Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 791.4375
EAN: 9780812930016
ISBN: 0812930010
Label: Three Rivers Press
Manufacturer: Three Rivers Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 1024
Publication Date: November 01, 1999
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Release Date: November 01, 1999
Sales Rank: 374368
Studio: Three Rivers Press
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
In The New York Times Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made, the film critics of the Times have gathered the original reviews of their list of the best. Covering every conceivable genre, from comedies, dramas, and science-fiction to foreign films, musicals, and others, this book provides the student with an essential resource. How were Psycho or Fantasia originally received? For movies that are often subsumed in their own legends, the original review is a corrective lens for a hindsight that is often anything but 20/20. This volume also includes and introductory essay by Janet Maslin and modern postscripts to movies that survived their original trashing to become classics.
Amazon.com Review:
Everyone knows that a good canon debate doesn't get interesting until you reach the realm of the top 100. But by listing the top 1,000 movies, as the editors of The New York Times have done with this fat, readable collection of reviews, you get to skip all that huffing and puffing about quality and head straight for the fun. With a little elbow room, there's space for ineffable stuff like Mr. Hulot's Holiday and The Match Factory Girl. Room, too, for the nuance-free Mrs. Doubtfire and the free-falling Die Hard (which makes it, yep, right next to Diner). Pillow Talk squeezes in just one down from The Piano. What's really new about this book, though, is that the reviews have been culled from the Times's archive--reaching back to 1931. So you can read Vincent Canby reacting to Taxi Driver in 1976, just days after first seeing it: 'The steam billowing up around the manhole cover in the street is a dead giveaway. Manhattan is a thin cement lid over the entrance to hell, and the lid is full of cracks.' Not bad for a guy on deadline. Bosley Crowther, who preceded Canby, fares less well, waving off Rear Window as Hitchcock's 'new melodrama, ' and Psycho with, 'It does seem slowly paced.' By contrast, Janet Maslin's more recent reviews hum and gush, unraveling the merits of Pulp Fiction and Lone Star. At collected-Shakespeare size (999 pages), the title is probably too vast for schlepping around, but go ahead, try reading just one. With plenty of international selections, including usual suspects from France (Truffaut), Italy (Fellini), and Japan (Itami), as well as some unusual ones from Brazil, Mexico, India, and Czechoslovakia, there's enough canon fodder here for at least five 'Top 100' books. --Lyall Bush
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - A pre-Internet book
If you want lists of the best films, I would suggest you do a search on google. You will find many good lists, including this list from New York Times's reviews. The NYT list is biased towards US films but that is obvious since it is an American newspaper. This book would have been very useful before the age of the Internet.
Rating:  - What!? Where's BEACH BLANKET BINGO???
You've got to hand it to the New York Times film critics. For one thing, they have the absolute best NAMES of anyone in the cine/crit biz. Can you ask for better monikers than Vincent Canby, Bosley Crowther, Hilton Kramer or(my favorite) Mordaunt Hall? More recent critics like Janet Maslin, Stephen Holden or A.O. Scott (not included here, he's so new) may not have such professorial sounding handles, but they more than make up for said lack in their actual writing, which in all their cases generally reflects a critical sensibility which is both casual and scholarly. They likely benefit from the increased seriousness with which the artform itself has been taken over the past century and from simply having a sense of film history that their critical forebears could not have possessed. (They know that the movies are NOT some passing fancy that in time may go.) And stylistically, they tend to be leaner, meaner and much less flowery than,say, the aforementioned Mr. Hall.
But times do change, and critical writing styles along with them. What makes this book so fascinating is that its editors have seen fit to re-print the original reviews, unedited and unannotated (although editor Peter M. Nichols notes in his preface, that almost every film's "cast box" has been expanded and terminology, in some instances, changed). If the reader, takes in Mr. Nichol's preface and/or Janet Maslin's introduction, he or she won't be surprised to learn that many of the actual reviews included in this volume ... Read More
Rating:  - The Gray Eminence Speaks
There have been stretches of time in which I was almost oblivious to movies and recently I decided to repair my cultural lacunas. I signed up with Netflix, moved a recliner to the living room and stocked up on Diet Coke. Now, what to list on my queue? Most of those movie books have such abbreviated descriptions... If I'm going to wile away a couple hours, I need to be convinced it's time well spent. I spotted the updated and revised (through 2002) best 1000 movies according to the Times, and noticing the inclusion of a couple obscure favorites, bought the book. The movies are in alphabetical order with the personnel listed first and the date of the review at the end of the narrative. Twenty-nine critics lend their views about films going back to 1931. Hollywood productions dominate, though there is a good smattering of independents and foreign works.
The reviews stand as they were written on opening night, without further comment- a very New York Times thing to do. Many of the reviews hold up as well as their subjects- "Casablanca", "On the Waterfront" and "Star Wars" were appreciated from the get go. However, many glossy Oscar winners are excluded: "Dances with Wolves", "Titanic" and "American Beauty" are absent. "As Good as It Gets" is not good enough, but "About Schmidt" is about as good a review as Nicholson can get- it's included. Is there a Merchant-Ivory film that was somehow overlooked? Highly unlikely.
In the back of this compendium, the Times lists its ... Read More
Rating: - Time to update
A notoriously contentious activity, this book is sure to start a few arguments. Picking 1,000 movies to label "best ever made" is not easy and will create some surprise at omissions and inclusions. For instance, the inclusion of "Face/Off" - which initiated my Nicholas Cage veto - and the omission of Princess Bride, is indefensible. It is a parochial list also with Hollywood movies reigning supreme. However, I love the use of contemporary reviews for each movie. Reading Frank S. Nugent's response to opening night at The Wizard of Oz in 1939 is magical and gives the movie fan a nostalgic experience. You may guffaw at some of the preposterous choices and wish for a more current update (1999 version) but you will enjoy these critical reviews of your favourite movies.
Rating:  - Before the Rain must be Macedonia's greatest film, EVER
I won't say this is an indispensible book. Swap one film reference book for another and you're likely to learn about films and directors you otherwise wouldn't. The operative word there was likely. I've had Ebert books, Pauline Kael books, VideoHound's books, Entertainment Weekly references, etc. They are all good, but the critics works especially.
As opposed to getting a shortened synopsis and rating system, you can get a critical eye, with contextual perspective and a detailed analysis. The New York Times Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made offers that. And not from one voice but from over a dozen NYT critics over the decades.
I don't abide by those who call this dated. It was published when it was, and though there may be updated editions, this is still a fantastic book to have. After all the majority of films made were in the 20th century, and the influence those films and filmmakers have resonates now. Including the archived reviews, which feature the NYT tradition of refering to people as Mr., Mrs., Ms. etc., each films leading castmembers, their characters, the lead production credits and film lengths are given. Plus a year-by-year list of the paper's Top 10 films, and an index of the films featured categorized by genre and country of origin.
Oddly enough though is that there are reviews in this that are negative and sometimes scathing. Perhaps this is because the films were appreciated by other Times critics, enough to place them on the Top 10, or the films themselves ... Read More
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