a Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films including masterpieces, oddities and guilty pleasures (with just a few disasters)

'Have You Seen...?'

David Thomson's 'Have You Seen?' - A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films is a quirky, idiosyncratic and hugely entertaining look at a century of cinema. 
 
 This is veteran film writer David Thomson's personal, irreverent, hilarious and utterly original take on the 1,000 films he has most loved - and hated - from Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein to Zabriskie Point, from esteemed classics to forgotten curiosities, guilty pleasures to noir treats, horror gems to kitsch disasters. The result is probably the most enjoyable film book you will ever read (and you'll never think about The Sound of Music in the same way again). 
 
 'Delightful ... it's like having the most film-literate pal you can imagine sitting beside you in a multiplex' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Independent 
 
 'A joy ... he's incapable of writing a boring sentence' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Evening Standard Books of the Year 
 
 'This book sets the bar. There isn't a more intelligent, insightful and provocative guide to individual movies in the world' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Financial Times 
 
 'Every reader's simple instinct will be to plunge into the heart of it' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Sunday Times 
 
 'A dazzlingly authoritative treat ... crammed with insight and epigram' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Observer 
 
 'Eccentric, brilliant, scholarly, perverse, witty, egocentric and infuriating, sometimes all at once' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Philip French 
 
 'He enrages, exasperates, but never leaves one indifferent' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;The Times Books of the Year 
 
 David Thomson is, among many other things, author of The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, now in its fourth edition. His recent books include a biography of Nicole Kidman, Fan Tan (a novel written in collaboration with Marlon Brando) and The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood.

Delightful ... the world's leading sage about film ... It's like having the most film-literate pal you can imagine sitting beside you in a multiplex

This book sets the bar. There isn't a more intelligent, insightful and provocative guide to individual movies in the world

A dazzlingly authoritative treat ... crammed with insight and epigram

Eccentric, brilliant, scholarly, perverse, witty, egocentric and infuriating, sometimes all at once

A treasure trove for film buffs ... there is probably no finer contemporary writer on what makes the movies so unmissable

David Thomson is, among many other things, author of The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, now in its fourth edition. His recent books include a biography of Nicole Kidman, Fan Tan (a novel written in collaboration with Marlon Brando) and The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood. Born in London, he now lives in San Francisco.

This is veteran film writer David Thomson's personal, irreverent, hilarious and utterly original take on the 1,000 films he has most loved - and hated - from esteemed classics to forgotten curiosities, guilty pleasures to noir treats, horror gems to kitsch disasters. The result is probably the most enjoyable film book you will ever read (and you'll never think about The Sound of Music in the same way again).

Ingrid Bergman (Great Stars)

David Thomson is, among many other things, author of The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, now in its fourth edition. His recent books include a biography of Nicole Kidman, Fan Tan (a novel written in collaboration with Marlon Brando) and The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood. His latest work is the acclaimed Have You Seen...? A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films. Born in London, he now lives in San Francisco.

'Ingrid Bergman was far more than just a sweet, virtuous, "natural" Swedish girl - she was a dark sensualist over whom many men might go mad. Her very gaze delivered a climate of adult romantic expectation.' 
 
Adored by millions for her luminous beauty and elegance, at the height of her career Ingrid Bergman commanded a love that has hardly ever been matched, until her marriage fell apart and created an international scandal. Here renowned film writer David Thomson gives his own unique and original take on a woman who was constantly driven by her passions and by her need to act, even if it meant sacrificing everything.

Bette Davis (Great Stars)

'She could look demure while behaving like an empress. Blonde, with eyes like pearls too big for her head, she was very striking, but marginally pretty and certainly not beautiful ... But it was her edge that made her memorable - her upstart superiority, her reluctance to pretend deference to others.' 
 
Bette Davis was the commanding figure of the great era of Hollywood stardom, with a drive and energy that put her contemporaries in the shade. She played queens, jezebels and bitches, she could out-talk any male co-star, she warred with her studio, Warner Bros, worked like a demon, got through four husbands, was nominated for seven Oscars and - no matter what - never gave up fighting. This is her story.

Gary Cooper (Great Stars)

'Cooper was heroic, of course, in his own mind as much as in his scripts. He was manly, tall, ruggedly handsome. He was a man for a fight.' 
 
On screen he was the ultimate all-American hero: lean, laconic and masculine, a lone sheriff battling his enemies in High Noon, or a tough individualist in The Fountainhead. Off screen he bedded a host of leading ladies and carefully honed his image, making hundreds of movies and winning two Oscars in the process. Acclaimed film writer David Thomson explores the career and the contradictions of 'Coop', the star who lived the dream in the golden age of Hollywood.

Humphrey Bogart (Great Stars)

'Look, I'm hardly pretty, he seems to say. I sound like gravel; I look rough and tough; and, honest, I don't give you the soft, foolish answers the pretty boys will give you. You may not like what I say, but you better believe it.' 
 
He became a legend as 'Bogie', the world-weary, wise-cracking outsider, but in reality Humphrey Bogart was plagued by doubts and demons. He was born upper-class yet made his name playing mavericks, drank with the rat pack and met four wives on set - including his great love, Lauren Bacall - yet always mistrusted stardom. Here David Thomson, one of film's most provocative writers, reveals the man behind cinema's greatest icon.

Europe Since Napoleon

A history of Europe since Napoleon, covering all of the main topics of that period.

David Thomson

The Big Screen

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