BFI - Film Classics - A Brief History

From the old U.C. Press website

Launched in 1992, BFI Film Classics is a series of succinct, finely written, beautifully illustrated books that honor the great films of world cinema. Each book presents the author's own insights into a film of their choice, chosen from a list of 360 key films selected by the National Film and Television Archive.

How are the films chosen?

A film has to be on the 360 list in order to be chosen. The great value of the list is that it makes it difficult to 'cherry-pick' movies: to keep on doing Hitchcock or Scorsese movies, for example. There are only a limited number of these films and once they're done, they're done. There has to be a greater sense of the sweep of cinema than there often is in film-book publishing. The editorial policy is, roughly, to balance a book on a better-known film with a book on something more obscure (but just as interesting).

In practical terms a book might be commissioned in order to tie in with a significant anniversary or with a major retrospective. At the beginning of 2002 the NFT put on a major Kurosawa retrospective. The UK publication of the BFI Film Classic The Seven Samurai coincided with the launch of this retrospective and went on to become one of the most successful books in the series.

List of Titles updated - 12/28/09

2010
2001: A Space Odyssey
Sweet Smell of Success
Back to the Future
Bringing Up Baby
Night and the City

2009

The Godfather
Star Wars
Gilda
La Grande Illusion
Jia Zhangke's Hometown Trilogy
The Bigamist

2008
Bicycle Thieves

Cleo de 5 a7

8 1/2

Night of the Living Dead

Ratcatcher

Spirited Away

Detour

2007

Lawrence of Arabia

City Lights

Night Mail

The Big Lebowski

The Apu Trilogy

2006

Modern Times

Los Olvidados

2005

Fear Eats the Soul

Bringing Up Baby*

On The Waterfront

Vampyr

Cesar

2004

Viridiana *

In the Realm of the Senses

if...

Andrei Rublev

2003

Kind Hearts and Coronets

The Third Man

Rio Bravo

La Regle du Jeu – The Rules of the Game

Pather Panchali

2002

The Blue Angel

I Know Where I'm Going

The Manchurian Candidate

To Be or Not To Be

Mother India

Vertigo

Ivan the Terrible

October

Seven Samurai

2001

Shadows

Belle De Jour

The Night of the Hunter

L'Annee Derniere a Marienbad - (Last Year in Marienbad)

Red River

Roma Citta Aperta - (Rome, Open City)

2000

The Searchers

Metropolis

A Matter of Life and Death

Bonnie and Clyde

Sansho Dayu - (Sansho the Bailiff)

M

Taxi Driver

Cat People

1999

Shane

The Magnificent Ambersons

Fires Were Started

1998

La Nuit Americaine - (Day for Night)

The Palm Beach Story

Pepe Le Moko

Performance

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans

The Birds

L'Age D'or - (The Golden Age)

High Noon

1997

Chinatown

Das Cabinet Des Dr. Caligari - (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari)

L'avventura - (The Adventure)

The Big Sleep

Bride of Frankenstein

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp

Les Enfants Du Paradis - (Children of Paradise)

1996

Gun Crazy

Annie Hall

1995

An Actors Revenge

Queen Christina

The Ghost and Mrs Muir

Odd Man Out

Meet Me in St. Louis

Napoleon

Things To Come

SmuultronStallet - (Wild Strawberries)

1994

The Passion of Joan of Arc *

It's a Gift

Boudu Sauve Des Eaux - (Boudu Saved from Drowning)

Blackmail

Brief Encounter

In A Lonely Place

Lolita

1993

L' Atalante

42nd Street

Greed

Rocco E I Suoi Fratelli - (Rocco and His Brothers)

The Seventh Seal

The Big Heat

Singing in the Rain

1992

Olympia

Stagecoach

Went the Day Well

Double Indemnity

Citizen Cane

Wizard of OZ

* - Not Published?