BFI - Modern Classics - A Brief History

From the old U.C. Press website

As part of the BFI's commitment to the promotion and evaluation of contemporary cinema, and in conjunction with the influential BFI Film Classics series, BFI Modern Classics is a series of books devoted to individual films of recent years. In these succinct and beautifully illustrated paperbacks, distinguished film critics, scholars, and novelists explore the production and reception of their chosen films in the context of an argument about the film's importance.

How are the films chosen?

The policy here is much more fluid, though again a sense of balance and range is crucial. The series is aimed to some extent at a 'cult film' audience, so there are a lot of books on well-known American movies with a known following among fans (The Exorcist or Blade Runner). There are also books on art cinema from around the world (Pasolini's Salò or Bresson's L'Argent) and in 2002 we published books on the Taiwanese masterpiece City of Sadness as well as two Indian films, one a mass-market blockbuster Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, the other an acclaimed study of social and religious tension, Mother India. So the series is broad and varied. It's also occasionally 'experimental'. We have published a number of books on films that were only a couple of years old when the book came out. The point of this strand of the series is to throw the category of 'classic' up into the air - to provoke debate and argument.


List of Titles

No new titles since 2006

The Modern Classic Series seems to have been absorbed into the Film Classic Series.

2006
Distant Voices, Still Lives

2005
Bombay
10

2004
Groundhog Day
Nosferatu
The Matrix
The Thin Red Line
Unforgiven
Withnail and I

2003
The Shawshank Redemption
Amores Perros
The Exorcist 2ed (Revised)
The Idiots
LA Confidential

2002
Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge
City of Saddness
Jaws
Heat
Eyes Wide Shut
The Silence of the Lambs
Trainspotting

2001
The Usual Suspects
Do the Right Thing
Pulp Fiction
Thelma and Louise

2000
Dead Man
Salo 120 Days of Sodom

1999
L'Argent
Titanic
The Wings of the Doves
Se7en
WR - Mysteries of the Organism
Caravaggio
Crash

1998
The Exorcist 2ed
Independence Day
Last Tango in Paris

1997
Once Upon a Time in America
The " Three Colours" Trilogy
Blue Velvet
Blade Runner
The Crying Game
The Exorcist 1ed
The Right Stuff
The Thing

1996
Easy Rider
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
Don't Look Now
The Terminator

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?

BFI - Modern Classics - The Exorcist Editions

There are 3 editions for Mark Kermode's The Exorcist entry into Modern Classics series.
1997
The Exorcist
By Mark Kermode
ISBN - 0851706223
Out of Print
1998
The Exorcist 2nd Edition
By Mark Kermode
ISBN - 0851709672
Out of Print
2003
The Exorcist Revised 2nd edition
By Mark Kermode
ISBN - 0851709672

BFI - Film Classics - 2008

Forthcoming titles for 2008 -

Bicycle Thieves
By Robert S. C. Gordon
ISBN - 1844572382

Cleo de 5 a 7
By Steven Ungar
ISBN - 1844571769



Ratcatcher
By Annette Kuhn
ISBN - 1844572064


Spirited Away
By Andrew Osmond
ISBN - 1844572307


8 1/2
By D. A. Miller
ISBN - 1844572315



Night of the Living Dead
By Benjamin A. Hervey
ISBN - 1844571742


Detour
By Edward G Ulmer
ISBN - 1844572390

BFI - Modern Classics - 2006

Distant Voices, Still Lives
By Paul Farley
ISBN - 1844571394

BFI - Modern Classics - 2005

10
By Geoff Andrew
ISBN - 184457069X
Bombay
By Lalitha Gopalan
ISBN - 0851709567

BFI - Modern Classics - 2004

Unforgiven
By Edward Buscomb
ISBN - 1844570339
Groundhog Day
By Ryan Gilbey
ISBN - 1844570320
The Thin Red Line
By Michel Chion
ISBN - 1844570452
Nosferatu Phantom der Nacht
By S. S. Prawer
ISBN - 1844570312
The Matrix
By Joshua Clover
ISBN - 1844570452
Withnail and I
By Kevin Jackson
ISBN - 1844570355

BFI - Modern Classics - 2003

Amores Perros
By Paul Julian Smith
ISBN - 0851709737
LA Confidential
By Manohla Dargis
ISBN - 0851709443
The Shawshank Redemption
By Mark Kermode
ISBN - 0851709680
The Exorcist 2nd (Revised)
By Mark Kermode
ISBN - 0851709672
The Idiots
By John Rockwell
ISBN - 0851709559

BFI - Modern Classics - 2002

The Silence of the Lambs
By Yvvone Tasker
ISBN - 0851708714
Trainspotting
By Murray Smith
ISBN - 0851708706
City of Saddness
By Berenice Reynaud
ISBN - 0851709303
Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge - The Brave-Hearted Will Take the Bride
By Anupama Chopra
ISBN - 0851709575

Eyes Wide Shut
By Michel Chion
ISBN - 085170932X
Heat
By Nick James
ISBN - 0851709389
Jaws
By Antonia Quirke
ISBN - 085170929X

BFI - Modern Classics - 2001

Do the Right Thing
By Ed Guerrero
ISBN - 0851708684
Pulp Fiction
By Dana Polan
ISBN - 0851708080
The Usual Suspects
By Ernest Larsen
ISBN - 0851708692
Thelma and Louise
By Maria Sturken
ISBN - 0851708099

BFI - Modern Classics - 2000

Dead Man
By Jonathan Rosenbaum
ISBN - 0851708064
Salo 120 Days of Sodom
By Gary Indiana
ISBN - 0851708072

BFI - Modern Classics - 1999

Crash
By Iain Sinclair
ISBN - 085170719X
L'Argent
By Kent Jones
ISBN - 0851707335
Se7en
By Richard Dyer
ISBN - 0851707238
Titanic
By David M. Lubin
ISBN - 0851707602

The Wings of the Doves
By Robin Wood
ISBN - 0851707343
WR - Mysteries of the Organism
By Raymond Durgnat
ISBN - 0851707203
Caravaggio
By Leo Bersani & Ulysse Dutoit
ISBN - 0851707246

BFI - Modern Classics - 1998

Independence Day
By Michael Rogin
ISBN - 0851706622
Out of Print
Last Tango in Paris
By David Thompson
ISBN - 0851705456
The Exorcist 2nd Edition
By Mark Kermode
ISBN - 0851709672
Out of Print

BFI - Modern Classics - 1997

The Right Stuff
By Tom Charity
ISBN - 085170624X
The Thing
By Anne Billson
ISBN - 0851705669
Out of Print
The " Three Colours" Trilogy
By Geoff Andrew
ISBN - 0851705693
Blade Runner
By Scott Bukatman
ISBN - 0851706231
Blue Velvet
By Michael Atkinson
ISBN - 0851705596
Out of Print
Once Upon a Time in America
By Adrian Martin
ISBN - 0851705448
The Crying Game
By Jane Giles
ISBN - 0851705561
The Exorcist
By Mark Kermode
ISBN - 0851706223
Out of Print