BFI Film Classics

Imagine you learn that your lover has had you erased from their memory and, in a moment of despair, you have your lover erased from your memory too. Imagine that as you lose your recollections of the bad times together, you realise that you don't... Leer más

John Ford's Stagecoach, starring John Wayne in the part that made him a star, remains the most famous Western ever made. Shedding new light on an old favourite, this is an enjoyable account of how the film got made, combined with a careful scene-by... Leer más

In 'To Be or Not to Be' (1942), Ernest Lubitsch brought his legendary comic touch to the most unpromising situation: life in Nazi-occupied Poland. In this study, Peter Barnes considers what it is to make comedy out of tragedy.

I could have been a contender, I could have been somebody.' So speaks the haunted former boxer Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) to his brother Charley (Rod Steiger) in a scene from On the Waterfront (Elia Kazan, 1954) that is one of the most famous in... Leer más

Guillermo del Toro's cult masterpiece, Pan's Labyrinth (2006), won a total of 76 awards and is one of the most commercially successful Spanish-language films ever made. Blending the world of monstrous fairytales with the actual horrors of post-Civil... Leer más

Set in 'a world before Elvis, in a Liverpool before the Beatles', Terence Davies' film 'Distant Voices, Still Lives' is an elegiac and intensely autobiographical meditation on a post-war working-class childhood. Paul Farley's study of the film is... Leer más

Shadows (1959), John Cassavetes' first film as director, ends with the title card - 'The film you have just seen was an improvisation'. Just before his death, however, Cassavetes confessed to Ray Carney something he had never before revealed - that... Leer más

Amores Perros (2000) speaks to an international audience while never oversimplifying its local culture. This study of this film opens up that culture, revealing the film's relationship to television soap operas, pop music and contemporary debates... Leer más

The multiple award-winning Doctor Zhivago (1965) is one of America's finest films of all time. Ian Christie contextualizes the film as an epic Russian love story and a Cold War classic, charts its production and reception, including the contribution... Leer más

Red River (1947) is one of Howard Hawks' near-perfect films. A sweeping, fast-moving Western, it's stunningly shot and stars John Wayne and Montgomery Clift in complex roles set off by typically fine ensemble acting. In her study, Suzanne Liandrat... Leer más

One of the greatest collaborations of cinema history, L'Âge d'Or(1930) united the geniuses of Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali in the making of a Surrealist masterpiece - a uniquely savage blend of visual poetry and social criticism. The film was... Leer más

Paul Schrader was in meltdown in 1972. Drinking heavily, living in his car, he was hospitalised with a gastric ulcer. There he read about Arthur Bremer's attempt to assassinate Alabama Governor George Wallace: the story was the germ of his... Leer más

Ritwik Ghatak's The Cloud-Capped Star (Meghe Dhaka Tara, 1960) has been hailed as 'one of the great classics of world cinema' (Adrian Martin), and 'one of the five or six greatest melodramas in cinema history' (Serge Daney). A striking blend of... Leer más

In this work, Joan Mellen analyses 'In the Realm of the Senses', the controversial film which caused a sensation at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival. Joan Mellen is Professor of English and Creative Writing at Temple University and author of Seven... Leer más

The highest artistic achievement of Hecht-Hill-Lancaster, an innovative production company that emerged in Hollywood at the end of the classic studio system, Sweet Smell of Success (1957) portended the collapse of Breen-Office censorship and was the... Leer más

Richard Taylor asks to what extent the film can lay claim to 'authentic' history. He then examines 'October''s relationship to the politics of the period and explains the theory and its application, as well as placing 'October' in the wider context... Leer más

Werner Herzog's Nosferatu – Phantom der Nacht (1979) is one of the masterpieces of the New German Cinema of the 1960s and 70s. Adapted from Bram Stoker's Dracula, and mindful too of F. W. Murnau's earlier German film version of that same novel,... Leer más

Murray Pomerance offers an illuminating account of one of Hitchcock's most intruiging and successful films, The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), starring James Stewart and Doris Day. Through a close reading of the film alongside analysis of its complex... Leer más

Successful in both Japan and the West, Akira had a huge impact on the international growth in popularity of manga and anime. Closely analysing the film and its key themes, Colin O'Dell and Michelle Le Blanc assess its historical importance, its... Leer más

Written on the Wind (1956) is one of classical Hollywood's most striking films and
ranks among Douglas Sirk's finest achievements. An intense melodrama about
an alcoholic playboy who marries the woman his best friend secretly loves,
the... Leer más