The New Biographical Dictionary of Film

"This volume is a compendium of biographical profiles of just about every major figure in film. But it is really much more than a movie reference book; Thomson writes better than almost any other encyclopaedic critic. And he writes with a great deal of humour. He packs a lot into each entry in his Dictionary. Thomson is a great analyst of acting. He did the same thing with actors that Bazin did with directors: he ennobled their work and made us all see how cinema depends on them. The work of these critics is just much more nuanced than what you can find on Internet movie databases. Agee, Bazin, Faber, Warshow, and Thomson still make great reading today. They don’t just broaden our knowledge of film; they deepen it. All critics were in some sense consumer guides. There is nothing wrong with being a consumer guide. I know that the term is used in derogation. But the best writers were also the best consumer guides."