History & Criticism

For 13 years, 22 series and 175 shows, Richard Porter was script editor of Top Gear, from the first faltering pilot episode in 2002 until the very last show presented by Jeremy Clarkson.....

A deeply personal and revealing Hollywood-survival story.....

When Brian De Palma agreed to allow Julie Salamon unlimited access to the film production of Tom Wolfe's best-selling book The Bonfire of the Vanities, both director and journalist must have felt like they were on to something big....

How did we get from an age of dignified nightly news broadcasts on three national networks to the age of 24-hour channels and constantly breaking news? The answer can be found in the basement of an abandoned country club in Atlanta....

From actor Cary Elwes, who played the iconic role of Westley in The Princess Bride, comes a first-person account and behind-the-scenes look at the making of the cult classic film....

Based on interviews with his writers, actors, and longtime associates, and on exhaustive research, The Dark Side of Genius is the definitive biography of Alfred Hitchcock....

Encompassing the 35 year span between the initial development of film technology in the mid-1890s and the adoption of synchronized sound in the late 1920s, the cinema's silent era is both one of the most important epochs of film history and one of the most misunderstood....

Here are the very personal diaries of Richard E. Grant's debut behind the camera, as writer and director of his autobiographical movie of the same name....

Unearth the terrifying and true tales behind some of the scariest Horror movies to ever haunt our screens, including the Enfield poltergeist case that was retold in The Conjuring 2 and the serial killer who inspired Hannibal Lector in The Silence of the Lambs....

Who made the phone call that got HBO to launch the show? What’s the significance of all those eggs? In Woke Up This Morning, Michael Imperioli and Steve Schirripa have all the answers - and they’re revealing where all the bodies are buried....

Life is full of choices. Right now, yours is whether or not to buy the autobiography of a mid-grade, kind of hammy actor....

This audiobook follows the wild ride that was Hollywood in the 70s - an unabashed celebration of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll and a climate where innovation reigned supreme....

John Wayne's life and career paralleled nearly the entire 20th century, from the Depression through World War II to the upheavals of the 1960s....

The untold stories behind The Office, one of the most iconic television shows of the 21st century, told by its creators, writers, and actors....

Glenn Ford: A Life chronicles the volatile life, relationships, and career of the renowned actor, beginning with his move from Canada to California and his initial discovery of theater....

Batman is one of the most compelling characters to come from the Golden Age of Comics, and interest in his story has only increased since his first appearance in 1939. Why does this superhero without superpowers fascinate us? What does that fascination say about us? 

This is the story of William Shatner’s half-century career and private life....

On January 10, 1999, a mobster walked into a psychiatrist's office and changed TV history. By shattering preconceptions about the kinds of stories the medium should tell, The Sopranos launched our current age of prestige television.... 

Silver Shamrock. Thorn. White Horses. It’s all in here. Join authors Dustin McNeill and Travis Mullins for a deep dive into the evolution of Halloween’s vast mythology....

On stage and screen, we know a great performance when we see it. But how do actors draw from their bodies and minds to turn their selves into art? What is the craft of being an authentic fake? Find out....

In this concise, crisply written guide, Patricia Aufderheide takes listeners along the diverse paths of documentary history and charts the lively, often fierce debates among filmmakers and scholars about the best ways to represent reality and to tell the truths worth telling....