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Andrew Sarris' Top Book Recommendations

Want to know what books Andrew Sarris recommends? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Andrew Sarris' favorite book recommendations of all time. At Shortform, we know books. Our book guides are the best in the world. Learn why.

1

Agee on Film: Criticism and Comment on the Movies

James Agee

4.4
"In my opinion, [Agee's] column is the most remarkable regular event in American journalism today."--W. H. Auden

James Agee was passionately involved with the movies throughout his life. A master of both fiction and nonfiction, he wrote about film in clean, smart prose as the reviewer for Time magazine and as a columnist for The Nation. Agee was particularly perceptive about the work of his friend
Andrew Sarris portrait Recommended by Andrew Sarris.
2

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

Robert Warshow, Stanley Cavell, Lionel Trilling

4.1
This collection of essays, which originally appeared as a book in 1962, is the complete works of an editor of Commentary magazine who died at age 37 in 1955. Writing in The Nation, The Partisan Review, The Kenyon Review and American Mercury, Warshow examines the folklore of modern life. What he finds is as sensitive and penetrating as the writings of James Agee, George Orwell, and Walter Benjamin.
Andrew Sarris portrait Recommended by Andrew Sarris.
3

What is Cinema?: Volume 1

Andre Bazin, Hugh Gray, Jean Renoir, Dudley Andrew

4.1
André Bazin's What Is Cinema? (volumes I and II) have been classics of film studies for as long as they've been available and are considered the gold standard in the field of film criticism. Although Bazin made no films, his name has been one of the most important in French cinema since World War II. He was co-founder of the influential Cahiers du Cinéma, which under his leadership became one of t
Andrew Sarris portrait Recommended by Andrew Sarris.
4

Negative Space: Manny Farber on the Movies

Manny Farber

3.8
Manny Farber, one of the most important critics in movie history, championed the American action film—the bravado of Howard Hawks, the art brut styling of Samuel Fuller, the crafty, sordid entertainments of Don Siegel—at a time when other critics dismissed the genre. His witty, incisive criticism later worked exacting language into an exploration of the feelings and strategies that went into low-b
Andrew Sarris portrait Recommended by Andrew Sarris.
The New Biographical Dictionary of Film book cover5

The New Biographical Dictionary of Film

David Thomson

4.2
David Thomson’s New Biographical Dictionary of Film topped Sight & Sound magazine’s 2010 poll of international critics and writers as the best film book of all time.

Now in its fifth edition, updated, and with more than 130 new entries—from Judd Apatow to Lena Horne—the classic, beloved film book is better than ever.

For thirty-five years, David Thomson’s Biographical Dictionary of Film has been “fi
Andrew Sarris portrait Recommended by Andrew Sarris.