The 25 Best Books About Cinema Every Film Lover Should Read

‘Pictures at a Revolution’ – Mark Harris (2008)

One of the most incisive and entertaining cinema writers at work, Mark Harris has also written a spectacular biography of Mike Nichols and told the story of Hollywood at war in Five Came Back. But Pictures at a Revolution (aka ‘Scenes from a Revolution’) could be his finest hour. A rollicking account of American cinema’s biggest inflection point, it tells the story of how 1967’s five Best Picture Oscar nominees reshaped Hollywood forever in some genuinely wild (cough, Doctor Dolittle) ways. 

‘Spike, Mike, Slackers, and Dykes: A Guided Tour Across a Decade of Independent Cinema’ – John Pierson (1995)

The birth of modern indie is captured from the inside by Pierson, a producer on Kevin Smith’s Clerks who has a wealth of great stories about Spike Lee, Richard Linklater and many others. Inspirational for anyone looking to get their microbudget masterpiece off the ground.

‘You’ll Never Eat Lunch In This Town Again’ – Julia Phillips (1991)

A Molotov cocktail of a memoir, Julia Phillips, the producer of The Sting, Taxi Driver and Close Encounters of the Third Kind dished the dirt on ’70s New Hollywood and didn’t hold back. A drug-fuelled, incredibly more-ish career suicide note.

‘Hollywood Babylon’ – Kenneth Anger (1959)

Written by underground filmmaker Anger, Hollywood Babylon chronicles the seedy underbelly of classic Tinseltown, documenting the scandals and suicides, affairs and atrocities with a delicious eye for sordid detail. Some of it has subsequently been debunked – apparently Clara Bow didn’t sleep her way through the entire USC American football team – but it is still ridiculously entertaining.

‘Seduction: Sex, Lies, and Stardom in Howard Hughes’s Hollywood’ – Karina Longworth (2018)

Long before #MeToo, Hollywood’s young starlets were finding themselves groomed by sexual predators, and few emerged unscathed. Karina Longworth, host of the You Must Remember This podcast, brings her unsparing eye and easy style to one of Tinseltown’s most powerful moguls, Howard Hughes. The result is a heady look back at the era of Katharine Hepburn, Ava Gardner, Lana Turner et al, a silver screen story with a dark heart. 

‘Adventures in the Screen Trade’ – William Goldman (1983)

With its infamous opening sentence – ‘nobody knows anything’ – Butch Cassidy screenwriter William Goldman’s legendary Hollywood memoir laid bare an entire industry, revealing the reality behind the glamour: that Hollywood is one giant crapshoot, where producers gamble with massive sums of other people’s money and you’re only ever as successful as your most recent picture. 

‘Box Office Poison: Hollywood’s Story in a Century of Flops’ – Tim Robey (2024)

No one sets out to make a rubbish movie, but some of them turn out that way anyway. Film writer Tim Robey rescues hugely entertaining vignettes from the rubble of some of Hollywood’s greatest clunkers. His funny but forensic look at Doctor Dolittle, Catwoman and other mega-flops takes in on-set chaos, actorly meltdowns, script fails, and – gulp – CGI buttholes. If you’re still recovering from the feline fiasco that was Cats, here’s therapy.  

‘The Story of Film’ – Mark Cousins (2004)

The Northern Irish filmmaker and all-round film guru retooled how we thought about cinema with his 15-hour documentary masterclass, The Story of Film, in 2011. His companion book does the same in text form. It’s a daring and definitive roadmap from Muybridge to Nolan, taking in giants of Chinese cinema, feminist icons and the future of the art form. It’s not quite the same as hearing Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s name spoken in those sing-song Belfast tones, but still, no good bookshelf should be without it.

‘The World of Black Film’ – Ashley Clark (2026)

The curatorial director at the Criterion Collection, Ashley Clark’s thoughtful, joyful survey of Black cinema runs the gamut from the silent Lime Kiln Club Field Day in 1913 to Steve McQueen’s Blitz, traversing continents, decades and genre to celebrate the biggies and introduce hidden treasures. As Spike Lee puts it, ‘My Brother Ashley Clark Has Broke It Down To What Black Film Was, Is Present Day, And What The Future Might Be.’

‘Making Movies’ – Sidney Lumet (1995)

One of Hollywood’s greats delivers a definite guide to the art of filmmaking in his own modest but magnificent way. Sidney Lumet generously shares the lessons he learnt over 50 years turning out bangers like 12 Angry Men, Dog Day Afternoon, Network and The Verdict in a memoir no movie lover should be without. It’s been nearly 20 years since he hung up his clapperboard for the last time, but Lumet’s filmmaking lessons still apply. 

BFI Film Classics – various (1996-)

Starting with The Searchers, the BFI’s Film Classics collection interprets and interrogates the best of cinema one film at a time. Divided into strands – classic and modern – the convivial volumes are sometimes making-ofs, sometimes academic deep dives, but they are always thought-provoking and indispensable. Only one bugbear: still no Weekend At Bernie’s?

‘Hitchcock/Truffaut’ – François Truffaut (1966)

In 1962, French New Wave legend François Truffaut spent a week interviewing his idol Alfred Hitchcock about his life and work. The result is a set text, perhaps the most influential film book, as one master director gently coaxes gold from another. So good, it was made into a film in 2016.

‘Save The Cat!: The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need’ – Blake Snyder (2005)

Save The Cat is modern Hollywood’s screenwriting bible that lays out beat for beat to how to create a screenplay that works. If you’ve ever wondered why all modern US films feel the same, it’s because they all adhere to Snyder’s formula. Oh, and the title comes from a sure-fire way to make your protagonist relatable.

‘Easy Riders, Raging Bulls’ – Peter Biskind (1998)

Subtitled ‘How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock ‘n’ Roll Generation Saved Hollywood’, culture critic Biskind’s controversial, highly readable bestseller crystallised the idea that the 1970s was the most vital and artistically progressive decade in cinema, profiling figures including Dennis Hopper and Martin Scorsese – whose films gave the book its title – alongside the likes of Francis Ford Coppola, William Friedkin and Robert Altman, all of whom took exception to their depiction in the book.

‘The Last Action Heroes’ – Nick de Semlyen (2023)

Impeccably researched and fast paced, Empire editor Nick de Semlyen (brother of Time Out film editor Phil de Semlyen) colourfully charts the ‘80s era of movie muscle men – Arnie! Sly! Willis! Norris! Seagal! – in all their glorious stupidity. It perfectly balances juicy anecdotes with real insight into why the titans of testosterone flourished and why their reign had to end. 

Painting With Light – John Alton (1949)

First published in 1949, this how-to-guide comes courtesy of John Alton, one of the cinematography greats who practically defined the look of film noir in the ’40s and ’50s. Using non-technical language, Alton explains the role of the cinematographer, while fellow cinematographer John Bailey and critic Todd McCarthy put Alton’s importance into context. 

‘It Used to be Witches: Under the Spell of Queer Cinema’ – Ryan Gilbey (2025)

Culture writer Ryan Gilbey adds a rewarding new perspective to cinema’s queer history as a film critic wrestling with how his own identity has – and hasn’t – been reflected back at him through the medium. Self-describing as the ‘Gustav von Aschenbach of easyJet’, a reference to Dirk Bogarde’s ailing gay novelist in Death in Venice, Gilbey marries the insights of LGBTQ+ filmmakers like Andrew Haigh and Cheryl Dunye with personal reflections in a striking love letter to queer cinema in all its complexities.

‘The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Film Editing’ by Michael Ondaatje (2002)

The Conversations is a fantastic meeting of extraordinary minds. The English Patient author Ondaatje and film editor extraordinaire Walter Murch discuss the latter’s extraordinary career cutting for Lucas, Coppola and others (such as – hey! – The English Patient). A real insight into how movies are shaped. 

‘The Star Wars Archives 1977-1983’, edited by Paul Duncan (2018)

Heavier than a Bantha, this lavishly illustrated book is manna from Endor for the Force faithful, a guide through the original trilogy (‘the OT’ in fan-speak) that uses script pages, concept art, storyboards and 1970s George Lucas interviews that traces the development of a modern phenomenon. For the Jar Jar-inclined there is a companion tome about the prequels trilogy (‘the PT’).

‘The Director’ – Daniel Kehlmann (2023)

Weimar-era auteur GW Pabst is a spider in the web of Nazi Germany in Daniel Kehlmann’s novel of creativity, complicity and artistic compromise. The Pandora’s Box director must balance family, freedom and a fast-spinning moral compass as chief propagandist Josef Goebbels dangles the keys to the Third Reich’s film industry – or prison – in front of him. Full of lightly-worn philosophical sophistication and cinema cameos – Louise Brooks, Greta Garbo and the hissable Leni Riefenstahl – it’s Doctor Faustus with a clapperboard. 

‘Orson Welles’ – Simon Callow (1995)

As well as being one of this nation’s most beloved actors – appearing in everything from A Room With a View to Outlander, and earning a CBE for his efforts – Simon Callow is also a respected biographer, publishing insightful volumes on Oscar Wilde, Charles Laughton and Richard Wagner. It’s his epic multi-part exploration of the life and career of Orson Welles that remains his finest achievement, however: a suitably grand and adoring portrait of one of film’s great humanists. 

‘The New Biographical Dictionary of Film’ – David Thomson (1975)

A series of thousands of biographical sketches, what elevates this from the canon of movie reference books is British film critic David Thomson’s ability to inject personality, colour and opinion into his portraits. You might not always agree with his often contrarian views but he always engages and entertains. Voted No. 1 in a Sight & Sound best film book poll.

‘Blood, Sweat & Chrome: The Wild and True Story of Mad Max: Fury Road’ – Kyle Buchanan (2022)

Thought the film was a rush? Check out the mad making-of story behind George Miller’s apocalyptic epic. From dust-ups between the stars to rivet-popping studio pressures, this anecdote-packed account matches Julie Salamon’s tell-all book about The Bonfire of the Vanities, The Devil’s Candy, for juice. Steven Soderbergh wondered how hundreds of people didn’t die making the film. Reading this, you’ll wonder how anyone stayed sane too.

‘With Nails’ – Richard E Grant (1999)

With any luck, Richard E Grant will add a second instalment to this wildly funny and gossipy memoir of his early days breaking through in Withnail and I, hanging out with Madonna, working with Robert Altman and slogging through the shoot for Hudson Hawk (check out ‘The Unmaking of Hudson Hawk’ by Time Out writer David Hughes for more on that mindbending tale). There’s a thousand and one movie star autobiographies out there but none as ridiculously readable as this.

‘A Life in Movies’ – Michael Powell (1986)

One of the most clear-eyed and compelling of all director autobiographies, as the greatest British filmmaker of the 1940s (and arguably ever) chronicles his journey through cinema, from early encounters with Alfred Hitchcock to the official disapproval that greeted his wartime satire Colonel Blimp; from recreating the Himalayas in West Sussex for Black Narcissus to being drummed out of the industry following his monstrous, brilliant Peeping Tom.