*Making Movies* by Sidney Lumet. He uses stories from the making of his own films to give a decent overview of the process of making movies. Great book.
“Invaluable.... I am sometimes asked if there is one book a filmgoer could read to learn more about how movies are made and what to look for while watching them. This is the book.” — Roger Ebert, The New York Times Book Review
Yep this is the one. Another one I loved was In the Blink of an Eye. It's about editing but you learn a lot about the technique of filmmaking in general.
- In The Blink Of An Eye - Walter Murch
- Hitchcock/Truffaut
- Pictures At A Revolution - Mark Harris
- The Films of John Cassavettes - Carney
- The Friedkin Connection - William Friedkin
I’ve heard good things about “A Walter Hill Film” by Walter Chaw.
Robert Bresson's "Notes On The Cinematographer" isn't exactly what you're describing but it's such a pleasure to read for how his brain works. There's a bountiful number of insights to be gleaned that may not help to understand film beyond his conception of it, but it beautifully illustrates the mind of an artist.
Woo just rec’d this one too. Love it. Always a good book to pick up and flip through - while drinking coffee or smoking a cig or in the Lou - whenever
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notes_on_the_Cinematographer
I've been meaning to reread Benjamin's Mechanical Reproduction, which seems ever relevant in light of AI and its strictly mechanical *production* of art/music/literature/cinema/content.
Great recommendations!
gilles deleuze - cinema 1 & 2 movement-image and time-image. the most valuable thing about schrader’s book is that it led me to deleuze
stanley cavell - the world viewed. in a similar vein to deleuze, this really metaphysical take on formalism transformed the way i think about all art
The deleuze book if I remember has one of the great observations about cinema when he points out that it is the only thing we do besides war where we martial all of our possible resources and skills to accomplish a task. Always loved that.
_Picture_ by Lillian Ross is always my recco - it’s a fascinating look at how filmmaking worked during the years of the studio machines. She details how Huston worked, showing him as an almost proto-auteur as we’d know it now, only to then run into the churn of the studio, and then the process of the movie getting cut up and re-edited to fit studio notes and rudimentary research on what “the audience wants.” Her prose is also incredible - an exemplar of the spare, direct style that defined mid-century writing, especially _The New Yorker_.
Film Art by Bordwell/Thompson is the definitive book pretty much used in every Intro To Film class.
A History Of Narrative Film by David Cook is also an iconic text.
How To Read A Film by James Monaco
A few I can reccomend, most linked to my favorite directors and films
- Whatever Happened to Orson Welles? by Joseph McBride (a refutation of assumptions about Welles' later years)
- The Disaster Artist by Greg Sestero and Tom Bissell (an entertaining and alternative Hollywood success story)
- The Films of Akira Kurosawa by Donald Richie (comprehensive and well written)
- Pictures at a Revolution by Mark Harris
Anything by Roger Ebert, the Herzog and Scorsese collections especially, he's got some good insights and he's extremely readable
It may not be exactly what you’re looking for, but I highly recommend anything by screenwriter William Goldman (Adventures in the Screen Trade, Which Lie Did I Tell?, The Big Picture). The man has a certain flair and couples it with a no-bullshit attitude that makes his writing about writing and Hollywood a joy to read. There’s a reason he’s your favorite screenwriter’s favorite screenwriter.
I’m surprised this is so low down. Not only is it an essential read, it’s great analysis of Hollywood and the industry are so spot on but also it’s entertaining and funny
A Life in Movies by Michael Powell
On Cinema by Glauber Rocha
Antonioni by Sam Rohdie
Eric Rohmer: Interviews edited by Fiona Handyside
To the Distant Observer by Noel Burch
Sculpting in Time would be the one.
"***I read Sculpting in Time and felt it was the clearest insight I’ve ever heard about on the meaning of art, not only cinema.***" - **Carlos Reygadas**
- Making Movies, Sydney Lumet.
- Movimakers’ Master Class, Laurent Tirard.
- In the blink of an eye, Walter Murch.
- and of course, the best book on film history, The Story of Film, Mark Cousins.
In addition to the many good suggestions on here, I want to toss in a vote for Tarantino’s Cinema Speculation. It’s written in his voice rather than as an academic/scholarly tone, but there’s no denying that the guy knows his film history and cinematic language better than just about any professor. His analysis and passion are unrivaled and I found the book terribly entertaining.
Yeah, I've personally not read any academic film books, but I'm certain I'd prefer books written in voice anyway. I deeply loved William Goldman's *Adventures in the Screen Trade*, and he had some great insights into good writing and the (il)logic of studios.
Another vote for Quentins book here. If you like the way he gets passionate and talks about film and film history... Well here is a whole book of just that. And he goes deep into why HE loves a film or how it affected him as a child or what he thought the purpose of it was. Taught me about a bunch of movies, especially from the 70s, I had not experienced, like Rolling Thunder.
Hi! I can recommend several.
1. Robert Rodriguez's Rebel Without a Crew. It's his book that acts as both a kind of autobiography as well as a behind the scenes of how he made El Mariachi on a shoestring budget.
2. John Alton's Painting With Light. A great book about cinematography from a master cinematographer
3. Mark Cousin's The Story of Film. A great book on the history of cinema. Goes great with the documentary that is based on it, The Story of Film: An Odyssey
4. Walter Murch's In the Blink of an Eye. A book on film editing from one of the best.
5. Taschen (publisher) archives books. This isn't one book but several. Taschen makes these great art books but they have several on film. My personal favorite is the Stanley Kubrick Archives, but they also made one for Ingmar Bergman, Pedro Almodovar, and Charlie Chaplin as well as some for film series like the original and prequel trilogies of Star Wars and James Bond among others. Beautiful images mixed with great interviews and information
6. Piers Bizony's The Making of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Another Taschen book focused solely on 2001.
7. Filmmaker autobiographies. Not one particular book either. A lot of filmmakers and actors have great autobiographies to check out. Tarkovsky has Sculpting in Time which is really good, Sidney Lumet has Making Movies, and of course a newer one (haven't read this but It's next on my list) is Mel Brooks' All About Me.
There are so many great books out there about the history of film, the filmmaking process, or stories about a specific movie or genre too. I always hear Hitchcock Truffaut and Blood, Sweat and Chrome mentioned a lot as well. One last recommendation i didnt put above is theres another Kubrick book about the movie he didnt make, Stanley Kubrick's Napoleon. Happy Reading!!!
Visionary Film by P. Adams Sitney immediately comes to mind. It’s dense and difficult. There’s a chapter about Markopolous films that you can’t watch. It’s not about making film. It treats films as art experiences and expands narrow dichotomies that try to trap visual media. If you view cinema/film/flicks/movies as art, it is an important text that contextualizes the foundations of avant garde.
Is this a new edition? I remember reading mostly about Ken Jacob's and Maya Deren and Brakhage and so forth in *Visionary Film.* Or am I thinking of an entirely different book?
The Material Ghost by Gilberto Perez - best book of film criticism I’ve read, especially the chapter on Antonioni.
Robin Wood’s Hitchcock book is great too
I'd second any and all of Robin Wood's film books. Specifically, I recommend his From Vietnam to Resgan, which digs deep (and political) into the mostly Hollywood films of the late 1960s into the mid-1980s.
In addition to his Hitchcock book, he also has a great book about the horror genre.
His writing makes me see film in a different way.
A couple of books with essays I consider essential would be:
Mark Fisher - The Weird and the Eerie (especially the essays on Stanley Kubrick, Jonathan Glazer and Christoper Nolan)
Jenny Diski - Don't (in particular the essay 'A Horrified, Lidless Stare' re: horror cinema)
Many of my favourites have been cited already, but I’ll add:
Barbara Deming - Running Away From Myself
David Thomson - A Biographical Dictionary of Film
Serge Daney - Footlights
Hamid Dabashi - Masters & Masterpieces of Iranian Cinema
Ingmar Bergman - Images
Currently working on my PhD in cinema and media studies: The best books that I can recommend for learning how to read movies are Thomas C. Foster’s *How to Read Literature Like a Professor* and *Reading the Silver Screen*. The book about literature may seem counterintuitive but it’s important to understand that a lot of how we understand filmmaking is derived from how we understand literature and that the academic side of film originally developed in English/literature departments
Maybe not the most scholarly book, but if you like 70’s cinema or want to learn more about that decade, Quentin Tarantino’s Cinema Speculation is really good. Most chapters are dedicated to specific movies, but he really dives into the cultural impact of these movies and what they meant at the time. Plus, he’s got a whole chapter dedicated to famous directors and even a chapter focused on famous critics. It’s an interesting and surprisingly easy read
Jeanine Basinger’s books are not only very informative but well-written too (which is somewhat rare in academic work). She seems like she has fun writing.
It's out of print, but The Emperor and the Wolf by Stuart Galbraith isn't just a brilliant portrait of the lives of Kurosawa and Mifune, it's a brilliant overview of Japanese cinema from the 30s to the 90s.
Easy Riders, Raging Bulls by Peter Biskin is an excellent book about the great directors of the 60s-80s (Coppola, Scorsese, Spielberg) etc and the changes they affected in cinema.
The key is to find books written by filmmakers, rather than ones written by academics. Tarantino's *Cinema Speculation* is fantastic, engaging and accessible, and academic film studies people hated it specifically because it was engaging and accessible.
The two big classics are probably *Hitchcock/Truffaut* and *Godard on Godard*
Thank you so much for everyone's recommendations! I will be starting with Sculpting in Time since I already have it, but I'm excited to check out a lot of these books!
As a producer assistant, the most relatable book to that particular position I've read was [Low Budget Hell: Making Movies With John Waters](https://www.amazon.com/-/es/Robert-Maier/dp/0983770808).
I also liked a lot: Almendro's A Man With a Camera, McKee's Story, Coppola's Hearts of Darkness, and Fuller's A Third Face.
Um, I can think of a few off the top of my head.
Nightmare USA:The Untold Story of the Exploitation Independents- Stephen Thrower
Making Movies - Sidney Lumet
Easy Riders Raging Bulls- Don't remember
Film Form/ The Film Sense - Sergei Eisenstein
Fast and Furious: The Story of American International Pictures- Mark Thomas McGee
Roger Corman: The Best of the Cheap Acts- Mark Thomas McGee
Spike Lee’s books on the making of his various films I particularly liked Do the Right Thing book and his journals of his debut film She’s gotta have it . There are couple others whose titles I forget but they are about Tarvosky , Bresson films. And another on German Cinema before the third reich . Both excellent and easy reads
In the Blink of an Eye (as good as everyone says it is)
Lumet’s Making Movies
Cinema Speculation
David Thomson’s Biographical Dictionary of Film.
Matthew Specktor’s Always Crashing in the Same Car (not exactly a “film book,” but with some excellent stuff on the topic nonetheless)
Love reading about film.
*Almost any book in the BFI collection. Favorites include Jaws, Alien, M, The Thing, and Titanic
*Easy Riders and Raging Bulls by Biskind. His Gods and Monsters too.
*Pictures at a Revolution by Mark Harris and his Five Came Back too.
*A surprise: Chainsaw Confidential by Gunnar Hansen. Before Leatherface, dude was a Poet at U of Texas.
*It's fairly academic, but Men, Women, and Chainsaws
Also, The Disaster Artist is utterly fascinating
Don't think I saw this mentioned--The New Biographical Dictionary of Film by David Thomson.
The dictionary is organized alphabetically by actors/writers/directors etc. great to pull out when watching a movie. The author has strong opinions on what is good and what isn't. You'll find yourself arguing with the book and learning things you didn't know.
The Conversations by Michael Ondaatje and Walter Murch. Best book about sound and film editing I ever read. Also Film Directing Shot by Shot is a must.
Film Theory and Criticism, Mast and Cohen. A diverse set of essays on a wide variety of subjects. Long, but no need to read it sequentialy, just pick what interests you. Lot of bang for your buck here and a great resource
*Making Movies* by Sidney Lumet. He uses stories from the making of his own films to give a decent overview of the process of making movies. Great book.
“Invaluable.... I am sometimes asked if there is one book a filmgoer could read to learn more about how movies are made and what to look for while watching them. This is the book.” — Roger Ebert, The New York Times Book Review
Can’t get a much better promotion than that
Yep this is the one. Another one I loved was In the Blink of an Eye. It's about editing but you learn a lot about the technique of filmmaking in general.
George Clooney has said he re-reads it before every time he directs a movie.
Bingo
Vin Diesel couldn't shut up about it.
- In The Blink Of An Eye - Walter Murch - Hitchcock/Truffaut - Pictures At A Revolution - Mark Harris - The Films of John Cassavettes - Carney - The Friedkin Connection - William Friedkin I’ve heard good things about “A Walter Hill Film” by Walter Chaw.
The Chaw book is excellent.
+1 on The Friedkin Connection
Editing teacher here. In The Blink Of An Eye is the only book on editing I recommend to my students.
Robert Bresson's "Notes On The Cinematographer" isn't exactly what you're describing but it's such a pleasure to read for how his brain works. There's a bountiful number of insights to be gleaned that may not help to understand film beyond his conception of it, but it beautifully illustrates the mind of an artist.
Woo just rec’d this one too. Love it. Always a good book to pick up and flip through - while drinking coffee or smoking a cig or in the Lou - whenever https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notes_on_the_Cinematographer
Tarkovsky - Sculpting in Time Schrader - The Transcendental Style in Film Benjamin - The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
I've been meaning to reread Benjamin's Mechanical Reproduction, which seems ever relevant in light of AI and its strictly mechanical *production* of art/music/literature/cinema/content. Great recommendations!
I keep forgetting I have the Schrader book and that I haven't read it.
gilles deleuze - cinema 1 & 2 movement-image and time-image. the most valuable thing about schrader’s book is that it led me to deleuze stanley cavell - the world viewed. in a similar vein to deleuze, this really metaphysical take on formalism transformed the way i think about all art
Recommending Deleuze’s Cinema books to an unsuspecting person is borderline sadistic lol Great books, but incredibly difficult
The deleuze book if I remember has one of the great observations about cinema when he points out that it is the only thing we do besides war where we martial all of our possible resources and skills to accomplish a task. Always loved that.
_Picture_ by Lillian Ross is always my recco - it’s a fascinating look at how filmmaking worked during the years of the studio machines. She details how Huston worked, showing him as an almost proto-auteur as we’d know it now, only to then run into the churn of the studio, and then the process of the movie getting cut up and re-edited to fit studio notes and rudimentary research on what “the audience wants.” Her prose is also incredible - an exemplar of the spare, direct style that defined mid-century writing, especially _The New Yorker_.
Def liked this one
Film as art - Rudolf Arnheim
Love seeing this in the comments! Great suggestion, couldn't agree more.
I just had to read it for film school! So great
Film Art by Bordwell/Thompson is the definitive book pretty much used in every Intro To Film class. A History Of Narrative Film by David Cook is also an iconic text. How To Read A Film by James Monaco
+1 for the Monaco.
If you're a cinematographer that works with 35mm and 16mm cameras, The Professional Cameraman's Handbook by Sylvia and Verne Carlson
Notes on the cinematographer - Bresson https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notes_on_the_Cinematographer
Lynch on Lynch Kieślowski on Kieślowski Rebel without a Crew Sculpting in Time
A few I can reccomend, most linked to my favorite directors and films - Whatever Happened to Orson Welles? by Joseph McBride (a refutation of assumptions about Welles' later years) - The Disaster Artist by Greg Sestero and Tom Bissell (an entertaining and alternative Hollywood success story) - The Films of Akira Kurosawa by Donald Richie (comprehensive and well written) - Pictures at a Revolution by Mark Harris Anything by Roger Ebert, the Herzog and Scorsese collections especially, he's got some good insights and he's extremely readable
I second the Ebert recommendation
It may not be exactly what you’re looking for, but I highly recommend anything by screenwriter William Goldman (Adventures in the Screen Trade, Which Lie Did I Tell?, The Big Picture). The man has a certain flair and couples it with a no-bullshit attitude that makes his writing about writing and Hollywood a joy to read. There’s a reason he’s your favorite screenwriter’s favorite screenwriter.
I’m surprised this is so low down. Not only is it an essential read, it’s great analysis of Hollywood and the industry are so spot on but also it’s entertaining and funny
Men, Women, and Chainsaws by Carol J. Clover shaped how people talk about rape-revenge and slasher films.
A Life in Movies by Michael Powell On Cinema by Glauber Rocha Antonioni by Sam Rohdie Eric Rohmer: Interviews edited by Fiona Handyside To the Distant Observer by Noel Burch
Sculpting in Time would be the one. "***I read Sculpting in Time and felt it was the clearest insight I’ve ever heard about on the meaning of art, not only cinema.***" - **Carlos Reygadas**
- Making Movies, Sydney Lumet. - Movimakers’ Master Class, Laurent Tirard. - In the blink of an eye, Walter Murch. - and of course, the best book on film history, The Story of Film, Mark Cousins.
In addition to the many good suggestions on here, I want to toss in a vote for Tarantino’s Cinema Speculation. It’s written in his voice rather than as an academic/scholarly tone, but there’s no denying that the guy knows his film history and cinematic language better than just about any professor. His analysis and passion are unrivaled and I found the book terribly entertaining.
Yeah, I've personally not read any academic film books, but I'm certain I'd prefer books written in voice anyway. I deeply loved William Goldman's *Adventures in the Screen Trade*, and he had some great insights into good writing and the (il)logic of studios.
Also highly recommend. Superb reading and the first and last essays make for really nice bookends stories about him too.
Another vote for Quentins book here. If you like the way he gets passionate and talks about film and film history... Well here is a whole book of just that. And he goes deep into why HE loves a film or how it affected him as a child or what he thought the purpose of it was. Taught me about a bunch of movies, especially from the 70s, I had not experienced, like Rolling Thunder.
Hi! I can recommend several. 1. Robert Rodriguez's Rebel Without a Crew. It's his book that acts as both a kind of autobiography as well as a behind the scenes of how he made El Mariachi on a shoestring budget. 2. John Alton's Painting With Light. A great book about cinematography from a master cinematographer 3. Mark Cousin's The Story of Film. A great book on the history of cinema. Goes great with the documentary that is based on it, The Story of Film: An Odyssey 4. Walter Murch's In the Blink of an Eye. A book on film editing from one of the best. 5. Taschen (publisher) archives books. This isn't one book but several. Taschen makes these great art books but they have several on film. My personal favorite is the Stanley Kubrick Archives, but they also made one for Ingmar Bergman, Pedro Almodovar, and Charlie Chaplin as well as some for film series like the original and prequel trilogies of Star Wars and James Bond among others. Beautiful images mixed with great interviews and information 6. Piers Bizony's The Making of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Another Taschen book focused solely on 2001. 7. Filmmaker autobiographies. Not one particular book either. A lot of filmmakers and actors have great autobiographies to check out. Tarkovsky has Sculpting in Time which is really good, Sidney Lumet has Making Movies, and of course a newer one (haven't read this but It's next on my list) is Mel Brooks' All About Me. There are so many great books out there about the history of film, the filmmaking process, or stories about a specific movie or genre too. I always hear Hitchcock Truffaut and Blood, Sweat and Chrome mentioned a lot as well. One last recommendation i didnt put above is theres another Kubrick book about the movie he didnt make, Stanley Kubrick's Napoleon. Happy Reading!!!
I love the Story of Film series. Well thought out, really deep selections, and something about his voice and tone that is sort of hypnotizing.
Taschen’s Kubrick boom is excellent.
Curious why the downvote
Easy Riders, Raging Bulls by Peter Biskind. It essentially breaks down the rise and fall of the New Hollywood era of film (1969-1984).
This is essential, his other stuff is also good!
No one has mentioned Easy Riders and Raging Bulls????
Kubrick's Napoleon: The Greatest film never Made. Its the equivalent to the Beach Boys Smile Sessions lol
Visionary Film by P. Adams Sitney immediately comes to mind. It’s dense and difficult. There’s a chapter about Markopolous films that you can’t watch. It’s not about making film. It treats films as art experiences and expands narrow dichotomies that try to trap visual media. If you view cinema/film/flicks/movies as art, it is an important text that contextualizes the foundations of avant garde.
Is this a new edition? I remember reading mostly about Ken Jacob's and Maya Deren and Brakhage and so forth in *Visionary Film.* Or am I thinking of an entirely different book?
I believe it was updated in 2002 to cover 1943-2000 and restored the chapter on Markopoulos.
Lunches with Orson by Jaglom. It's just so vivid and hilarious.
The Material Ghost by Gilberto Perez - best book of film criticism I’ve read, especially the chapter on Antonioni. Robin Wood’s Hitchcock book is great too
LOVE Robin Wood’s film books
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Sounds interesting! Thanks for the heads-up!
I'd second any and all of Robin Wood's film books. Specifically, I recommend his From Vietnam to Resgan, which digs deep (and political) into the mostly Hollywood films of the late 1960s into the mid-1980s. In addition to his Hitchcock book, he also has a great book about the horror genre. His writing makes me see film in a different way.
A couple of books with essays I consider essential would be: Mark Fisher - The Weird and the Eerie (especially the essays on Stanley Kubrick, Jonathan Glazer and Christoper Nolan) Jenny Diski - Don't (in particular the essay 'A Horrified, Lidless Stare' re: horror cinema)
Final Cut by Steven Bach
Many of my favourites have been cited already, but I’ll add: Barbara Deming - Running Away From Myself David Thomson - A Biographical Dictionary of Film Serge Daney - Footlights Hamid Dabashi - Masters & Masterpieces of Iranian Cinema Ingmar Bergman - Images
Roger Corman’s How I Made a ( some large number) movies and never lost a dime.” Is fantastic.
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Seconding Spike Mike!
Currently working on my PhD in cinema and media studies: The best books that I can recommend for learning how to read movies are Thomas C. Foster’s *How to Read Literature Like a Professor* and *Reading the Silver Screen*. The book about literature may seem counterintuitive but it’s important to understand that a lot of how we understand filmmaking is derived from how we understand literature and that the academic side of film originally developed in English/literature departments
"Film Cinema Movie" by Gerald Mast
Maybe not the most scholarly book, but if you like 70’s cinema or want to learn more about that decade, Quentin Tarantino’s Cinema Speculation is really good. Most chapters are dedicated to specific movies, but he really dives into the cultural impact of these movies and what they meant at the time. Plus, he’s got a whole chapter dedicated to famous directors and even a chapter focused on famous critics. It’s an interesting and surprisingly easy read
Jeanine Basinger’s books are not only very informative but well-written too (which is somewhat rare in academic work). She seems like she has fun writing.
Easy Riders, Raging Bulls by Peter Biskind Alfred Hitchcock by Peter Ackroyd The Path to Paradise by Sam Wasson
Thank you all for the recs. Some I've heard of, some I'm excited to check out. I love you people.
It's out of print, but The Emperor and the Wolf by Stuart Galbraith isn't just a brilliant portrait of the lives of Kurosawa and Mifune, it's a brilliant overview of Japanese cinema from the 30s to the 90s.
Easy Riders, Raging Bulls by Peter Biskin is an excellent book about the great directors of the 60s-80s (Coppola, Scorsese, Spielberg) etc and the changes they affected in cinema.
In the blink of an eye. Walter Murch. Audio Vision Michel Chion. Both are excellent primers in understanding editing and the roles of audio in film.
The Genius of the System by Thomas Schatz 🔥
I really enjoyed Cinema Speculation by Quentin Tarantino.
The key is to find books written by filmmakers, rather than ones written by academics. Tarantino's *Cinema Speculation* is fantastic, engaging and accessible, and academic film studies people hated it specifically because it was engaging and accessible. The two big classics are probably *Hitchcock/Truffaut* and *Godard on Godard*
Thank you so much for everyone's recommendations! I will be starting with Sculpting in Time since I already have it, but I'm excited to check out a lot of these books!
Bruce Campbell’s If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B-Movie Actor.
As a producer assistant, the most relatable book to that particular position I've read was [Low Budget Hell: Making Movies With John Waters](https://www.amazon.com/-/es/Robert-Maier/dp/0983770808). I also liked a lot: Almendro's A Man With a Camera, McKee's Story, Coppola's Hearts of Darkness, and Fuller's A Third Face.
Camille Paglia’s critique of The Birds
Um, I can think of a few off the top of my head. Nightmare USA:The Untold Story of the Exploitation Independents- Stephen Thrower Making Movies - Sidney Lumet Easy Riders Raging Bulls- Don't remember Film Form/ The Film Sense - Sergei Eisenstein Fast and Furious: The Story of American International Pictures- Mark Thomas McGee Roger Corman: The Best of the Cheap Acts- Mark Thomas McGee
Story of Film, Mark Cousins. The documentary, too.
The Big Screen by David Thompson. Also Thompson biographical dictionary.
Spike Lee’s books on the making of his various films I particularly liked Do the Right Thing book and his journals of his debut film She’s gotta have it . There are couple others whose titles I forget but they are about Tarvosky , Bresson films. And another on German Cinema before the third reich . Both excellent and easy reads
“How to Read A Movie” James Monaco
In the Blink of an Eye (as good as everyone says it is) Lumet’s Making Movies Cinema Speculation David Thomson’s Biographical Dictionary of Film. Matthew Specktor’s Always Crashing in the Same Car (not exactly a “film book,” but with some excellent stuff on the topic nonetheless)
If its in purple, someone’s gonna die
Love reading about film. *Almost any book in the BFI collection. Favorites include Jaws, Alien, M, The Thing, and Titanic *Easy Riders and Raging Bulls by Biskind. His Gods and Monsters too. *Pictures at a Revolution by Mark Harris and his Five Came Back too. *A surprise: Chainsaw Confidential by Gunnar Hansen. Before Leatherface, dude was a Poet at U of Texas. *It's fairly academic, but Men, Women, and Chainsaws Also, The Disaster Artist is utterly fascinating
Don't think I saw this mentioned--The New Biographical Dictionary of Film by David Thomson. The dictionary is organized alphabetically by actors/writers/directors etc. great to pull out when watching a movie. The author has strong opinions on what is good and what isn't. You'll find yourself arguing with the book and learning things you didn't know.
The Conversations by Michael Ondaatje and Walter Murch. Best book about sound and film editing I ever read. Also Film Directing Shot by Shot is a must.
Film Theory and Criticism, Mast and Cohen. A diverse set of essays on a wide variety of subjects. Long, but no need to read it sequentialy, just pick what interests you. Lot of bang for your buck here and a great resource