1001 Movies: You Must See Before You Die (1001 You Must See): the bestselling film gift book Paperback – 1 Oct. 2010

This is a useful reference work for anyone who wants to experience & understand the history of film making. It's also a fun way of using a list to plan which dvds to rent/buy etc. It's definitely the kind of work that you dip into rather than sit down and read extensively, but it is very user friendly & has a great format. The films are well laid out in chronological order & there are several indexes that help you navigate. On a more superficial note, the pages are glossy & it's one of those books that's nice to 'experience' in a tactile way.Why not the full 5 stars? Well, it has one major flaw - some of the reviews. Some of the reviewers used couldn't write a decent film blurb if they were visited by the spirits of Hitchcock, Ophüls, John Ford & Ingmar Bergman, bodily possessed & given a set of solar-powered dictating machines. Some of the reviews amble about giving vague subjective responses, telling you little about the film or why it's on the list. Others - as other people have noted - give away the entire plot & ending.Here's an example, doctored in case you haven't seen the actual film (which I won't name)."When Dr M's wife shows up unexpectedly, X's anticipated breakdown (chilling conveyed through X's running internal monologue) becomes a reality. Sent away by the others, who fear her complete collapse, she loses control of her car to unseen forces and crashes headlong into a tree, where she dies in the same spot as Z's first wife earlier." End of paragraph.Do we really have to be told the ending in such pedestrian fashion & have the suspense ruined? The plot is just there - it's not part of any discussion, just written as a description. Even undergraduates get taught not to do that in essay writing - in a major film reference work it's very shoddy.If the editions could be re-edited to have some of the reviews rewritten, it would be an unbeatable reference work for the history of film.

The goods: This book is a great addition to book shelves due to its beautiful cover and its evoking title. It's great if you are in the mood to watch a great classic movie and you don't know where to look for. We decided we will regularly hit the book up at random titles and watch movies from all eras.The paper has a really good shiny quality to it as well and pictures are fantastic which make you want to watch those movies even more. However, not all movies have a picture or a lot of information so bear that in mind.The bads: Movies from the 50s to 70s are more represented in the book (around 40% of the whole book) while movies from the 2000s and 2010s are barely present (probably less than 10%). As someone born in the late 80s, I would have liked to see more movies from this period, I think the curators might have been a bit biased there.Since the book will be used to find movies to watch by most people, it would have been nice to have an index in the end not just by alphabetical order but by genre or country of origin.

1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.... a rather depressing title for the wonderful and fun world of film. That put to one side this book speaks for itself as your "essential movie reference" and needs little explanation from me.It was enjoyable to explore and the fact that the movies are entered into chronological order makes navigating and finding entries easy. There are a huge array of movies from the early black and white silent's to modern day blockbusters. Gladly plenty of world cinema makes the list such as the brilliant Swedish "Let The Right One In" (not to be confused with the poor in comparison Hollywood remake "Let Me In".There are a lot of horror and sci-fi movies in the list as well - many of which I was not familiar with. At the same time I was surprised that some of the modern greats that many would expect to find....were not included.While its a good tomb for reading and discovering new gems its not perfect. I understand that it very difficult with all the movies in the world over the last one hundred years or so to pick just one-thousand of them to highlight. To that end maybe it's time to expand to "1500 or 2000 Movies you must see" or to have separate volumes for different genres. Some movies have a great and long entry in the book while others have a very short description that leave you wanting to know more (maybe that's the point). However be aware that there are some spoilers revealed for some movies - mostly the older movies but it was still disappointing to find.Finally how useful is this book?We live in a digital age with websites such as IMDB and social media providing and promoting a wider range of more up to date information and movies. It was good to spend a few hours exploring this book, but my preference is that it is quicker and easier to look online. Maybe there is scope for both?

Really enjoy these types of books. Great for the Avid Cinephile or the Hardcore fans.Lots of movies from all over the globe.

I really like this book.It is arranged in chronological order from the 1900s to the present day.The films contained therein, are a real variety of genres and styles.There are reviews and information about many films I am familiar with, and a good few I am not.Each film is described by one of the contributors with details of the whys and wherefores it is included in the book.There are many foreign language films included in this guide including French, Russian, German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish films.A must buy for fans of cinematic history.

Extremely interesting. I totally love it. A lot of different genres, interesting essays, all the details you need to know about each film. I like the fact that there are several foreign language movies (German, French and Italian especially). I warmly recommend it to everyone who wants to seriously start watching good films.Only a minor criticism. There are a few mistakes in the checklist. Relatively often the indicated pages are wrong + sometimes there is some confusion with original titles/English titles for foreign movies. But as I said, it's only a minor issue. The book is worth way more than what you pay for it.