kind of thought I should just start this now cuz well...Sorcerer has gotten me interested in finding out more about it. And a couple of books were brought up as well.

Ash had also given me a good list of books in the past but...what are your must have books on anything film related?

Just start naming them out. I'd like to get what could be, at least to myself, classified as definitive material to have in a film literature category. I just...really like learning.

William Goldman's 2 books about writing
Akira Kurosawa's "Something Like an Autobiography"
A subscription to American Cinematographer

There are a ton of others I have but I haven't read through them in detail...those above are pretty important to me personally though. Additionally from American Cinetographer, I go to the sites of all the advertisers, and from there get the manuals for the cameras, equipment all that. Good resources.

Absolutely.

wait...are those free? Or do I pay for those?

The Hitchcock/Truffaut book is essential.

Walter Murch's book about editing is brilliant.

The manuals are all free. Right now I think I only have the Red One manual, but they have them for a lot, I'll try to get some links later. Also Kodak has a lot of good stuff, like articles on color theory, filming techniques, and articles on the science of it all.

Here's another cool thing (requires a quick registration), I skimmed through this (there are two parts):

http://www.oscars.org/science-techno...igitaldilemma/

I second Hitchcock/Truffaut

I also like

and



And being a huge Warren Beatty fan, I found Star fascinating, though it's pretty detailed and a little dry for the casual reader who isn't such a big Beatty fan. All three of those are done by the same author, Peter Biskind

I've always like Sidney Lumet's Making Movies. He goes through his filmography and shares some of the things he's learned throughout his career.

Pictures at a Revolution

The Devil's Candy: The Making of The Bonfire of Vanities

Stanley Kubrick's Napoleon: Greatest Film Never Made book.


http://www.amazon.com/Stanley-Kubric...brick+napoleon

This is really great:



...and this:

Was coming in to say pretty much the same. One of my alltime favorite film books..

The "Art of..." books from Pixar & Disney are fantastic. As is the How to Train your Dragon one from Dreamworks.

"The Making of..." the Star Wars trilogy books by J.W. Rinzler are incredible.

I've always read that George Lucas' "Blockbusting" is supposed to be solid but I haven't gotten around to reading it yet.

ILM has had a few over the years that were spectacular as well.

Fortune and Glory: A True Hollywood Comic Book Story by Brian Michael Bendis

Yeah, Blockbusting is pretty good, breaks down the budgets of a lot of movies and has a lot of cool info.

Donald Richie's The Films of Akira Kurosawa is great as well, has extensive essays on each of his movies.

Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner

http://www.amazon.com/Great-Martial-...rds=ric+meyers

Great Martial Arts Movies: From Bruce Lee to Jackie Chan and More By Ric Meyers

If your a martial arts movie enthusiast, it's a good read. However, it's currently out of print.

Ditto on both!

Final Cut

http://www.amazon.com/Final-Cut-Making-Heavens-Artists/dp/1557043744/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1340718125&sr=8-1&keywords=final+cut+ego


The Men Who Would Be King

http://www.amazon.com/The-Men-Who-Would-King/dp/B005OLAL5E/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1340718066&sr=8-2&keywords=men+who+would+be+king


Two interesting tales about the unraveling of United Artists and Dreamworks studios.

www.film-matters.net

One of my favorite writers is Danny Peary...he always finds something new and interesting to say about films. There are 4 books he has written that i constantly re-read over the years...



This book is almost like a bible for me...I just wish he would update it one day as it is over 25 years old.


And his 3 books on Cult Films...again, I wish he would have added some more volumes as the last one was written in 1989:

This is a great one for Shaw Brothers movies:



...and some good ones on Japanese cinema: