Customer Reviews

501 Must See Movies

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I was given this book as a Christmas present from my well-meaning sister who knew I was a filmbuff and thought it would make a good gift. But when I actually came to browsing through it, I think she chose this book based solely on the iconic photo of Audrey Hepburn on the cover. This book, though nicely organized with colorful photos and awards/cast/crew information, goes solely with films that were either huge hits or are already huge classics. Every film that made over $100 million or won Best Picture is here, but I opened this book wanting to be reccomended films I hadn't already seen. This book actually reccomends "Independence Day", "Men in Black", "Romeo +Juliet" (Baz Lhurman version), and "While You Were Sleeping" yet it denies gems "Almost Famous", "Requiem for a Dream", and "The Royal Tenenbaums" among others. The only smaller film noted was "Lost in Translation", though I'd doubt it would be on the book had it not been nominated for Best Picture among other things. Sometimes the authors have a hard time justifying their choices, saying about Independence Day that a scene is "sure to offend anyone brighter than a glass of water", yet they still reccomend it. The real mistake about this book is the fact that it has an editor who didn't check its Oscar facts (Morgan Freeman, NOT Tim Robbins, was nominated for Best Actor for The Shawshank Redemption), remember the controversy (Mia Farrow was married to Frank Sinatra--NOT Roman Polanski--during the filming of Rosemary's Baby when Sinatra ordered her to not chop off her hair for the film and divorced her shortly after), or even categorize the films right (saying that Doctor Strangelove is a sci-fi/fantasy is like saying Schindler's List is the funniest film since "Some Like it Hot").

This book is riddled with mistakes and consists of 501 movies I feel I've already seen. Film buffs should stay away from this book.

At over 500 pages long this is a fine book which you could quite easily read from cover to cover or dip in and out of when you want to decide whether a watch a particular film or not.

The book divides the films into 10 categories:
Action/Adventure
Comedy
Drama
Horror
Musical
Romance
Science Fiction & Fantasy
Mystery & Thriller
War
Western

There is a page (a few have 2) for each film, normally with a photograph as well, and they are in chronological order within category. You certainly won't agree with all the selections but most of the films are either potential or acknowledged classics. The writers generally present easy to read assessments of each film, and only on the odd occasion do there reviews drift towards the highbrow.

This is a much nicer volume to own than say a Halliwells film guide as the reviews are longer and better to read and the quality of the printing/paper is of an equally high standard.

This is not a book for film buffs. And it is also a book you should look for in the remainder bin at cut-rate prices.

That said, this is a so-so guide to many good movies, few of which you may not have seen. But if you're over 30, you've probably seen nearly all of them in the theatre, on DVD (or maybe videotape) or on television.

This is apparently a promotional book, put together in the hope that the title would sell it.

Six reviewers provide very generalized reviews of films broken into ten categories: Action/Adventure & Epic; Comedy; Drama; Horror; Musical; Romance; Science Fiction & Fantasy; Mystery & Thriller; War and Western.

None of the reviews have any significant depth, though there are lots and lots of spoilers. Misspellings and factual errors are common. Most of the reviews are one-page, though a few are two-pages. All have at least one nice photograph.

The films run from the birth of moviemaking through the early 2000s. As noted, nearly all the films were box office hits or are considered classics. Not much new here.

If you get it cheap, it's a nice book toleaf through and it may prod you to rent a few movies that you once enjoyed and are ready to watch again.

Jerry

Here is yet another entry in the best/essential/great/must-see films book category. In this case, it's a nicely illustrated, wide-ranging, 540+ pages-long British import highlighting great movies of the past 90 years.

Most of the "usual suspects" are here along with some more recent "kids on the block" (i.e., Gone with the Wind, Phantom of the Opera, Fargo, The Searchers, The Odd Couple, Forbidden Planet, Meet the Parents, North by Northwest, The Mummy, Mister Roberts, Fish Called Wanda, Love Story, Aliens, South Pacific, Pulp Fiction, Little Big Man, etc.) and some foreign-language titles from France, Hong Kong and Russia as well. Divided into ten categories such as Action/Adventure, Comedy, Drama, Horror and Musical, each film gets one - sometimes two - pages and one or more photographs.

Books like this are useful and entertaining to novice and experienced film fans alike. Chock full of facts, figures, history and opinion, 501 MUST-SEE MOVIES is a treat - and a steal at $5.00!

Any book which claims to list the "best of" anything is usually in for a lot of trouble right out of the gate, and motion pictures are a truly contentious subject; every fan becomes a critic and works to second guess the author and editors. But quite frankly, even the most uncritical of fans could probably do a better job than 501 MUST-SEE FILMS, which might be better titled ABOUT 200 MUST-SEE FILMS WITH A LOT OF ALSO-RANS.

For one thing, the break-out into genres is frequently quite bizarre. I don't know about you, but I was unaware that IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT would be described as a love story. True, the plot does involve a love story, but that's just the plot; it's a comedy through and through. I suppose you could call VERTIGO and SLEUTH dramas, but don't you really think--just at a gut level--that they'd be better off listed under suspense? And would you really list A CLOCKWORK ORANGE under science-fiction and fantasy?

And then there's the designation of "must-see." It's a fun movie, very entertaining, very well done--but would you really describe THE TOWERING INFERNO as a "must-see" film? What about GREMLINS, a considerably less well-made film, although still entertaining in its own way? Would you, as a film fan, consider your credibility undermined if you had somehow managed to get by all these years without sitting through TRON? I rather doubt it. And the perversity is compounded by the fact that this text leaves out a lot of movies that COULD very well be described as must-see in order to include such titles.

Adding insult to injury is the fact that the text actually tells you very little about the films themselves. There is a very brief notation about the film--date, director, major stars--followed by a rather plushly worded but surprisingly sparse abstract of the plot. Don't think you will settle an argument about who the art director was on A PLACE IN THE SUN from this tome; not only does it not include A PLACE IN THE SUN, it doesn't list such information.

I give the book two stars instead of one for the simple reason that there actually is one section the book does quiet well: Musicals, a section created by Ann Loyd. I personally would have cut PAL JOEY for COVER GIRL and YOU NEVER WERE LOVELIER in favor of THE BARCLAYS OF BROADWAY, and I'm certainly no fan of MOULIN ROUGE--but that's really a matter of opinion; there's nothing here that simply screams "how could you be so stupid?" the way that other entries in other sections do.

Musicals aside, the absolute best I can say for 501 MUST-SEE MOVIES is that it has some good pictures, and if you are into making colages or doing decopague you might want pick up for that. And at more than 500 slightly oversized pages it would also make a good door stop. In fact, it might serve a lot of interesting purposes... except that of a book. Don't get it for that.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

The best thing about this book is that it was written by several movie buffs, not just one or two. This helps provide a wide range of movies that only one person couldn't give. Books that have 1001 films in it are not as good as this one because they seem to have a lot of filler, this book gets down to business.

My quest to see the best movies ever began in the early 90's. My movie obsession was taken to the next level the day I bought "501 Must See Movies". This book became my bible, my go to book if you will ever since. I may never have found great classics like Safety Last, Forbidden Planet, Sergeant York and Jason and the Argonauts without this book. This book gave me new reason to re-visit movies like Alien, The Blues Brothers, American Beauty and The Good, the bad and the ugly. I'm also grateful that this book introduced me to several movies I may not have chosen on my own, movies like Amelie, Run Lola Run, When Harry met Sally, Eraserhead, The Mission and countless others. This book has inspired me to complete my own "101 Must See" list and also a "501 Best Ever" list. I may not agree that all the movies in this book are Must See but the book itself is a must have for any movie buff!