History & Criticism

Hollywood moviemaking is one of the constants of American life, but how much has it changed since the glory days of the big studios? Find out....

The story of the Warner Brothers studio is the story of the American dream - an immigrant family who escaped a violent beginning, and arrived penniless in America....

The one and only Zadie Smith, prize-winning, best-selling author of White Teeth, is back with a second unmissable collection of essays. No subject is too fringe or too mainstream....

Beginning with the iconic La Voyage Dans La Lune (1902) and ending with Richard Linklater's groundbreaking Boyhood (2014), The Movie Book chronicles more than 100 of the best films ever made....

Having saved virtually every letter her father wrote to her between the years 1938, when she was 11 years old, and 1967, Miriam Marx' letters...

An unauthorized look at the philosophical issues raised by popular television show House....

Audible is proud to sponsor the 2021 Sundance Film Festival in our continued commitment to providing a home for bold creators and their extraordinary stories....

From The New Yorker’s fiercely original, Pulitzer Prize-winning culture critic, a provocative collection of new and previously published essays arguing that we are what we watch....

Life is full of choices. Right now, yours is whether or not to buy the autobiography of a mid-grade, kind of hammy actor....

Vincitore dell'Oscar nel 1990, Nuovo Cinema paradiso, è il film più conosciuto di Giuseppe Tornatore. Nel secondo dopoguerra, in un paesino siciliano, Giancaldo....

Candid, penetrating and controversial, Down and Dirty Pictures is a must-read for anyone interested in the film world....

The Pixar Touch is a lively chronicle of Pixar Animation Studios' history and evolution, and the "fraternity of geeks" who shaped it....

Directors operate behind the scenes managing actors, establishing a cohesive creative vision, at times literally guiding our eyes with the eye of the camera. But we are often so dazzled by the visions onscreen that it is easy to forget the individual who is off-screen orchestrating the entire production - to say nothing of their having marshaled a script, a studio, and other people's money. David Thomson, in his usual brilliantly insightful way, shines a light on the visionary directors who have shaped modern cinema and, through their work, studies the very nature of film direction. 

Robert Altman and the Elaboration of Hollywood Storytelling reveals an Altman barely glimpsed in previous critical accounts of the filmmaker. This re-examination of his seminal work during the "Hollywood Renaissance" or "New Hollywood" period of the early 1970s (including M*A*S*H and Nashville) sheds new light on both the films and the filmmaker, reframing Altman as a complex, pragmatic innovator whose work exceeds, but is also grounded in, the norms of classical Hollywood storytelling rather than someone who rejected those norms in favor of modernist art cinema.