Classic Film

"What Do You Mean, Murder?" dives deep into the making of Clue and walks fans through the movie they know and love. From producer Debra Hill's original idea of Detective Parker bumbling around a mansion to Carrie Fisher's casting as Miss Scarlet, from Madeline Kahn's iconic "flames" ad-lib to the legendary deleted fourth ending, it's all here.

From the author of the “thrilling” (The Christian Science Monitor) novel The Other Typist comes an evocative, multilayered story of ambition, success, and secrecy in 1950s New York. In 1958, Greenwich Village buzzes with beatniks, jazz clubs, and new ideas—the ideal spot for three...

For generations, members of the LGBTQ+ community in Hollywood needed to be discreet about their lives but—make no mistake—they were everywhere, both in front of and behind the camera. On the eve of the twentieth century, in Thomas Edison’s laboratory, one of the earliest attempts at a...

Sent to rescue Governor Bligh, former captain of HMS Bounty, Jack Aubrey sets off for Australia in the Leopold with his friend Stephen Maturin and a hold full of convicts in this fifth of the Aubrey/Maturin series. A beautiful and dangerous spy lurks among these prisoners, as does an even more...

Irresistible and authoritative, The Movie Musical! is an in-depth look at the singing, dancing, happy-making world of Hollywood musicals--an essential audiobook for anyone who's ever laughed, cried, or sung along at the movies. Leading film historian Jeanine Basinger reveals, with her...

When local newspapers report strange things seen floating in rivers during a historic Vermont flood, Albert Wilmarth becomes embroiled in a controversy about the reality and significance of the sightings. However it isn’t until he receives communication from Henry Wentworth Akeley that he is offered the proof he requires.

"Mani Ratnam’s Nayakan is among Time’s ‘100 Best Movies Ever’; and his Roja launched A.R. Rahman. For the first time ever, Mani Ratnam opens up here, to Baradwaj Rangan, in a series of freewheeling conversations— candid, witty, pensive, and sometimes combative—and looks back at these...

Rudyard Kipling’s best-loved book is now the basis for the Netflix film Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle starring Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Benedict Cumberbatch, Freida Pinto, and Rohan Chand The story of Mowgli, the abandoned "man-cub" who is brought up by wolves in the jungles of...

Boston blueblood Charlotte Vale has led an unhappy, sheltered life. Lonely, dowdy, repressed, and pushing 40, Charlotte finds salvation at a sanitarium, where she undergoes an emotional and physical transformation. After her extreme makeover, the new Charlotte tests her mettle by embarking on a cruise and finds herself in a torrid love affair with a married man which ends at the conclusion of the voyage. But only then can the real journey begin, as Charlotte is forced to navigate a new life for herself.

The Cocoanuts is a 1929 pre-Code musical comedy film starring the Marx Brothers (Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and Zeppo). Produced for Paramount Pictures by Walter Wanger, the film also stars Mary Eaton, Oscar Shaw, Margaret Dumont and Kay Francis. The first sound film to credit more than one director (Robert Florey and Joseph Santley), it was adapted to the screen by Morrie Ryskind from the musical play by George S. Kaufman. Five of the film's tunes were composed by Irving Berlin, including "When My Dreams Come True," sung by Oscar Shaw and Mary Eaton.

Angel and the Badman is a 1947 American Western film written and directed by James Edward Grant and starring John Wayne, Gail Russell, Harry Carey, and Bruce Cabot. The film is about an injured gunfighter, who is nursed back to health by a young Quaker woman and her family, whose way of life influences him and his violent ways. Angel and the Badman was the first film Wayne produced and in which he starred, and was a departure for this genre when it was released. Writer-director James Edward Grant was Wayne's frequent screenwriting collaborator.

Beat the Devil is a 1953 adventure comedy film directed by John Huston and starring Humphrey Bogart, Jennifer Jones and Gina Lollobrigida in her American debut.

Africa Screams is a 1949 American adventure comedy film starring Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, directed by Charles Barton and written by Earl Baldwin, that parodies the safari genre.

In this witty, absurd, and surprisingly moving memoir-in-essays, comedian Alison Leiby unpacks the multitudes women are told to be—and the joy of refusing to pick just one. Have you ever frozen when someone asks, "So, tell me about yourself?" If so, take a page from I'm a Lot. Alison Leiby...

Collected for the first time, the New York stories of John O'Hara, "among the greatest short story writers in English, or in any other language" (Brendan Gill, Here at The New Yorker) Collected for the first time, here are the New York stories of one of the twentieth century’s definitive...

One of the most influential and respected entertainers of Hollywood's golden age, Gene Kelly revolutionized film musicals with his innovative and timeless choreography. A would-be baseball player and one-time law student, Kelly captured the nation's imagination in films such as Anchors Aweigh (1945), On the Town (1949), An American in Paris (1951), and Singin' in the Rain (1952). In the first comprehensive biography written since the legendary star's death, authors Cynthia Brideson and Sara Brideson disclose new details of Kelly's complex life.

A fresh, provocative portrait of the young woman behind the most notorious treason in American History. Coming of age as the Revolutionary War rages, Peggy Shippen is a woman torn between two sides. While her prominent Loyalist family seems to remain stubbornly neutral, she yearns to enter the...

When the wild strips everything away, what’s left is who you are. In the raw, untamed wilds of Alaska—where the wind howls, predators hunt, and the sun disappears for months—only a rare few figure out how to survive. Sue Aikens, the breakout star of National Geographic’s long-running TV...

A dark and utterly original literary horror debut, following a priest whose bloodthirsty life has extended far longer than any mere human's—and is upended when a stranger comes to town Stutley Tillinghast lives a solitary life, ostensibly as the minister of a remote rural parish in Rhode...

THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE A book that explores the great American novelist and playwright Edna Ferber, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Ficton, whose work was made into many Academy Award-winning movies; the writing of her controversial, international best-selling novel...