In the education of aspiring filmmakers, when every single bit of available information builds upon the artist’s craft and know-how, vital role was played by countless prize film magazines. In the times before the idea of the Internet was conceived, magazines proved an invaluable source of knowledge. The vast technical background necessary for creating cinematic stories, illuminating interviews with the greatest living filmmakers, in-depth analyses of high quality movies… The material provided by Cahiers du Cinéma, Sight & Sound, Cinemagic, Cinefantastique and many others has inspired thousands of people to dedicate their lives to filmmaking, and thanks to the wonders of modern technology, these priceless cultural beams of historic value and prime educational significance continue to inspire, astonish and enlighten us, bringing up a new generation of artists who might persevere and thrive to one day fill the shoes of the likes of Orson Welles, Krzysztof Kieślowski, Jean-Pierre Melville, Agnes Varda, Paul Thomas Anderson, David Fincher and dozens of others whose work continually delight and move us in every way possible.

Cahiers du Cinéma is an influential French film magazine founded in 1951 by André Bazin, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze and Joseph-Marie Lo Duca. It developed from the earlier magazine Revue du Cinéma involving members of two Paris film clubs—Objectif 49 (Robert Bresson, Jean Cocteau and Alexandre Astruc, among others) and Ciné-Club du Quartier Latin. Initially edited by Éric Rohmer, it included amongst its writers Jacques Rivette, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol and François Truffaut. Some must-reads: Robert Bresson and Jean-Luc Godard talking about film for over 20 pages; Jean-Luc Godard, Bernardo Bertolucci, Andrew Sarris, and an interview with Andy Warhol; Orson Welles, including an in-depth interview with the legend, nuff said. The Monoskop has compiled a great post with Cahiers du Cinéma, Vols. 1–4 (1951–78/1985–2000). Also thanks to the Letter To Jane for the Special Issues in English (1967).

Volume 1 (1950s)

Volume 2 (1960-1968)

Volume 3 (1969-1972)

Volume 4 (1973-1978)

Cahiers du Cinema in English, No. 8 (Feb 1967, 68 pp)

Cahiers du Cinema in English, No. 10 (May 1967, 68 pp)

Cahiers du Cinema in English, No. 11 (Sep 1967, 68 pp)



International Photographer magazine from January 1941, with cover photo and an extensive article devoted to the 1941 film, Citizen Kane. Three pages of behind the scenes photos by Alexander Kahle, still photographer for the movie, are featured in the article entitled, ‘Welles and the Cameraman’ [PDF].



A gem of a vintage interview with Alfred Hitchcock from 1973 where he talks about his philosophy on filmmaking [PDF].

A treasure trove called CineFiles contains scanned images of reviews, press kits, festival and showcase program notes, newspaper articles, interviews, and other documents from the PFA Library’s extensive collection covering world cinema, past and present. CineFiles currently includes documents on the films of more than 150 major international directors, materials describing silent Soviet cinema, and PFA’s unique collection of exhibitor manuals, among other documents.

Donald Richie, Kurosawa on Kurosawa, Sight and Sound.

John Cassavetes on Life and Art, Visions Magazine (Boston Center for the Arts), Number 7, Summer 1992, pp. 22-29 [PDF].

Labarthe, André, and Jacques Rivette, A Conversation with Alain Resnais and Alain Robbe-Grillet, in New York Film Bulletin, no. 2, 1962 [PDF].



The archives of Cinemagic magazine are now online. Between 1972 and 1987, Cinemagic was the only publication dedicated to showing filmmakers how to make science fiction, fantasy, and horror movies on backyard project budgets. In the mid 60’s Don Dohler came up with an idea for a magazine for filmmakers. It would feature illustrated step-by-step articles for amateur special effects filmmakers. Inspired by his underground comix friends Dohler set off to publish the magazine on his own. The magazine featured articles by industry professionals and went on for 11 issues before being purchased by Starlog in 1979. Cinemagic inspired several young filmmakers who later went on to have successful careers in Hollywood, including J.J. Abrams, Tom Sullivan, Ernie Farino and Al Magliochetti.



Movietone News began as a newsletter from The Seattle Film Society in 1971 and soon turned into a vibrant little film magazine that published out of Seattle, under the editorial guidance of Richard T. Jameson, through 1981. Parallax View is undertaking a project to make every issue of this magazine available to readers in .pdf form, with entire issue reproduced page by page.

D.O.A. and the Notion of Noir

Journey to the end of night

By Richard Dorfman, Movietone News No. 48 (PDF)

A New Map of the Labyrinth: The Unretouched Touch of Evil

There’s now more to see than ever in Orson Welles’ American-nightmare masterpiece-described

By John Belton, Movietone News No. 47 (PDF)

Hey, Mom, Where’s My Suicide Note Collection?

Samuel Fuller interviewed

By Richard Thompson, Movietone News No. 50 (PDF)

Another Side of Sam Peckinpah

Time and tension in Jr. Bonner and The Ballad of Cable Hogue

By Rick Hermann, Movietone News No. 52 (PDF)

“You’re Goddam Right I Remember”

An interview with Howard Hawks

By Kathleen Murphy and Richard T. Jameson, Movietone News No. 54 (PDF)

“… they take on their own life… “

An interview with Robert Altman

By Richard T. Jameson and Kathleen Murphy, Movietone News No. 55 (PDF)

At Home on the Road

Two interviews in one with Wim Wenders

By Judith M. Kass, Movietone News No. 57 (PDF)

“A privilege to work in films”: Sam Peckinpah among Friends

The Seattle Film Society in conversation with the director, plus:

The Ballad of Cable Hogue reviewed

By Samuel Fuller, Movietone News Double Issue No. 60-61 (PDF)

“It doesn’t take any imagination at all to feel awed”

Peter Weir interviewed

By Judith M. Kass, Movietone News Double Issue No. 62-63 (PDF)

“And then I just go ahead and write that dialogue.”

John Sayles, writer-director of The Return of the Secaucus 7, talks a lot of sense about movie-writing, moviemaking and movies in general

Movietone News Double Issue 66-67 Part 1 (PDF), Part 2 (PDF)

Contents of issues 40-49

Contents of issues 50-59

Contents of issues 60-67



An Interview with Sidney Lumet by Peter Bogdanovich, Film Quarterly, Winter 1960. A gem of an interview with THE legend.

A Guest in My Own Dreams: An Interview with Federico Fellini, Film Quarterly, Spring 1994.

Dede Allen on Editing: An Interview. What a treasure of an interview!

The director of photography for Apocalypse Now, One from the Heart, Reds, and Last Tango in Paris reveals his theory of the effect of colors on our emotions. Writing with Light: An interview with Vittorio Storaro, Film Quarterly, Volume XXXV, No. 3, Spring 1982.

How I Make Films: Interview with John Huston, Film Quarterly, Fall 1965. We must say that this is one of the best interviews with John Huston.



272,812 photos, 589 sets of digitized awesomeness collected by Stendek. Some random sets, enjoy.



Cinefantastique Vol 21 #3, December 1990. It features articles on Jacob’s Ladder, Predator 2, Stephen King’s Graveyard Shift, Stephen King’s It, Stephen King’s Misery, Child’s Play 2, remaking Night of the Living Dead, the return of Dark Shadows, George A. Romero and Dario Argento’s collaboration ‘Two Evil Eyes,’ Psycho IV: The Beginning, Flesh Gordon and the Cosmic Cheerleaders, Nicolas Roeg on The Witches, and Paul Verhoeven’s Total Recall.



Epic 1981 article in Cinefantastique Magazine Vol. 11 #13 by Paul M. Sammon (author of Conan The Phenomenon) on the making of Conan the Barbarian (1982) [jpeg].

The Filming of Conan the Barbarian, Cinefantastique v12 02-03 [PDF].

An interview with Sergio Leone from the pages of the June 1984 issue of American Film written by Pete Hamill. Throughout the candid interview, it’s clear filmmaking is a sacred belief to Leone who hails from a family steeped in the tradition of filmmaking. Leone confides to us about the arduous and lonely process of filmmaking throughout the 10-year process on what would be his last and arguably greatest film. Here he speaks to the sacraments of technical filmmaking and his devoted belief in the idealized American dream with the sentiment, “America is the determined negation of the Old World, the Adult World.” —American Film Institute



Herzog: The God of Wrath, American Film Magazine, June 1982.

In an interview he gave to American Film in 1978, legendary director Frank Capra talks about his life and how he made the movies that became a significant part of movie history. A brilliant interview and required reading for any filmmaker.

Kubrick Country by Penelope Houston, an interview on A Clockwork Orange, Saturday Review, 25 December 1971.

Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz is a confessional, hallucinatory extravaganza. Here is his candid assessment of frenetic life in film and theater: Life as a Long Rehearsal, American Film, November 1979.



Scorsese, De Palma, and Schrader are all well acquainted, all have attended film school, all have professional histories that have overlapped at some point. Schrader wrote two screenplays for Scorsese, Taxi Driver and the forthcoming Raging Bull, and one for De Palma, Obsession. Robert De Niro, one of the actors most closely associated with Scorsese, was discovered by De Palma, who in turn routed the Taxi Driver script to Scorsese. As De Palma says, ‘We have very direct connections. We’re friends. We’ve discussed each other’s projects and kept a constant dialogue going over the years.’ —The Brutalists: Making Movies Mean and Ugly by Roger F. Moss, The Saturday Review, October 1980

How John Huston Beats the Hollywood Odds by Gregg Kilday in The Saturday Review, January 1981.

Francis Coppola’s Biggest Gamble, July 1981 article in Saturday Review on making One from the Heart. This awesome article is as much about the film as it is about his ambitious Zoetrope Studios project. Great read.

“Although mostly forgotten nowadays, Neon was a short-lived and, in my opinion, perhaps the best UK film magazine there has ever been. Kind of the sister magazine to Select, it had the off-kilter approach of Smash Hits at its’ peak (leading to slightly odd features which created genuine insight, such as John Waters writing about his top ten religious movies and random movie makers asked about their favourite Chevy Chase film), combined with a genuine love of cinema that prevented it having the ‘everything is ironic’ tone of many magazines from the time. Neither as obsessed with the new and mainstream as Empire or precious about cinema as Sight and Sound, it comfortably understood that you can enjoy both highbrow and lowbrow cinema, and focussed on unearthing and talking about interesting films. Anyway, since I came home to find that my mum had put all my magazines in date order, and I realised that I still had every issue (albeit some torn up to make collages in my pre-photoshop days), I thought I’d share the best bits on this blog. Enjoy.” —Neon Magazine Scans ‘97-‘99



Starlog was a monthly science-fiction film magazine published by Starlog Group Inc. The magazine was created by publishers Kerry O’Quinn and Norman Jacobs. O’Quinn was the magazine’s editor while Jacobs ran the business side of things, dealing with typesetters, engravers and printers. Starlog was one of the first publications to report on the development of the first Star Wars movie, and it also followed the development of what was to eventually become Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The magazine was devoted to science fiction films, television series, and books. Many fans of this long-running magazine considered its heyday to have been the 1980s with very little substance to the content in later years and many of its long-time contributors having since moved on. Here’s the first 224 issues of the legendary sci-fi magazine Starlog. The issues are available for download as PDF’s and other formats.



“At the Internet Archive: an almost complete run of The Twilight Zone Magazine (1981–1989). While masquerading as a TV-series spin-off, TZ under the editorship of TED Klein was an excellent periodical devoted to horror and dark fantasy. In addition to running original fiction by major authors (Stephen King was a regular), the magazine contained features about older writers such as Lovecraft and Machen along with book reviews by Thomas Disch, film reviews by Gahan Wilson, interviews and more.” —John Coulthart

More magazines at the Internet Archive: an incomplete run of British science-fiction monthly Interzone; and a complete (?) run of the film magazine for horror (and gore) obsessives, Fangoria.

Complete digitization of 1999 Les Inrocks magazine, KUBRICK: L’Odyssee D’un Solitaire. What a goldmine!

One of the first interviews Stanley Kubrick ever gave: at that time, he was still an ambitious 19-year-old youngster working as a freelance photographer for Look magazine; nonetheless, by reading this interview, you can tell Kubrick already shows a clear understanding of the medium to achieve a precise aesthetic effect. At the end of the interview, the young fellow tells he is fascinated by moving images and “about to start filming a sound production written and financed by himself and several friends.” The rest, as they say, is history.



Here’s a PDF of the out-of-print NUMBER 1 edition of Cinefex from March 1980. It includes comprehensive coverage of of Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Alien, both which came out in 1979. It’s mind-blowing!

800,000+ digitized pages of film/TV/sound history for free.

March 1976 edition of American Cinematographer Magazine with two Kubrick-related articles, each covering the photographing of the film Barry Lyndon. One article focuses generally on the cinematography by John Alcott, while the other focuses more closely on the specialized lenses utilized for the film. Thanks to DetroitStalker for uploading and sharing those articles. Subscribing to American Cinematographer is highly recommended.

Another two articles from the August 1980 issue of American Cinematographer, detailing the making of Stanley Kubrick’s horror masterpiece. The first article consists of an interview with cinematographer John Alcott, while the second article looks in detail at the Steadicam, Garrett Brown’s then-brand-new stabilization rig.

September 1987 issue of American Cinematographer, detailing the making of Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket.

Discover the in’s and out’s with the director of Alien Ridley Scott and the actors such as Sigourney Weaver through a fun and remarkable story of how the movie became to be called Alien and how its legacy went on. Cinefantastique v09 01 [PDF].



Lucas–Spielberg, Rolling Stone interviews:



LIFE Magazine, April 4, 1960: Marlon Brando interviewed on the set of One-Eyed Jacks, the only movie Brando directed. “I have no respect for acting,” he harrumphs. “Acting, by and large, is the expression of neurotic impulse. Acting is a bum’s life. You get paid for doing nothing and it means nothing.”



Paul Schrader’s Cat People. Several articles on the 1982 remake the Val Lewton classic. In depth article on Val Lewton’s 1942 classic.

Mike Childs and Alan Jones interviewed Brian De Palma in London during his visit there for the opening of Carrie.

Google Books is hosting a digital archive of the first 30 years of New York Magazine (1968 through 1997). Amongst this bewildering wilderness of magazines is a real treasure—an August 21, 1972, article written by Mario Puzo on his experience writing the novel and the screenplay for The Godfather. Yeah, baby! It’s a great article, too. First, you gotta go here, which will take you to the contents page. In the upper left-hand corner you’ll see the little summary of the Puzo article and above that, you’ll see “page 22.” That’s a link. Click that, and it’ll take you to the article. (source: Mario Puzo Speaks from the Grave!)



Downloadable collection of film articles written by Paul Schrader:



“However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.” Stanley Kubrick on mortality, the fear of flying, and the purpose of existence: 1968 Playboy Interview.



The most personal of all films in Francis Ford Coppola’s repertoire was born between two big projects that helped Coppola gain the reputation he enjoys today, the first two parts of The Godfather trilogy. Two huge, big-budgeted movies, and a tiny personal story filmed between them, but an expertly made film that captured the nation’s state of mind and emotion after the Watergate scandal. The Conversation, starring the great Gene Hackman, is a subtle and restrained film about a professional eavesdropper, lonely and alienated, who uses his nifty gadgets to invade the privacy of the people around him. Coppola began meddling with the idea in 1966, but the first draft was penned three years later, with the film hitting theaters as late as 1974. The impact it made at the box office was negligible, even though it was hardly a failure. But with time, the film’s reputation grew, and today it’s considered one of Coppola’s very best. One of the perks of managing this website is definitely the challenge of finding rare treasures. This delightful discovery, a Filmmakers Newsletter interview from May, 1974, conducted by Brian De Palma, illuminates the process of this little masterpiece’s creation. And who’s more qualified to conduct such an insightful conversation with Coppola than a passionate fellow filmmaker.

Filmmakers Newsletter was a well-respected magazine with articles abounding in technical information, as well as extensive analyses of both contemporary films and those who played significant roles in the historical development of the art and business. This particular article can be classified as an impressive read thanks to the sheer quantity of interesting details regarding the development and production of The Conversation, but also to Coppola’s honest answers to De Palma’s perceptive questions. The fact that we’re talking about a piece of journalism virtually lost to the rest of the world only enhances the value of the interview, a six-page exploration of Coppola’s filmmaking technique, personal preferences, inner motivations and desires both before and after he steps onto the film set. If you care to find out the nature of the connection between The Conversation and Henry VIIIth, why Coppola’s not in awe of Hitchcock’s artistry or why the acclaimed director admits the commencement of shooting often finds him in a “pants down” position, we urge you to read this wonderful interview as soon as possible. You can download the PDF version: ‘The Making of THE CONVERSATION: An Interview with Francis Ford Coppola by Brian De Palma.’













All material for educational and noncommercial purposes only.

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