Research Guide: Film Criticism

Ramsey Library Research Guides

The following subject headings maybe useful for finding books in the Library Catalog:

Film criticism
Motion Pictures-Reviews
Motion Pictures -Reviews-Bibliography
Motion Pictures - Reviews-Indexes
Motion Pictures-Reviews-Yearbooks

Directors and films titles as subject searches maybe useful as well. For example:

Spielberg, Steven
Schindlers list

Reference Sources

The A list: the National Society of Film Critics' 100 essential films   (Ref PN1995.A33 2002)
Magill's Survey of Cinema: English language films   (Ref PN1995.M3 v.1-4)
Magill's Survey of Cinema: Foreign language films   (Ref PN1993.45.M34 v.1-8)
Film Review Index   (Ref PN1995.B1 F53 1986 v.1)
A Guide to Critical Reviews   (Ref PN2266.B1 S16 pt.4 v. 1-2)
The Motion Picture Guide   (Ref PN1995.M672)
An Index to Films in Review   (Ref PN1993.F6473 1960-64)
The New York Times Guide to the Best 1000 Movies Ever Made   (Ref PN1995.C343 1999)
British Film Institute Classics (Ref PN1995.B732 2003 v. 1-2)

Some noted critics

Pauline Kael
James Agee
Andrew Sarris
David Thomson

WorldCat

WorldCat is a comprehensive catalog to over 52 million book and audiovisual catalog records in over 17,000 libraries

Periodical Indexes

General

InfoTrac Expanded Academic ASAP (indexing with selected full-text: 1980+).
Excellent general index that includes full-text rticles from selected magazines and journals.

Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature (1900-present). UNCA PER AI .G56
Located on index tables in the reference area. Ask Librarian for help.

Newspapers

New York Times (1851-2001) - Historical Newspaper Collection. Full-image articles from the last 150 years. Includes digital reproductions of every page from every issue -- cover to cover -- in downloadable pdf files.

LexisNexis Academic (Coverage varies)
Provides full-text access to major U.S. newspapers and regional news, including The New York Times (1980-present), The Washington Post (1977-present), plus hundreds of other daily newspapers.

Scholarly Journals

America: History and Life
Indexes the scholarly literature about all periods of American history.

Humanities Full Text
(For more comprehensive search check box to search Art Abstracts as well)
Index to the major journals in the humanities (including some full-text articles) in the areas of literature, film and television criticism, and journalism, among others.

MLA Bibliography. Authoritative index to scholarly research on English, American, and world Literature, languages, and linguistics.

JSTOR.
The scholarly journal archive; provides full text of over 450 journals covering a broad array of disciplines. UNCA collections include Arts and Sciences I, II, III, and IV..

ComAbstracts
Index to the professional literature of communication(s) fields from the Communication Institute for Online Scholarship.

Selected Websites

http://www.filmlinc.com/fcm/fcm.htm Film Comment (Film Society of Lincoln Center)

http://www.film.com (reviews)

http://www.critics.com (reviews from a wide array of sources, large cities, small towns, alternative papers etc.)

http://www.metacritic.com (compiled reviews from respected critics and publications)

http://www.allmovie.com (allows users to search for films using flexible criteria)

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This page maintained by Barb Svenson, Cataloging/Acquisitions Librarian. Last updated 9 September 2004. Comments to bsvenson@unca.edu

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