1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die by Steven Jay Schneider (2011-09-05)

Looking through this( all the movies are seperated by year) You get the empression, "Hey this looks interesting." Being handicap, I would love to watch a number of these. Even get a chance to watch movies and give companies an opioin and MY thoughts of the movie, and Hey, If I get paid to do It, even better.

Nice and heavy book with good illustrations. Jacket was a tiny bit marred up on the corner, but i can fix it(maybe) Tempted to look through it for myself, but it is a gift so I better not! OH what the hell, I will anyway. I want to see if my favorite movie is in there, And it is! Not telling what it is though, ha,ha,ha

Steven Jay Schneider (ed.), 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die (Barron's, 2005)

I have no idea how I didn't review this the first time around, but it seems I didn't, so here we are close to three years later; according to my spreadsheet, I finished this up on January 31, 2010.

Schneider's book is different than a number of others of this ilk I have reviewed, and loved, in the past in that Schneider is acting as editor here; the 1001 pieces are collected from a number of film critics, rather than this being a personal selection of Schneider's. As such, you're not going to find many surprises here (only eighty of the films listed are unique to this thousand-best collection from among the eleven thousand-best collections I have data on); this in itself is no surprise, given Ebert's Rules of Best-of Lists (basically, the more cooks you have contributing to the soup, the more generic that soup is likely to be).

And yet I certainly don't mean to imply that this isn't a worthwhile reference; far from it. There's a lot of overlap with other thousand-best lists, but if you're not a collector, that's not going to mater a whit to you. Any single thousand-best list is going to give you a wealth of places to turn the next time you're looking for a good movie. Schneider's doesn't have the quirkiness of, say, David Thomson's list in Have You Seen...?, or the canonical feel of Jonathan Rosenbaum's list (which can be found online as well as in one of his books), but it's not like sticking a dart in and picking the movie it stops at is going to steer you wrong. If you're a neophyte film buff, someone who's just starting to get into the classics, or someone who wants to expand your film horizons, Schneider's tome will do just as well as any of the others. When you've got some miles under your belt and you want to wander off the beaten path some, then it's time to pursue Thomson, Rosenbaum, or the ultimate canonical list at They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?. Until then, this will work fine. ***

I'm about to purchase this nice-looking book, but in dipping into it I found this "quotation" from Scorsese's GOODFELLAS. It's Henry Hill near the film's end: "If you ask for spaghetti bolognese they give you noodles with meatballs." That's strange, because Hill actually says, "...right after I got here, I ordered some spaghetti with marinara sauce, and I got egg noodles and ketchup." The entry for this film was from somebody named Kim Newman. Maybe the other contributors are more accurate. I hope so.

There are many things to appreciate about this terrific collection of short essays about the best movies in the history of cinema. I especially liked how the films were listed in chronological order, from "A Trip To The Moon" in 1902 to the latest contemporary movies. This chronology gives the book a sense of historical perspective which further enables it to be an educational tool for understanding what is perhaps the most popular art form of the current era.

Plus this book is just tremendous fun to read. The essays are intelligent and insightful but also well written and a pleasure to read. Photos are included for many of the films. Also the list is large enough that movies from every imaginable genre and style are here - international, avant-garde, documentaries, westerns, horror, etc.

Of course, every reader will probably find at least one of their favorite movies omitted. What no "Key Largo"!?! But still enough classic films are listed to satisfy all tastes. It was great that this book included an index of directors. I only wish that it had an index of actors and actresses as well. But still this is a minor quibble about an excellent book. One that will provide not only an enjoyable first reading. But also serve as a useful reference guide to film viewing for years to come.

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.

This picture book recaps various firms from the 1920s to 2010 and is likely more of a reference book than one you can honestly say you enjoy. I can't say that the publishers didn't try as they have some rather beautiful photographs and detailed sections for each film (save for inexplicably leaving out some of the 90s films until the 2000s start up in that section). There are summaries and mild critiques for each entry that's been chosen on the list, some of it is Oscar-bait material while other times it's art-house and blockbuster fodder.

Overall, as a whole, this book doesn't add up to much when you think long and hard about it and have either seen/heard of most of this material as it often feels like the collaborators/editors simply chose every award-winning/five star rated film they could find, then didn't bother even giving a full review of the material. I say money is better spent elsewhere on the following type of film books: 1) The How to Create Film books (although some of those get FAR too trivial half the time). 2) The various in-depth books by comedians, actors or filmmakers. 3) The film review compilations on certain themed films. This film might be in a random film student's professor's main office but that doesn't mean it truly belongs there.

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!)

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!)

This is a fun gift for movie lovers, particularly those who like old movies as far back as the 1920s. It may not be so great for younger generations who do not appreciate movies before the 80s and 90s as the book is mostly made up of movies from previous decades. The appendices at the back of the book allow you to find movies in multiple ways other than just by title and the fact that the movies are outlined in chronological order by decade is also helpful in this regard.

The title should tell it all. These are movies that a group of "experts" think you should see. Not necessarily the best. There are a lot of art films here and foreign films we might not give second thought to. No one is going to agree with all of them. There are some clunkers here. In foreign language films I would have listed "Die Bruecke" (The Bridge) one of the most outstanding anti-war films and "Sobachiye Sertsye" (Heart of a Dog) based on Bulgakov's tale.
But how ANYONE could have left out "The Lion in Winter" from this book is unfathomable. Perfect casting, acting, costuming, realistic set, etc etc.
In many ways this book is almost a tour de force of the film industry over the years.

This book has wonderful, glossy photos and pages, great fast-fact run-downs of the directors and actors in each movie, and more often than not the reviews for each movie give you a great idea of what makes it a stand-out work, besides name recognition. As a budding film-buff, this is a great way to find more "popular" obscure movies, as well as see a really wide range of movies.

The movies are chronologically ordered in the book, and can also be searched in a helpful index by director, if you're trying to brush up on a particular director's corpus.

If it weren't for ONE THING this book would be a five-star purchase...there are spoilers in many reviews! And not spoilers that are popular knowledge. I just saw "The Ox-Bow" incident, for example, and thank goodness I read the review afterward...the first two sentences tell you the ending of the movie! Yuck.

There were clearly a lot of hands in the pot for this book, since the reviews also vary wildly in analysis and depth, partly for space reasons and partly because each movie has a different focus, so the different specialty reviewers clearly aren't supposed to all sound the same. Some reviewers are great, giving you lots of helpful historical background and elements to notice in each movie, while others will tell you the ENTIRE MOVIE PLOT, SPOILERS INCLUDED, and then just give you a character summary. That's next to useless!

You HAVE to wait to read the reviews until after you see the movies. That's OK, as long as you have fair warning!

Although this book provided an acceptably organized compilation of movie classics, I was bugged by the fact that reviews/thoughts included spoilers, or revelations of the movies' endings.

I purchased this book in order to discover movies I knew not of previously or had heard of and was interested in seeing. The occasional spoilers are given without warning and made me read with caution to those movies that I did not yet know the outcome of, which was quite tedious.

Overall, the reviews were convincing and thoughtful when not completely blatant, but do proceed with caution.

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.

very compelling and well put together truly enjoyed the book and it was well put together broken down real well. very fascinating book
and well informed and its got alot of cool break downs and overview.

For the casual film fan this book provides an excellent overview of the cinema for the past century. In order to fit in the large number of mini reviews and commentaries for the selected entries the editors had to omit a good number of films that many would have deemed worthy of inclusion. The most egregious omissions were of silent films, of which only a relatively small number were included from the many years before the beginning of sound films. Film buffs may argue with some of the selections, but the inclusion of "small" and cult films alongside the well-known Academy Award winners is to be applauded. The editors, though, were often sloppy with the sidebar award section, giving a film credit for an Oscar win when only a nomination was received. There are several instances when at least two films from the same year were cited as winning the same Oscar. For those like myself who can recite year-by-year the Oscar award winners and nominees, the sidebar errors detracted from the scholarship of the work.

Good but in missing important directors i.e. Lina Wertmueller... Love and Anarchy, Pasquale and the Seven Beauties, Love and Anarchy... It takes a tumble. Thes movies are Treasures that newbies and film connoisseurs alike should experience .... Shame shame... Could not imagine that not one of this director's movies would be included... For this reason alone I would not have bought the book.

As a film student, there is no better resource available to help you watch all the movies that are worth watching than this book. Clearly, this is quite a large list and dates back all the way to 1902's "Le Voyage dans la lune." However, as great as a concept this book is, there are some flaws with its execution.

1: Spoilers. Not every entry has them, but one must be very careful while reading about a movie that one hasn't yet seen due to the spoilers that the authors decided to include. The least they could have done is mark a page with spoilers on it.

2: Mistakes. After I see a movie in the book, I like to read its entry to gain some extra insight. About one in every four times, I'll notice a mistake. They're usually not big mistakes, but their enough to make you question whether the writers actually watched the movie or just read the Wikipedia entry.

3: No "Les Triplettes de Belleville." This film is without question the greatest animated film of all-time, and it easily makes my personal top ten list, period. Of course, I like many other movies that are not included, but I fail to see how this movie is not on this list. If a person with a terminal ilness asks me to tell them three movies that they absolutely MUST SEE before they die, I would tell them "Star Wars," "Pulp Fiction," and "Les Triplettes de Belleville."

Great idea, good execution, but be cautious. Be careful of what you read, don't believe everything it says, and know that there are great movies that are not included.

A compelling list of movies derived not only from the United States, but also touches upon the entirely important films of Europe and the early day classics that helped shape the Hollywood movie we all love and enjoy. Highly recommended for any movie lover. Comes complete with a checklist of all the movies!!!!

1. It doesn't include 'The Shop around the corner', whereas 'Apocalypto' and 'Borat' is included. How is that REMOTELY possible? I mean, it's not even 100(even if the movie doesn't make THAT cut, it's a sacrilege), it's 1001 !

2. It's WAY TOO bottom heavy. Movies before 1968 doesn't even make half of the total pages. Unfamiliarity is no excuse, since we can watch pretty much any classics thanks to the DVDs.

Any book that includes Satyajit Ray's "The Music Room" gets my vote as a possible buy. I don't know who picked the newer movies -- maybe it really was someone who is emotionally fourteen years old or maybe they wanted to pander to young people as the above review suggests. "Up in Smoke," "Meet the Parents" -- these are great movies? And omitting Polanski's "Knife in the Water" considered by many to be his best movie, not to mention "The Road Warrior" which made Mel Gibson an international star -- not good. And "Gladiator" is included and "The Duellists," Scott's beautiful rendition of a Conrad story not? Buy it for fun, but with the knowledge that it's far from a definitive best movies book.

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...

I have a question, since theis book is entittled 1001 movies you must see before you die. I'm just wondering what movies they cut out of the orginal book for the 5th edition? Any body know what movies they cut out?

Amy Smith

I received this book as a Christmas gift and have enjoyed skimming through it. Several movies of which I was previously unaware I would now like to see. However, I was very surprised at some of the films not included. For example, there isn't a single Harold Lloyd film, and one of John Huston's, Bogart's, and E. G. Robinson's best films, "Key Largo," is omitted, yet "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" and "Total Recall" are on the list???

"1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die" is slanted toward the tastes of teen male fans of the grotesque and the sensational who are unaware of, or don't care about, older and more woman-friendly films.

Just flipping through the book is an unpleasant experience if you aren't looking forward to seeing large images of a woman's eye being sliced open by a razor weilded by a male hand (p 74), a woman being hung by her neck, her mouth smeared with blood (p 639), a monster and a bloody body (p 653), a giant human cockroach eating another bloodied human body (p. 804), etc. etc. etc.

This emphasis on horror, the sensational, and the grotesque, and on the presence of females as the objects of horror, is demonstrated by the book's front cover -- Janet Leigh screaming in horror before her character was stabbed to death in "Psycho."

Molly Haskell, in "From Reverence to Rape," records how films, that used to feature an abundance of female characters in a variety of ranges, now focus on male ticket-buyers. This book focuses on males, as well.

Female stars are given very short shrift. Example: unless I missed it, there is not a single photograph of Greta Garbo in this large, heavy, 960 page book, with photographs on almost every page.

Greta Garbo? Greta Garbo? Not a big enough star?

Okay, it's understandable that a 14 year-old male fan who thinks of "Star Wars" as an example of the Dark Ages of filmmaking would have never heard of Greta Garbo, but when a book christens itself with the pretentious title, "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die," the reader is entitled to expect a bit more knowledge.

I guess Garbo's sin, in these editors' eyes, is that she was never stabbed to death in a film, or eaten by a giant, slimey monster. (One can almost hear the editors of this book thinking, "Man! Cool!")

Another star completely missing from this book -- Rudolph Valentino.

Umm ... do I need to explain this?

See, boys, half of the human race consists of women. Women like to watch movies, too. Once upon a time, Hollywood gave women beautiful men to ogle. Valentino was the first male megastar. His funeral was one of the most important events in the twentieth century history of the celebrity.

Guess you missed that ... while watching "Dawn of the Dead" one more time.

Readings of the relatively few women-friendly films that are mentioned are hopelessly off-key and uninformed.

"Broken Blossoms" is lauded for its use of oil-coated lenses.

Never, in the full page review, is it mentioned that "Broken Blossoms" is a full-length, mainstream Hollywood movie treatment of domestic violence, and that it contains a scene where the film's female protagonist, played by Lillian Gish, a huge star, is *beaten to death,* on camera, by her father.

It is remarkable that an early, silent film was so brave. No mainstream Hollywood film since has treated domestic violence against women with such power and frankness.

Even if you didn't care a whit about domestic violence, even if your only concern were for technique, you'd have to mention that Gish won praise for her ability to depict the girl's terror as her father breaks in on her hiding place.

The book never utters a word about the film's treatment of domestic violence, or even Gish's legendary handling of it.

The book has other flaws. Many of the more recent films listed are pleasant, but are not films that you should worry about dying before seeing. So, breathe easy about a lot of these pleasant but mediocre films.

In at least one case, a spoiler -- the ending of a movie whose ending you should not know before seeing the film -- is revealed. There may be spoilers in other comments, as well. I don't know, because, after a while, I stopped reading. This is not one of the 1001 books I must read before I die.

1001 movies 5th edition....hmmm....
having spend the money on that paper brick i wonder what i can do with it...?prop up my sofa maybe...? out of those 1001 mentioned flicks,only about a hundred are actually worth watching...and those have most likely been already watched by the average movie fan.other movies, just to mention a 110 million dollar spinner The music comedy 'blues brothers', not even given 1 line...tsk
'ghost' or 'convoy'....'silent running'....'the big lebowski'...???dont wanna write a book about the other 1001 movies you should see,...
the ones that made some money or had some meaning....my advice ask friends and family whats good and you'd be better advised plus you would save a few bucks you could use to see some 'great ones'.... ciao

I usually like reading books like this, books full of all sorts of cool, but rather useless (unless you're planning on competing on Jeopardy! or a devoted cineast) information. Such books often send me searching for more information on new subjects. I thought this book would be lots of fun to read. It wasn't.

The first thing I want to know is, what planet do these movie critics hail from? They write these lavish articles, praising movies for things that most people go out of their way to avoid. It seems like half of these "must-see" films are either horror and/or horrifically violent, or else highly/purely sexual in theme. Some I had never heard of before, nor do I ever want to again: The 120 Days of Sodom (based on the writings of Marquis de Sade) and Videodrome are two of the worst. And if the films aren't sickening in subject, then often they are about the despair and futility of life. Ok, so life is hard and meaningless sometimes. I don't need a movie to tell me that.

Also, who chose the pictures to be included in here? There are pictures in here that are extremely disturbing, to put it mildly. I can't imagine what some of them would do to a young child who happened to pick it up and flip through it. I know they would have given me nightmares when I was younger. Some still managed to give me the heebie-jeebies.

There are a lot of good movies listed too. But plowing through the trash to find them got real tiresome real quick. Towards the end I was only skimming the entries, trying to avoid the more gruesome pictures (I didn't succeed) and only reading up on movies I had actually heard of.

If you are fanatical about cinema, and are more interested in nifty camera angles and lighting techniques than in being entertained, then 1001 Movies might have some interesting suggestions for you. For the everyday moviegoer, I would say that in the time it would take to read through this book, you could watch all three of the Lord of the Rings films end to end. And that would be time much better spent.