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Film & Media

Reviews & Criticism

The following sources will help you locate film reviews and criticism. In order to find a film review, you need to know the film title and film release date. If you do not have this information, consult either Halliwell's Film Guide, the Oxford Companion to Film, the International Directory of Films and Filmmakers (Vol. 1) or the Motion Picture Guide.

What are the differences between film reviews and film criticism?

Film reviews are written for the general public by usually journalists or other non-academics and appear in newspapers, magazines or online around the time the film is released in theatres. Their purpose is to describe the plot, characters, director, etc in order to help determine whether or not a film should be seen.

Film criticism is the study, interpretation and evaluation of a film with regard to issues such as historical context, theory or technical analysis. Film criticism is written by academics and is published in books or scholarly journals. It may sometimes address a specific apsect of a ilm or focus on the work of a particul director or genre. Critical reviews may be published many years after a film is released.

Databases for Finding Reviews & Criticism

Film and Television Literature Index with Full Text
Comprehensive bibliographic database to film and television literature

Has full-text runs scanned cover-to-cover in color of core U.S. and U.K. trade papers and magazines, such as Variety, Boxoffice, Broadcast, The Hollywood Reporter, and American Cinematographer to name a few. 
 
Film Journals in JSTOR

Additional Review Resources Online

 
From 1969 to 1990, check Omni
  
Includes film reviews from over 700 Canadian journals and newspapers.
 
For 1920 - 1998, Check Omni
Good for reviews of current and retrospective Canadian films. To find reviews in the print volumes, look under the heading Moving picture reviews from 1927 through 1986 and under the heading Movie reviews from 1987 onwards.
 
 

Web Resources

Contains reviews of the latest releases and news about and previews of films in the works. "Classic reviews" includes critiques of 75 classic titles spanning the decades from 1931 to 1991. "Review Archive" contains reviews for more that 900 films released since 1995. Good source for very current reviews, interviews and articles covering the film industry.
 
Metacritic
Compiles critical reviews and assigns each movie an overall score.
 
Reviews for new and recent films in theaters, DVD and Blu-ray releases, and film classics.
 
Browse or search thousands of movie reviews. Included in this free archive are all of the films reviewed since 1960.
  
Offers a critical reaction on movies from the nation's top print and online film critics.