The Greatest Movies Ever

The arts.

The 101 greatest movies of all time ranked and critiqued. Fully updated for the paperback edition with new films. From The Godfather (#1) to Groundhog's Day (#101) The Greatest Movies Ever is fun and controversial ranking of the greatest movies of all time, as selected by film critics Gail Kinn and Jim Piazza and including comedies, dramas, musicals, romances, and action films compiled from 80 years of movie making and from all around the world. The list includes such classics as Citizen Kane, North by Northwest, and Schindler's List; international films such as The 400 Blows and Roshomon; as well as more recent films including Lord of the Rings: Return of the King and Slumdog Millionaire. Kinn and Piazza offer smart, insightful, and often hilarious commentary for each film as well as cast lists, plot synopses, a tribute to their favorite scene, biographies of the director and key actors, award nominations and wins, behind-the-scene anecdotes, quotes from critics, and more.

From Hitchcock and Dali to Peckinpah and Lynch, cinema history is littered with masterpieces that have never seen the light of day. Now, The Greatest Movies You'll Never See unveils the fascinating - and frequently heart-breaking - stories of these projects' faltering steps from green light to movie graveyard. Opening at the dawn of contemporary cinema with Charlie Chaplin's Return from St. Helena, and closing with the collapse of Tony Scott's Potsdamer Platz, following the director's suicide in 2012, this riveting compendium of celluloid 'what ifs' goes behind the scenes of more than fifty 'lost' films to explain exactly why they never made it to the final cut. Discover the meticulous preparations behind Ray Harryhausen's War of the Worlds and Stanley Kubrick's Napoleon; learn why Brazzaville, a sequel to Casablanca, and Night Skies, a science-fiction horror story by Steven Spielberg, fell by the wayside; and read about the unrealized dreams of sometimes ill-fated auteurs Tim Burton and the Coen Brothers. The Greatest Movies You'll Never See details all the obstacles encountered, from unsympathetic studios and preposterous plots to the untimely deaths of stars. Alongside these compelling tales from development hell are script extracts, storyboards, concept artwork and frames of surviving footage. In addition, all the unmade movies are accompanied by original posters from acclaimed modern designers, including Akiko Stehrenberger (Funny Games, Kiss of the Damned) and Heath Killen (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Never Let Me Go). An endlessly absorbing alternative history of the silver screen, The Greatest Movies You'll Never See is an essential read for all true cineastes.

From the editors of America's most popular entertainment magazine comes this definitive, fun guide to the 1,000 best movies ever made. Concentrating only on the movies people want to see, and illustrated with 75 photos, this lively compendium lists entries alphabetically from absolutely sublime to wonderful.

From a veteran culture writer and modern movie expert, a celebration and analysis of the movies of 1999—“a terrifically fun snapshot of American film culture on the brink of the Millennium….An absolute must for any movie-lover or pop-culture nut” (Gillian Flynn). In 1999, Hollywood as we know it exploded: Fight Club. The Matrix. Office Space. Election. The Blair Witch Project. The Sixth Sense. Being John Malkovich. Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. American Beauty. The Virgin Suicides. Boys Don’t Cry. The Best Man. Three Kings. Magnolia. Those are just some of the landmark titles released in a dizzying movie year, one in which a group of daring filmmakers and performers pushed cinema to new limits—and took audiences along for the ride. Freed from the restraints of budget, technology, or even taste, they produced a slew of classics that took on every topic imaginable, from sex to violence to the end of the world. The result was a highly unruly, deeply influential set of films that would not only change filmmaking, but also give us our first glimpse of the coming twenty-first century. It was a watershed moment that also produced The Sopranos; Apple’s AirPort; Wi-Fi; and Netflix’s unlimited DVD rentals. “A spirited celebration of the year’s movies” (Kirkus Reviews), Best. Movie. Year. Ever. is the story of not just how these movies were made, but how they re-made our own vision of the world. It features more than 130 new and exclusive interviews with such directors and actors as Reese Witherspoon, Edward Norton, Steven Soderbergh, Sofia Coppola, David Fincher, Nia Long, Matthew Broderick, Taye Diggs, M. Night Shyamalan, David O. Russell, James Van Der Beek, Kirsten Dunst, the Blair Witch kids, the Office Space dudes, the guy who played Jar-Jar Binks, and dozens more. It’s “the complete portrait of what it was like to spend a year inside a movie theater at the best possible moment in time” (Chuck Klosterman).

Hitler's favorite film was King Kong. The Blues Brothers is the only film ever that had a cocaine budget. Citizen Kane was booed at the Oscars every time one of its nominations were announced. Marlon Brando didn't read the script when he was shooting Apocalypse Now. Instead, he turned it into a hat. Sean Connery turned down the role of Gandalf in Lord of the Rings. He would?ve been paid $560 million. Although Hattie McDaniel won an Oscar for Gone with the Wind, she wasn't allowed to go to the premier because she was black. Edward Scissorhands was supposed to be a musical. Steven Spielberg thought the theme song for Jaws was terrible. Groundhog Day takes place over 27 years. All of the Ping-Pong balls in Forrest Gump are computer-generated. In Toy Story, the carpets in Sid's house have the same design as the carpets in The Shining. It took eight years for Christopher Nolan to write Inception. Back to the Future was banned in China because the Chinese find time-travel disrespectful to history.