Film History

From grand follies to misunderstood masterpieces, disastrous sequels to catastrophic literary adaptations, Tim Robey's hugely entertaining Box Office Poison tells an alternative history of Hollywood, through a century of its most notable flops. Freaks, Land of the Pharaohs, Dune, Speed 2, Catwoman, Cats: what can these films tell us about the Hollywood system, the public's appetite - or lack of it - and the circumstances that saw such box office disasters actually made? Away from the canon, here is the definitive take on these ill-fated, but essential celluloid failures.

With exclusive insights from the legendary cast, including Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, Robert De Niro, and Talia Shire, and commentary from a diverse array of film experts and ardent aficionados, we dissect the film’s magnetic allure and its pervasive influence across our culture. Journey alongside Rebecca Keegan, acclaimed senior film editor at The Hollywood Reporter, as she explores the heart of this cinematic masterpiece through a new lens.

When Brian De Palma agreed to allow Julie Salamon unlimited access to the film production of Tom Wolfe's best-selling book The Bonfire of the Vanities, both director and journalist must have felt like they were on to something big. How could it lose? But instead Salamon got a front-row seat at the Hollywood disaster of the decade.

When beloved host Johnny Carson announced his retirement after 30 years on The Tonight Show, millions of Americans mourned. But inside the television industry, the news ignited a battle between two amazing talents - Jay Leno and David Letterman - who both yearned to occupy the departing legend's chair. For NBC, it would be a decision with millions of dollars at stake. Soon these two comedians with strikingly different styles, who had once shared a friendship as they worked the clubs together, would be engaged in a fierce competition for the prize.

Bestselling true-crime master Harold Schechter explores the real-life headline-making psychos, serial murderers, thrill-hungry couples, and lady-killers who inspired a century of classic films.

Unearth the terrifying and true tales behind some of the scariest Horror movies to ever haunt our screens, including the Enfield poltergeist case that was retold in The Conjuring 2 and the serial killer who inspired Hannibal Lector in The Silence of the Lambs. Behind the Horror dissects these and other bizarre tales to reveal haunting real-life stories of abduction, disappearance, murder and exorcism.

Authors John Dorney, Jessica Regan and Tom Salinsky provide a captivating decade-by-decade exploration of the Oscars. For each decade, they examine the making of classic films, trends and innovations in cinema, behind-the-scenes scandals at the awards ceremony and who won and why. Twenty films are reviewed in-depth, alongside 10 detailed 'making-of' accounts and capsule reviews of every single Best Picture winner in history. In addition, each Best Picture winner is carefully scrutinised to answer the ultimate question: 'did the Academy get it right?'

Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard, a classic film noir and also a damning dissection of the Hollywood dream factory, evokes the glamour and ruin of the stars who subsist on that dream. It’s also one long in-joke about the movie industry and those who made it great - and who were, in turn, destroyed by it. One of the most critically admired films of the 20th century, Sunset Boulevard is also famous as silent-star Gloria Swanson’s comeback picture.

Final Thoughts: Jerry Springer tells the fascinating story of a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany who became the beloved mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio before morphing into a symbol of cultural decline. Through dozens of intimate and revealing interviews with those who knew Springer best—from his big sister to his early political aides to the producers who shaped his show—listeners will be transported into the world of this singular figure’s rise to notoriety, and his fascinating struggle to reconcile his status as “the king of trash TV” with his lifelong dream of returning to politics.

Mike Medavoy is a Hollywood rarity: a studio executive who, though never far from controversy, remained loved and respected through four decades of moviemaking. He helped bring to the screen some of the most acclaimed Oscar-winning films of our time, including Apocalypse Now, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, Amadeus, The Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia, and Sleepless in Seattle.

No Crying in Baseball is a rollicking, revelatory deep dive into a one‑of‑a‑kind film. Before A League of Their Own, few American girls could imagine themselves playing professional ball. But Penny Marshall's genre outlier became an instant classic and significant aha moment for countless young women who saw that throwing like a girl was far from an insult. Part fly‑on‑the‑wall narrative, part immersive pop nostalgia, No Crying in Baseball is for those who love stories about subverting gender roles as well as fans of the film who remain passionate thirty years after its release.

From the triumphant “Main Title” in Star Wars to the ominous bass line of Jaws, John Williams has penned some of the most unforgettable film scores—while netting more than fifty Academy Award nominations. This updated and revised edition of Emilio Audissino’s groundbreaking volume takes stock of Williams’s creative process and achievements in music composition, including the most recent sequels in the film franchises that made him famous. Audissino details his lasting impact and cements his legacy as one of the most important composers in movie history.

The Ultimate History of the '80s Teen Movie goes behind the scenes of a genre where cult hits mingled with studio blockbusters, where giants like Spielberg and Coppola rubbed shoulders with baby-faced first-timers, and where future superstars Sean, Demi, and Tom all got their big break. Music, comedy, and politics all play a part in the surprisingly complex history of the '80s teen movie. And while the films might have been aimed primarily at adolescents, the best tackle universal issues and remain relevant to all ages.

From its first publication in 1992, Men, Women, and Chain Saws has offered a groundbreaking perspective on the creativity and influence of horror cinema since the mid-1970s. Investigating the popularity of the low-budget tradition, Carol Clover looks in particular at slasher, occult, and rape-revenge films. Although such movies have been traditionally understood as offering only sadistic pleasures to their mostly male audiences, Clover demonstrates that they align spectators not with the male tormentor, but with the females tormented.

The Queer Art of Failure is about finding alternatives - to conventional understandings of success in a heteronormative, capitalist society; to academic disciplines that confirm what is already known according to approved methods of knowing; and to cultural criticism that claims to break new ground but cleaves to conventional archives.

Stanley Kubrick, the director of a string of timeless movies from Lolita and Dr. Strangelove to A Clockwork Orange, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Full Metal Jacket, and others, has always been depicted by the media as the Howard Hughes of filmmakers, a weird artist obsessed with his work and privacy to the point of madness. But who was he really?

In The Fatal Alliance the acclaimed film critic David Thomson offers us one of his most provocative books yet—a rich, arresting, and troubling study of that most beloved genre: the war movie. It is not a standard history or survey of war films, although Thomson turns his typically piercing eye to many favorites—from All Quiet on the Western Front to The Bridge on the River Kwai to Saving Private Ryan.

In the 1950s, Confidential magazine, America's first celebrity scandal magazine, revealed Hollywood stars' secrets, misdeeds, and transgressions in gritty, unvarnished detail. Deploying a vast network of tipsters to root out stars' sexual affairs, drug use, and sexuality, publisher Robert Harrison destroyed celebrities' carefully constructed images and built a media empire. Confidential became the best-selling magazine on American newsstands in the 1950s, surpassing Time, Life, and the Saturday Evening Post. Confidential's spectacular rise was followed by an equally spectacular fall.

As any actor, producer, director, or screenwriter can attest, working in the movie business isn't easy. After Jack Nicholson filmed his first screen test for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, studio mogul Louis B. Mayer politely told him afterwards: "I don't know what we can use you for, but if we ever do need you, we'll need you real bad.” In the late 1960s, Paul, John, George, and Ringo–better known as The Beatles–were set to star in a movie version of J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic fantasy novel, The Lord of the Rings, until Tolkien objected over the loudness of their music.

Step behind the curtain of one of television’s most iconic shows with Live from New York! Five Decades of Laughs, Legends, and Lobster Claws. This unauthorized, unhinged, and unapologetic deep dive into Saturday Night Live takes you on a wild ride through 50 years of comedy chaos, legendary sketches, and the stars who made it all happen. From Chevy Chase’s pratfalls to Eddie Murphy’s Gumby, from “More Cowbell” to Kate McKinnon’s alien-abducting RBG, this book is your backstage pass to the laughter, drama, and occasional cocaine-fueled meltdowns that defined SNL.