Winners of the bfi Publishing Best Film Book Poll

In August we asked you what are your favourite books on film to
celebrate bfi Publishing's 21st anniversary and to compile a poll of the
top five film books since 1980. 

As a reminder we didn't want self-promoting tie-ins nor did we want the
vote to be swayed by favourite films and directors.  We wanted votes for
books - excluding screenplays, interviews, autobiographies and memoirs.
So what are the best books on cinema? The winning line-up makes for
compulsive reading, from the academic tome to Hollywood bean-spilling,
from the step by step guide to who's who in the world of film to a
definition of mise-en-scène: it's all here in the top five film books of
the bfi Publishing poll:

1. The Cinema Book -- Pam Cook and Mieke Bernink (bfi Publishing)

2. The Biographical Dictionary of Film -- David Thomson (Andre Deutsche)

3. Easy Riders, Raging Bulls -- Peter Biskind (Bloomsbury)

4. Adventures In The Screen Trade -- William Goldman (Abacus)

5. Film Art -- David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson (McGraw-Hill)

Topping the list is The Cinema Book edited by Pam Cook and Mieke
Bernink. First published in 1985, this book is now in its second
edition. Joining its ranks at number five on the list is Film Art an
introduction to the art and analysis of cinema, now in its sixth
edition. Both look at the fundamentals of serious film study. Back in
the 80s film publishing was only just beginning to flourish and just a
decade earlier film studies didn't exist. There was film journalism and
amateur scholarship but no real major UK textbooks about the cinema. 

Now film publishing is so popular that film books are topping the
best-seller charts and making their way into airport lounges. Easy
Riders Raging Bulls, number three on our list tells the story of New
Hollywood in the making. Our number four, Adventures in the Screen
Trade, makes for equally gratifying reading.

The most nominated authors and subjects certainly feature some names to
be reckoned with. David Thomson, number two in the line up for The
Biographical Dictionary of Film, was also nominated many times for The
Big Sleep, Rosebud and Suspects. David Bordwell was nominated over and
again for such titles as Narration in the Fiction Film,  Classical
Hollywood Cinema with Kristin Thompson et al and Post-Theory with Noel
Carroll.

Books on Hitchcock appear time after time: English Hitchcock - Charles
Barr, Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho -  Stephen Rebello, Art
of Alfred Hitchcock - Donald Spoto, and Hitchcock's Films Revisited -
Robin Wood. Robin Wood also cropped up more than a few times with
Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan.

The spread of nominated books is equally as fascinating, books on silent
film are there, Burning Passions - Paolo Cherchi Usai, Early Cinema:
Space Frame and Narrative - Thomas Elsaesser. French critics - Gilles
Deleuze's series Cinema 1 and 2 appeared frequently. Feminist takes on
film, Chick Flicks - Ruby Rich, Hard Core - Linda Williams, Women in
Film Noir - E. Ann Kaplan. 

Many couldn't do without their desk-top reference works: BFI Film and
Television Handbook - Eddie Dyja, Halliwell's Film Guide and the Time
Out Film Guide.

Our own BFI Film and Modern classics were often nominated including The
Big Heat - Colin McArthur, The Big Sleep - David Thomson, The Birds -
Camille Paglia, Chinatown - Michael Eaton, Citizen Kane - Laura Mulvey,
Crash - Iain Sinclair, The Exorcist - Mark Kermode, L'avventura -
Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, The Magnificent Ambersons -  V.F. Perkins, Once
Upon a Time in America - Adrian Martin, Performance - Colin MacCabe,
Taxi Driver - Amy Taubin, The Wizard of Oz - Salman Rushdie.

The early film studies icon Peter Wollen nearly made it into the top
five with 
Signs and Meaning in the Cinema. Which brings us back to the beginning.
In 1969 we co-published this book with Secker and Warburg.  Signs and
Meaning in the Cinema went on to sell 35,000 copies and was translated
into Chinese among other languages.  And in 1980 the bfi set up a
permanent publishing arm. Film studies was born.

21 years later we're celebrating our anniversary and going from strength
to strength.  This poll serves as a wonderful reminder that film
publishing has now grown from its humble roots and bfi Publishing
remains firmly at the heart of publishing on the cinema for students,
academics and film-lovers around the world.

For further information look at: www.bfi.org.uk/21
<http://www.bfi.org.uk/21> or contact:

Rebecca Watts
Marketing and Sales
bfi Publishing
Tel. 020 7957 4817
Fax. 020 7636 2516