Rating: 
Summary: Absolutely priceless film guide
Review: I received a copy of "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die" for my birthday, and it was truly an inspired gift. I love foreign films, and recently went on a film noir bender. I have a list of favourite directors, and I make a point of trying to seek out films I've heard of--even if they're not available as rentals. I buy an annual video film guide faithfully every year, but I still have this sneaking suspicion that there are many great films out there that I'm missing. The book, "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die" proved my suspicions to be correct--I have missed many great titles. This book is a marvelous resource for film lovers. The editor states that it's "a book that seeks not just to inform and to prescribe, but to motivate." The contributors began selecting films by taking "a close look at a number of existing 'greatest,' 'top,' 'favorite,' and 'best' film lists and prioritizing titles based on the frequency with which they occurred." At the front of the book, films are indexed by genre. In the 'meat' of the book, the films are in chronological order (beginning with 1902 and ending in 2002). Film information includes: country of origin, language, director, producer, screenplay, director of photography, main stars, Hollywood awards, and international awards. Each film entry includes a plot synopsis, and gorgeous photographs complement the text. Contributors include professors of Film Studies, journalists, writers, filmmakers, and doctoral students. There's a wide range of expertise here, and it truly shows. And for those who want to search by title, there's a complete title index at end. I am really impressed by the range of the selections here--including--classics, foreign, documentaries, comedies, horrors, and musicals. While I was happy to see I'd watched many of the titles here, I was shocked at the number of films I've never heard of. Believe me, I'm going to remedy that. I heartily recommend this book to all film lovers who--like me--are sick and tired of going to the video rental place and renting the same old rotten mush. Film lovers--this book is for you--displacedhuman
Rating:
Summary: Good source book for movie fans
Review: One of the first lessons about movies is that excellence doesn't necessarily mean box office success and vice versa. When I first saw this I thought it would be simply be a listing of those films, mostly Hollywood, that are too big to ignore. It was therefore a pleasant surprise to see it includes a lot of lesser known films that generally go under the label of "art house" and thus get ignored except at film festivals. The fact that several different people contributed the essays on each film no doubt helped in that. Yes, like other reviewers, there are several omitted films that I would have included, and some that have been included that I would have omitted. Maybe a list of the next 1001 most worthy films at the back of the book would have been a good solution. The choice of stills accompanying the entries (not all entries are illustrated) is pretty good and they are well reproduced. The book is a full one; it has one of the thickest spines on a book I have ever seen!
Rating: 
Summary: Fun to browse through, but not the quintessential book
Review: The errors and oddities of inclusions and exclusions make this book a near miss for me. There are others as good, IMHO.
Rating: 
Summary: Prolonging the agony
Review: They call this book a "browser's delight", but clearly it demands to be taken more seriously than that. The book's "user-friendly mask" does well in disguising the serious thought animating its creation of a roster of indispensable films. However, this belies not only the erudition of its well-qualified contributors, but also the grave (pun intended) seriousness of the book's stated purpose.
This book takes the defining of the "essential" nature of the movies way too far. At a glance, I've noticed quite a significant number of the movies listed in this book are unavailable on DVD or video, and are very unlikely to be theatrically re-released in the forseeable future.
Immortality may be becoming a desirable commodity in itself nowadays, but do we really want plagues of increasingly desperate undead moviegoers scouring the globe for precious prints or copies of extremely rare or unavailable movies?
Someone should have thought it through a bit more before going ahead with publishing this book...
Rating:
Summary: Possibly the best book about movies ever.
Review: This book is COMPLETELY awesome. It's 940 pages with great color pics on almost every page, and 1001 short essays by leading critics. The selection is listed chronologically, and it's almost perfect - lots of world cinema, lots of weirdo classics, lots of cool stuff. There are 10 movies by Bergman on the list, 5 by Capra, 10 by Kubrick, 9 by Spielberg, 4 by Tarkovsky, 4 by Von Trier, 2 by Miyazaki, 6 by Kurosawa, 6 by Antonioni 18 by Hitchcock, 3 by Cronenberg, 3 by Kar-Wai etc, etc. And it was released recently, which means that it also includes fairly new movies like "City of God" and "Far From Heaven". Highly recommended! It may very well be the only movie book you'll ever need, and it could be the best book about movies ever. It's literally a lifetime of wonderful viewing. (A few missing films that I would welcomed: Lassiter's "Toy Story II", Romero's "Martin", Jodorowsky's "Santa Sangre", Bogdanovich' "Paper Moon", Cronenberg's "Dead Ringers", Miyazaki's "My Neighbor Totoro", Greenaways' "Drowning By Numbers" and a few others. But that's silly nitpicking. This book is great!)
Rating:
Summary: Looking forward to a long life!
Review: This is a terrific companion for the committed film buff, or someone looking forward to expanding their knowledge of world cinema. I am sure many discussions have and will be provoked by what has been included, what left out. I have already started writing a list of omissions which I find scandalous! I am sure it won't accord with anyone else's! I really like the genre indices - for dipping into when you are in the mood for finding something at the video shop in a certain style. My personal 'shock-horror' omissions? So far:
They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
Le Cercle Rouge
Funny Girl
Harvey
Guess Who's Coming To Dinner
Mrs Miniver
Carnival of Souls
The Party
The Court Jester
Zulu
Ryan's Daughter (if only because it played forever in Australia!)
Rating:
Summary: A must-have for all movie buffs
Review: This is definitely a must-have for all movie buffs. It gives insightful critiques of each of the 1001 movies. But, inevitably, there are some glaring omissions (No "They Shoot Horses, Don't They"? No "Scenes From a Marriage"? No "Lenny"? No "My Dinner With Andre"? No "Unbearable Lightness of Being"?), as well as a few truly dubious inclusions -- both in general ("Scream"? "Clueless"?!? "Top Gun"?!?!?) and for certain directors (for Martin Scorsese they have "Gangs of New York" and "Kundun;" two of his weakest films, but they don't have "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" or "The Last Temptation of Christ"). There are also some not-at-all-unwelcome surprises. That said, it's still an essential read...even if you may never get around to seeing all 1001 titles.
Rating:
Summary: This Book is so Huge You May Die Before You Finish
Review: This is the greatest version of movie reference encyclopaedia type books I have ever come across. Other efforts only seem to cover one era, assuming all good movies were made before colour or after a certain date but this monster sized collection spans movies from 1902 to 2002. This 960 paged collection contains 1001 movies, obviously they couldn't really call it 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die if it didn't. Not all of the greatest movies ever made are inside but then again the book is not claiming they are.
I do wonder though why movies such as Friday the 13th are not included when so many other horror movies in here are compared to it. No matter what the basis for selection was the great thing about this book is that it doesn't just have movies that were made in Hollywood, no it recognises that a movie world exists outside of the USA and has great movies from all over the world, some are even languages other than English although at least 95% of them are English speaking ones.
This is an excellent collection and a must for any movie fan. It is also great for you to get to know what a lot of those older DVD and videos in the $1 week sections of the local video store are actually about. After reading you'll have a desire to rent many and some you had heard the titles of before you may no longer want now that you know what the movies are actually about. An excellent present for any movie fan, although it would cost a bit to post.
Rating:
Summary: Fun, but needed more thought.
Review: With this kind of concept book there is always some doltish nitpicker who comes along and says: "Why wasn't so-and-so included?" Unfortunately, this time that person is me. As fun and absorbing as this book is to read, and as gratifying as it is to find many of the films I thought belonged in such a book had indeed been included, I'm afraid my thoughts started echoing David Stratton's in the Foreword when I found some glaring omissions. If such a book is going to include Tim Burton's "Batman" (which this does) surely Richard Donner's superior and groundbreaking "Superman: The Movie" also belongs. Such an omission grates simply because similar films of lesser historical importance and quality ARE included. What the heck is disposable rubbish like "Strange Days" doing here for instance? Or for that matter, Spielberg's lamentable "A.I."?
And where is the Coen brothers' "The Big Lebowski"? My thought was that this book would be the sort of tome that lets readers in on the "secret language of movies". "The Big Lebowski" is one of those films that have found their way into pop culture references, yet this book overlooks it. Perhaps the authors thought that the inclusion of the Coens' "Fargo" and "Oh Brother, Where Art Though?" was enough. But how will the reader ever know who "The Dude" is if such books don't point them in the right direction?
Stratton laments the omission of Phillip Noyce's excellent "Newsfront" in the Foreword, and you could also certainly claim that that director's "Rabbit Proof Fence" is also conspicuously missing. Many other quality Australian movies are given entries however including, much to my gratification, Fred Schepsi's "The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith".
All this being said, as I mentioned earlier, it is always gratifying to find that so many favourite movies make it to the list ("In the Mood for Love" being one of these happy examples). I can easily be happy with not seeing other favourites, since such choices are so often based on individual tastes. But the omission of movies that so obviously seem to fit the criteria of the book is annoying.
The pictures that accompany the entries are illuminating and interesting. My only criticism of these would be that the book certainly could have fitted more of them in the blank spaces, and that there are some strange choices for some entries. The authors seem to have had a strange obsession with Robert Mitchum's Love/Hate tattoos form "Night of the Hunter", illustrating them on two pages. And why include a full-page picture of young, naked boys eating from dog bowls from Pasolini's "Salo"?
The entries themselves are illuminating and usually well written. Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton mention a few good examples of the clarity and evocativeness of the entries in their chatty Foreword. Personally, I found entries such as the one on Carol Reed's "The Third Man", Rob Reiner's "This is Spinal Tap" and even Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly's "On the Town" interesting and exhilarating to read, because the authors of these entries seemed to be able to evoke the mood of the movies. The entries are marred, however, by some pretty awful grammatical and spelling errors in places. And any filmgoer knows that it was the wonderful Charles Gray who Narrated "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and not, as this book goes to some effort to claim with authority, Jonathan Adams. Others mention the factual errors in the book in these reviews and I must agree with their sentiments.
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