David Thomson

Traces the rise, decline and influence of the film industry on the modern world, assessing its expressions in multiple media, its capacity for imitating and idealizing life and its role in the existences of everyday viewers. By the author of The New Biographical Dictionary of Film. 40,000 first printing.

The Story of the Movies

The Big Screen

An updated edition of the film reference provides more than 1,300 entries on leading international actors and actresses, directors, and producers, along with critical essays, profiles, and film analyses.

The New Biographical Dictionary of Film

The author, a Scotsman raised in a fishing village, chases after the enduring myth that seals were once human and occasionally resume human form. 10,000 first printing.

A Journey in Search of the Seal Legend

The People of the Sea

From the celebrated film critic and author of The Biographical Dictionary of Film, an original, seductive account of sexuality in the movies and of how actors and actresses on screen have fed our desire. Film can make us want things we can not have. But, while sometimes rapturous, the interaction of onscreen beauty and private desire speaks to a crisis in American culture, one that pits delusions of male supremacy against feminist awakening and the spirit of gay resistance. Combining criticism, his encyclopedic knowledge of film history, and memoir, David Thomson examines how film has found the fault lines in traditional masculinity and helped to point the way past it toward a more nuanced understanding of what it means to be a person desiring others. Ranging from advertising to pornography, Rudolph Valentino to Moonlight, Rock Hudson to Call Me By Your Name, Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant to Phantom Thread, Thomson shows us the art and the artists we love under a new light. He illuminates the way in which film as art, entertainment, and business has been a polite cover for a kind of erotic séance. And he makes us see how the way we watch our movies is a kind of training for how we try to live.

Male Supremacy, Gay Resistance, and Real Women (at Last) in the Movies

Sleeping with Strangers

Behind the scenes at the legendary Warner Brothers film studio, where four immigrant brothers transformed themselves into the moguls and masters of American fantasy Warner Bros charts the rise of an unpromising film studio from its shaky beginnings in the early twentieth century through its ascent to the pinnacle of Hollywood influence and popularity. The Warner Brothers—Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack—arrived in America as unschooled Jewish immigrants, yet they founded a studio that became the smartest, toughest, and most radical in all of Hollywood. David Thomson provides fascinating and original interpretations of Warner Brothers pictures from the pioneering talkie The Jazz Singer through black-and-white musicals, gangster movies, and such dramatic romances as Casablanca, East of Eden, and Bonnie and Clyde. He recounts the storied exploits of the studio’s larger-than-life stars, among them Al Jolson, James Cagney, Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, Humphrey Bogart, James Dean, Doris Day, and Bugs Bunny. The Warner brothers’ cultural impact was so profound, Thomson writes, that their studio became “one of the enterprises that helped us see there might be an American dream out there.”

The Making of an American Movie Studio

Warner Bros

"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... Thomson analyzes both landmark works and forgotten films from classic directors such as Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, Jean Renoir and Jean-Luc Godard, as well as contemporary powerhouses such as Jane Campion, Spike Lee and Quentin Tarantino. He shrewdly interrogates their professional legacies and influence in the industry, while simultaneously assessing the critical impact of an artist's personal life on his or her work. He explores the male directors' dominance of the past, and describes how diversity can change the landscape."--

A History of Movie Directors

A Light in the Dark

Offers a sweeping overview of the history of film that critically assesses one thousand movies, including old favorites, forgotten gems, and modern classics, with little-known facts, trivia, and ideas about what to see.

A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films

Have You Seen?

A stunning portrait of the life and career of Orson Welles describes his early success in the worlds of radio, theater, and film; the boredom and self-destructive impulses that led to his rapid decline; and his colorful personal life. Reprint. 17,500 first printing.

The Story of Orson Welles

Rosebud

A history of the Hollywood film industry explores the ways in which movies both shape and are shaped by American culture, discusses the contributions of film pioneers, and profiles Hollywood's leading citizens.

A History of Hollywood

The Whole Equation

From one of the most admired critics of our time, brilliant insights into the act of watching movies and an enlightening discussion about how to derive more from any film experience. Since first publishing his landmark Biographical Dictionary of Film in 1975 (recently released in its sixth edition), David Thomson has been one of our most provocative authorities on all things cinema. Now he offers his most inventive exploration of the medium yet: guiding us through each element of the viewing experience, considering the significance of everything from what we see and hear on-screen—actors, shots, cuts, dialogue, music—to the specifics of how, where, and with whom we do the viewing. With customary candor and wit, Thomson delivers keen analyses of a range of films from classics such as Psycho and Citizen Kane to contemporary fare such as 12 Years a Slave and All Is Lost, revealing how to more deeply appreciate both the artistry and (yes) manipulation of film, and how watching movies approaches something like watching life itself. Discerning, funny, and utterly unique, How to Watch a Movie is a welcome twist on a classic proverb: Give a movie fan a film, she’ll be entertained for an hour or two; teach a movie fan to watch, his experience will be enriched forever.

How to Watch a Movie

This visual tour of the past 100 years of cinema presents key images from memorable and pioneering moments in film including stills from Citizen Kane, Sunset Boulevard, The Piano Teacher and Burn After Reading. 15,000 first printing.

Moments That Made the Movies

In the Shining Mountains

Depuis 2012, plus d'un millier de Français sont partis rejoindre des groupes jihadistes en Syrie. Près de 700 sont toujours sur place, près de 200 ont déjà été tués, et autant ont choisi de rentrer. David Thomson a rencontré ces "Revenants". Il est l'un de leurs meilleurs connaisseurs. Il les suit depuis des années, les a parfois connus avant leur départ et entretient avec eux des relations directes et régulières. Bilel, Yassin, Zoubeir, Lena... S'ils ont des profils différents, ils ont aussi de nombreux points communs. Certains sont revenus dégoûtés de la violence du conflit syrien, d'autres sont déçus de leur expérience, mais pas repentis. D'autres reviennent blessés ou psychologiquement abîmés. La plupart sont encore en prison, où leur nombre crée des problèmes qui semblent aujourd'hui insolubles. Certains, enfin, sont de retour pour mener de nouvelles actions terroristes sur le sol français. Tous focalisent l'attention des services de renseignement en raison de la menace durable qu'ils font peser sur le territoire national.

Ils étaient partis faire le jihad, ils sont de retour en France

Les revenants

Ce livre raconte l'histoire des petits soldats du jihad français, ces adolescents qui ont appris l'islam jihadiste sur Internet, loin des mosquées et à l'insu de leurs parents. Au début de 2014, selon les chiffres officiels, 700 Français ont rejoint la Syrie, souvent en famille, 250 sont au combat. Une vingtaine sont morts dont trois en réalisant une opération suicide. Les plus déterminés d'entre eux disent vouloir revenir un jour frapper le sol français.

Les Français jihadistes

One of the most celebrated film critics and historians presents the story of his first 18 years, growing up an only child in south London in the 1940s and 1950s. Romantic, restrained, and tautly written, "Try to Tell the Story" is a haunting and unsentimental look at the fragility of family relationships.

A Memoir

Try to Tell the Story

A latest edition of the classic reference features updated and recast profiles as well as 100 new entries for such stars as Clive Owen, Scarlett Johansson and Heath Ledger, in a provocative and personal resource by the award-winning documentary producer of The Making of a Legend: Gone with the Wind.

The ultimate official guide to Breaking Bad—one of the most critically acclaimed series ever produced. Adapted and expanded from an interactive e-book available only on the iPad, it's filled with insider secrets, interpretations of the show's iconography, a series timeline, exclusive interviews with creator Vince Gilligan, and much more.Bad fans will enjoy the many new images, and insightful commentary by world-renowned film critic David Thomson.

The Official Book

Breaking Bad

It was made like a television movie, and completed in less than three months. It killed off its star in forty minutes. There was no happy ending. And it offered the most violent scene to date in American film, punctuated by shrieking strings that seared the national consciousness. Nothing like Psycho had existed before; the movie industry—even America itself—would never be the same. In The Moment of Psycho, film critic David Thomson situates Psycho in Alfred Hitchcock’s career, recreating the mood and time when the seminal film erupted onto film screens worldwide. Thomson shows that Psycho was not just a sensation in film: it altered the very nature of our desires. Sex, violence, and horror took on new life. Psycho, all of a sudden, represented all America wanted from a film—and, as Thomson brilliantly demonstrates, still does.

How Alfred Hitchcock Taught America to Love Murder

The Moment of Psycho

Thomas Chatterton Williams

Leon Wieseltier

Ramachandra Guha

Michael Ignatieff

Joshua Bennett

Mark Lilla

Sean Wilentz

Louise Glück

Adam Zagajewski

David Grossman

Sally Satel

Hannah Sullivan

Laura Kipnis

Helen Vendler

Andrea Marcolongo

James Wolcott

Clara Collier

Celeste Marcus

Eli Lake

Moshe Halbertal

Julius Margolin

Shawn McCreesh

Liberties - A Journal of Culture and Politics is a quarterly of essays and poetry from some of the world's most celebrated independent thinkers, leading artists, and up-and-coming literary voices.

David Thomson

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