I was asked to participate in The Hollywood Reporter’s list of 100 greatest film books; here’s my ballot. (Putting this here because it would make the newsletter coming later today way too long and it runs afoul of character counts on Twitter/Threads.)

Adventures in the Screen Trade, by William Goldman

The Kid Stays in the Picture, by Robert Evans

Making Movies, by Sidney Lumet

Hollywood’s Censor: Joseph I. Breen and the Production Code Administration, by Thomas Doherty

John Wayne: The Life and Legend, by Scott Eyman

The Nolan Variations: The Movies, Mysteries, and Marvels of Christopher Nolan, by Tom Shone

This Is Orson Welles, by Peter Bogdanovich

The Big Picture: Money and Power in Hollywood, by Edward Jay Epstein

The Immediate Experience: Movies, Comics, Theatre, and Other Aspects of Popular Culture, by Robert Warshow

Negative Space: Manny Farber on the Movies, by Manny Farber

Nobody’s Perfect: Writings from the New Yorker, by Anthony Lane

Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir, by Eddie Muller

Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance and the Rise of Independent Film, by Peter Biskind

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock ‘N’ Roll Generation Saved Hollywood, by Peter Biskind

Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood, by Mark Harris

The Citizen Kane Book: Raising Kane, by Pauline Kael

Final Cut: Dreams and Disaster in the Making of Heaven’s Gate, by Stephen Bach

Made Men: The Story of Goodfellas, by Glenn Kenny

The Man Who Heard Voices: Or, How M. Night Shyamalan Risked His Career on a Fairy Tale, by Michael Bamberger

Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War, by Mark Harris

Hollywood and Hitler, 1933-1939, by Thomas Doherty

In the Blink of an Eye, by Walter Murch

Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators, by Ronan Farrow

The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, by David Thomson

Colorization: One Hundred Years of Black Film, by Wil Haygood