Bøger i BFI Film Classics serien

Gone with the Wind (1939) is one of the greatest films of all time - the best-known of Hollywood's Golden Age and a work that has, in popular imagination, defined southern American history for three-quarters of a century.

The first computer-generated animated feature film, Toy Story (1995) sustains a dynamic vitality that appeals to audiences of all ages. This lively study explores how its depiction of a glimmering commercial world both deconstructs and affirms modern popular culture and in doing so provides a distinctive alternative to the usual Disney formula.

Portraying the Ku Klux Klan as heroic underdogs, silent epic The Birth of a Nation (1915) is widely considered to be the most controversial film of all time.

Matthew Solomon's study of Chaplin's The Gold Rush (1925) provides an in-depth discussion of the film's production and reception history, placing it in the context of the turn-of-the-century Alaska Klondike gold rush, and analyses the film's narrative and formal features, particularly its references to music-hall performance styles and tropes.

A half-century after its release, The Sound of Music remains the most profitable and recognisable film musical ever made. Foregrounding the film's iconic musical numbers as key to its global longevity and appeal, Caryl Flinn's fresh new study traces the film's prehistories, its place amongst the events of the 1960s, and its afterlife amongst fans.

Widely believed to be Terry Gilliam's best film, Brazil's brilliantly imaginative vision of a retro-futuristic bureaucracy has had a lasting influence on genre cinema. Exploring its complex history and relationship with other dystopias, Paul McAuley explains why this satire on the unchecked power of the state is more relevant than ever.

Alien, that legendary fusion of science fiction and horror, was born out of a terrible monster movie script called Star Beast. Tracing the constellation of talents that came together to produce the film, this book explores how and why this interstellar slasher movie, this old dark house in space, came to coil itself around our darkest imaginings.

Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) is the definitive film about the nuclear age. Peter Kramer analyses its key scenes and complex production history, highlighting major themes such as Strangelove's Nazi past and the film's close relationship with real-world nuclear strategy and politics.

Murray Pomerance here ranges through the many tortuous and thrilling passages of Marnie, weaving critical discussion together with production history to reveal Marnie as a woman in flight from her self, her past, her love, and the eyes of surveilling others.

Also examining its production processes, Butler explores the against-type casting of Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet in lead roles and the intertwined careers of Kaufman and director Michel Gondry. This special edition features original cover artwork by Patricia Derks.

A visually stunning and heartfelt riposte to the emotional sterility of Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, Douglas Trumbull's eco-themed Silent Running (1972) became one of the defining science-fiction films of the seventies.

Successful in both Japan and the West, Akira had a huge impact on the international growth in popularity of manga and anime. Closely analysing the film and its key themes, Colin O'Dell and Michelle Le Blanc assess its historical importance, its impact on the Western perception of anime, and its influence on science fiction cinema.

Taking the production history into account, Prawer ultimately foregrounds the cultural and aesthetic components of the film that combine to such powerful effect. This second edition features a new foreword by Brad Prager and original cover artwork by Matt Brand.

Murnau's 1922 Nosferatu, the first (albeit unofficial) screen adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula, starring Max Schreck as the hollow-eyed, cadaverous vampire, remains a potent and disturbing horror film.

With its jagged, stylised sets, menacing shadows and themes of murder, madness and delirium, Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (1920) remains the source and essence of German Expressionist cinema.

Vampyr is a problematic film, partly because some of it is lost. But in what remains, there are problems too. In a reading as passionate as it is analytic, a veteran dramatist and film-author reveals how, image by image, this difficult film systematically binds the spectator - spatially, and morally - into its unique world of the Undead.

Novelist and critic Kim Newman assesses the horror noir Cat People (1943), produced by Val Lewton and directed by Jacques Tourneur. This important and influential film is considered in the light of its place in film history and as a work of ambitious horror. The new edition includes a postscript about the sequel, The Curse of the Cat People.

Guillermo del Toro's cult masterpiece, Pan's Labyrinth (2006), won a total of 76 awards and is one of the most commercially successful Spanish-language films ever made.

Stanley Kubrick hailed The Shining as 'the scariest horror film of all time' before its release in 1980.

Sir Christopher Frayling explores the journey from Henry James's original novella, The Turn of the Screw, via critical debates and the stage version of The Innocents, to the screenplay by Archibald, Capote and Mortimer. Making full use of the unpublished Jack Clayton archive, the book also includes interviews with Deborah Kerr and Freddie Francis.

Blade Runner has proved to be one of the most enduring and influential films of the 1980s. This new edition of Bukatman's study of Blade Runner is published in the BFI Film Classics 20th anniversary series of special editions, with a new foreword by the author and a stunning new jacket design by Paul Pope.

Singin' in the Rain remains one of the best loved films ever made. In a shot-by-shot analysis of the famous title number, Peter Wollen shows how Gene Kelly binds the dance and musical elements into the narrative, and convincingly argues that the film was the high point in the careers of those who worked on it.

Metropolis (1925) is a monumental work. One of the greatest works of science fiction, it also tells human stories about love and family. This new edition of Elaesser's study is published in the Film Classics 20th anniversary series of special editions, with a new foreword by the author, and a stunning new jacket design by Cristiana Couceiro.

Went the Day Well? is one of the most unusual Ealing Studios pictures, a distinctly unsentimental war film made in the darkest days of WWII. Houston studies why the film avoids the cosy Ealing trademark. This Film Classics 20th anniversary edition comes with a new foreword by Geoff Brown, and a stunning new jacket design by Mark Swan.

Taxi Driver is one of the major films of the 1970s, which established Martin Scorcese's reputation as a prominent American director. This new edition of Taubin's study is published in the Film Classics 20th anniversary series of special editions, with a new foreword by Amy Taubin, and a stunning new jacket design by Marc Atkins.

Vertigo (1958) is widely regarded as not only one of Hitchcock's best films, but one of the greatest films of world cinema.

Laura Mulvey offers a fresh and original reading of one of the greatest films in all cinema. This new edition of Mulvey's study is published in the Film Classics 20th anniversary series of special editions, with a new foreword by the author, and a stunning new jacket design by Eric Skillman.

The Tales of Hoffmann (1951) is a unique and important film, both in the history of British cinema and in the history of interdisciplinary art-making. It is the first full-throttle presentation of an opera on screen: a Technicolor exploration of romance, fantasy, and failure, more danced than sung.

Written on the Wind (1956) is one of classical Hollywood's most striking films andranks among Douglas Sirk's finest achievements.

Il Conformist has mesmerised audiences by Bertulocci's mastery of the telling, the beauty of the images, the camera work, its soundtrack, and the intensity with which the characters convey powerful psychic energies.