History & Criticism

From actor Cary Elwes, who played the iconic role of Westley in The Princess Bride, comes a first-person account and behind-the-scenes look at the making of the cult classic film....

James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales raucously and revealingly take the SNL story up to the present, adding a constellation of iconic new stars, surprises, and controversies....

A wryly funny and surprisingly moving account of an extraordinary life lived almost entirely in the public eye....

Wildflower is a portrait of Drew Barrymore's life in stories as she looks back on the adventures, challenges, and incredible experiences of her earlier years....

The long-awaited first work of nonfiction from the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: a deliriously entertaining, wickedly intelligent cinema book as unique and creative as anything by Quentin Tarantino....

Based on original research and dozens of interviews probing the memories of principals from director John Landis and producer Bob Weiss to Aykroyd himself, The Blues Brothers illuminates an American masterpiece while vividly portraying the creative geniuses behind modern comedy....

Robert McKee's screenwriting workshops have earned him an international reputation for inspiring novices, refining works in progress, and putting major screenwriting careers back on track....

For fans of one of the most successful and highly discussed shows in recent memory, LOST: Back to the Island is both a delightful time capsule and a rousing work of entertainment criticism.

The rollicking saga of reality television, an ambitious cultural history of America’s most influential, most divisive artistic phenomenon, from the Pulitzer Prize-winning New Yorker writer.

From the author of dozens of #1 New York Times bestsellers and the creator of many unforgettable movies comes a vivid, intelligent, and nostalgic journey through three decades of horror as experienced through the eyes of the most popular writer in the genre.

A full-speed-ahead oral history of the nearly two-decade making of the cultural phenomenon Mad Max: Fury Road....

The first unauthorized look at the inner workings—and ultimate breakdown—of the Disney Channel machine

A deeply personal and revealing Hollywood-survival story.....

Expertly researched, energetically told, and written with an unabashed love for the cinema, The Future Was Now is a chronicle of how the revolution sparked in a galaxy far, far away finally took root and changed Hollywood forever.

The story of how The Godfather was made is as dramatic, operatic, and entertaining as the film itself. Over the years, many versions of various aspects of the movie’s fiery creation have been told - sometimes conflicting, but always compelling....

Legendary writing teacher and author of The Anatomy of Story John Truby provides a guide to understanding the major genres of the story world.

Hilarious and heartfelt observations on aging from one of America's favorite comedians, now that he's 65, and a look back at a remarkable career....

Surely You Can’t Be Serious is the first-ever oral history of the making of Airplane! by the creators, and of the beginnings of the ZAZ trio (Zucker, Abrahams, Zucker) – charting the rise of their comedy troupe Kentucky Fried Theater in Madison, Wisconsin all the way to premiere night....

Who made the phone call that got HBO to launch The Sopranos? What’s the significance of all those eggs? And, what the hell ever happened to the Russian? Michael Imperioli, Steve Schirripa, and the entire cast and crew of The Sopranos have all the answers....

Batman is one of the most compelling characters to come from the Golden Age of Comics, and interest in his story has only increased since his first appearance in 1939. Why does this superhero without superpowers fascinate us? What does that fascination say about us?

James Gandolfini: The Real Life of the Man Who Made Tony Soprano is the first biography of the actor, who died in June 2013 at age 51, widely recognized as one of the best - and most defining - actors of his generation....

The author of the New York Times bestseller Her Again: Becoming Meryl Streep returns with a lively history of the Academy Awards, focusing on the brutal battles, the starry rivalries, and the colorful behind-the-scenes drama....

Fred Rogers was an enormously influential figure in the history of television and in the lives of tens of millions of children. As the creator and star of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, he was a champion of compassion, equality, and kindness....

Hollywood was built on beautiful and complicated matinee idols: James Dean and Marlon Brando are classic examples, but in the 1990s, the actor who embodied that archetype was River Phoenix....

John Wayne was one of Hollywood's most famous and most successful actors, but he was more than that. He became a symbol of America itself....

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.

Most people think genres are simply categories on Netflix or Amazon that provide a helpful guide to making entertainment choices. Most people are wrong. Genre stories aren’t just a small subset of the films, video games, TV shows, and books that people consume. They are the all-stars of the entertainment world, comprising the vast majority of popular stories worldwide. That’s why businesses—movie studios, production companies, video game studios, and publishing houses—buy and sell them. Legendary writing teacher John Truby provides a guide to understanding the major genres of the story world.

Among a crop of fresh filmmakers including Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, and Francis Ford Coppola revolutionizing Hollywood in the ’70s, Brian De Palma—a director from Philadelphia with a few social satires under his belt—charted a cinematic path unlike any of his peers. At times he was unfairly dismissed as a Hitchcock copycat; other times he was misunderstood for his peculiar mix of sexuality, humor, music, and violence. But, over the course of ten years, he created a new cinematic language.

In their third and final screen teaming, Judy Garland and Gene Kelly starred together in the MGM musical Summer Stock. In C'mon, Get Happy, authors David Fantle and Tom Johnson present a comprehensive study of this 1950 motion picture. The production coincided at a critical point in the careers of Kelly and an emotionally spent Garland. Kelly, who starred in An American in Paris just one year later, was at the peak of his abilities.

In this second edition, Murch reconsiders and completely revises his popular first edition's lengthy meditation on digital editing (which accounts for a third of the book's runtime) in light of the technological changes that have taken place in the six years since its publication.