darkest and oldest movies are the most interesting. His writing style is rather cryptic and he never tells you much about the plot or the movie in general. It is not really for people who are trying to find something to read on a Saturday night, but might be more interesting to the serious movie buff or scholar of cinema.

[Bert · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not intended to be a book about the best 1,000 films; it’s Thomson’s thoughts on films that are worth seeing for a variety of reasons. All the write-ups are one page or less. Like Pauline Kael, Thomson has his own unique perspective on films -- the “Personal” in the title should be taken seriously – so I often don’t enjoy films I’ve watched on his recommendation but his observations are worth reading.