Spence Tracy and Kate Hepburn were the couple everyone knew of but no one really knew anything about. What kept these two opposites together makes for an interesting read.

    Readers can enjoy one film per week, for a year of stellar viewing, or indulge in their own classic movie festival. Some long-championed classics appear within these pages; other selections may surprise you. Each film is profiled with insightful notes on why it's an Essential, a guide to must-see moments, and running commentary from TCM's Robert Osborne and Essentials guest hosts past and present, including Sally Field, Drew Barrymore, Alec Baldwin, Rose McGowan, Carrie Fisher, Molly Haskell, Peter Bogdanovich, Sydney Pollack, and Rob Reiner.Featuring full-color and black-and-white photography of the greatest stars in movie history, The Essentials is your curated guide to fifty-two films that define the meaning of the word "classic."

    After an all-American boyhood in Kansas City, a stint flying bombers in World War II, and jobs ranging from dog tattoo entrepreneur to television director, Robert Altman burst onto the scene in 1970 with M*A*S*H. He reinvented American filmmaking, and went on to produce such masterpieces as McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Nashville, The Player, Short Cuts, and Gosford Park. In Robert Altman, Mitchell Zuckoff has woven together Altman's final interviews; an incredible cast of voices including Meryl Streep, Warren Beatty, Paul Newman, among scores of others; and contemporary reviews and news accounts into a riveting tale of an extraordinary life.

    A hefty compilation of essays (both pictorial and prose), notes, concept sketches and interviews by (and with) Hayao Miyazaki. Arguably the most respected animation director in the world, Miyazaki is the genius behind "Howl's Moving Castle," Princess Mononoke" and the Academy Award-winning film, "Spirited Away."

    Featuring a pitch-perfect screenplay, a classic soundtrack, and unforgettable performances by Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, and a deep supporting cast, Casablanca was hailed in the New York Times as “a picture that makes the spine tingle and the heart take a leap.” The film won Oscars for best picture, best director, and best screenplay, and would go on to enjoy more revival screenings than any other movie in history. It became so firmly ensconced in the cultural imagination that, as Umberto Eco once said, Casablanca is “not one movie; it is ‘movies.’ ”We’ll Always Have Casablanca is celebrated film historian Noah Isenberg’s rich account of this most beloved movie’s origins. Through extensive research and interviews with filmmakers, film critics, family members of the cast and crew, and diehard fans, Isenberg reveals the myths and realities behind Casablanca’s production, exploring the transformation of the unproduced stage play into the classic screenplay, the controversial casting decisions, the battles with Production Code censors, and the effect of the war’s progress on the movie’s reception. Isenberg particularly focuses on the central role refugees from Hitler’s Europe played in the production (nearly all of the actors and actresses cast in Casablanca were immigrants).Filled with fresh insights into Casablanca’s creation, production, and legacy, We’ll Always Have Casablanca is a magnificent account of what made the movie so popular and why it continues to dazzle audiences seventy-five years after its release.

     The true story of how mildly successful guitarist and New York Times writer Dan Crane relinquished his instrument and became Björn Türoque (pronounced "b-yorn too-RAWK"), the second greatest air guitarist in the nation. This exploration of the international air guitar sub-culture addresses the issue of dedicating oneself to an invisible art in order to achieve the ultimate goal of "airness"-that is, when air guitar transcends the "real" art that it imitates and becomes an art form in and of itself.

    Throughout the filming of Quentin Tarantino's brilliant, violent epic, Carradine kept a daily diary—capturing all the action, the genius, the madness, and the magic that combined to make a masterpiece. More than simply an insider's close-up look at the filmmaking process and the astonishing cast and crew—director Tarantino, star Uma Thurman, and all the other artists whose extraordinary skills helped create something glorious—The Kill Bill Diary illuminates the fine points of the serious actor's craft, as a truly unique talent takes us along with him on a quirky, breathtaking, no-holds-barred, and altogether miraculous journey. It is a must-own volume for anyone who loves the movies.

    Lynch's films delve into the subjective consciousness of his characters to reveal both the depraved darkness and luminous spirituality of human nature. From his experimental shorts of the 1960s to feature films like Eraserhead, The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive, and INLAND EMPIRE, Lynch has pushed the boundaries of cinematic storytelling. In David Lynch: Beautiful Dark, author Greg Olson explores the surreal intricacies of the director's unique visual and visceral style not only in his full-length films but also his early forays into painting and short films, as well as his television landmark, Twin Peaks. This in-depth exploration is the first full-length work to analyze the intimate symbiosis between Lynch's life experience and artistic expressions: from the small-town child to the teenage painter to the 60-year-old Internet and digital media experimenter. To fully delineate the director's life and art, Olson received unprecedented participation from Lynch, his parents, siblings, old school friends, romantic partners, children, and decades of professional colleagues, as well as on-set access to the director during the production of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. Throughout this study, Olson provides thorough analyses of the filmmaker's works as Lynch conceived, crafted, and completed them. Consequently, David Lynch: Beautiful Dark is the definitive study of one of the most influential and idiosyncratic directors of the last four decades.

    Loden’s 1970 film Wanda is a masterpiece of early cinema vérité, an anti-Bonnie-and-Clyde road movie about a young woman, adrift in rust-belt Pennsylvania in the early 1960s, who embarks on a crime spree with a small-time crook.How to paint a life, describe a personality? Inspired by the film, a researcher seeks to piece together a portrait of its creator. In her soul-searching homage to the former pin-up girl famously married to Hollywood giant Elia Kazan, the biographer’s evocative powers are put to the test. New insights into Loden’s sketchy biography remain scarce and the words of Marguerite Duras, Georges Perec, Jean-Luc Godard, Sylvia Plath, Kate Chopin, Herman Melville, Samuel Beckett and W.G. Sebald come to the narrator’s rescue. As remembered scenes from Wanda alternate with the droll journal of a flailing research project, personal memories surface, and with them, uncomfortable insights into the inner life of a singular woman who is also, somehow, every woman.

    No one involved with the making of the film foresaw the kind of overarching impact it would have, not only in terms of its success at the box office but in spawning a cult phenomenon that would stay strong more than three decades later with its slick theme, fantastic music and unforgettable dialogues, that is what nbecame. The journey of Donwas not an easy one. Shot over four years, it faced several hurdles before making it to the theatres. While the casting and music of Don have now acquired legendary status, there were some close shaves before it all came together: Iftekhars role of the cop was eyed by a big star of the 1960s getting Kalyanji-Anandji to compose the score called for a delicate balancing act, it was only thanks to the shrewd advice of a mentor that the super-successful Khai ke paan Banaras wala was included at the very last minute. And, wonder of wonders, it was not Amitabh Bachchan who was paid the most for the film. Through a fast-paced narrative born out of interviews with the cast and crew and supplemented with rare photographs from the directors archives, The Making of Dontells a tale that is as compelling as the one that finally made it to the big screen. Engaging and captivating, this is the story of one of Bollywoods most memorable classic.

    Len Deighton, author of the classic espionage novel 'The Ipcress File', knew both sides intimately. An acquaintance of Ian Fleming’s (who had praised Deighton’s debut novel in the 'Sunday Times') Deighton was also close to the man who was to become Fleming’s nemesis – Kevin McClory, a veteran of the British film industry. The history of Bond’s development under the arc lights becomes, in Deighton’s expert hands, a saga-like story of inflated egos and poisonous vendettas, exotic locations and claustrophobic courtooms, all involving household names. As an eye witness to the protracted disputes that complicated Bond’s depiction both on screen and on the page, Deighton is in a unique position to tell what he saw. Candid, comical, always steely-eyed, this hefty slice of cinematic memoir reads with all the high-powered pace of a Len Deighton thriller.

    Yet despite more than twenty years in and out of the limelight, Priestley has carefully maintained his privacy. In this compelling memoir, the actor, director, and race-car aficionado invites us into his private world for the first time.With humor, sincerity, and charm, Priestley offers little-known details about his life and stories of his nine years in America’s most famous zip code. He talks candidly about celebrity, marriage, fatherhood, and his passion for car racing. He does not shy away from the devastating lows—his brief jail sentence for drunk driving and the crash at the Kentucky Speedway that nearly took his life. Priestley shares his innermost thoughts about life as a ’90s icon, and goes beyond the Brandon Walsh squeaky-clean image, revealing the tumultuous events that have shaped him, and where he finds his greatest happiness today

    Music, comedy, and politics all play a part in the surprisingly complex history of the ’80s teen movie. And while the films might have been aimed primarily at adolescents, the best tackle universal issues and remain relevant to all ages.From a late ’70s Hollywood influx to an early ’90s indie scene that gave youth cinema a timely reboot, film expert James King highlights the personal struggles, the social changes, and the boardroom shake-ups that produced an iconic time in movie history.