Writers on Film

Robot Dreams and Suburban Nightmares is a cinematic coming-of age memoir told through the films that defined a generation, a life, and a childhood. Bujold writes with the wit of a lifelong cinephile and the vulnerability of someone willing to revisit life’s happiest moments alongside its most painful ones. Whether recounting disastrous family vacations, neighborhood adventures, awkward teenage years, or the heartbreaking experience of saying goodbye to the woman who first taught him the magic of the movies, Bujold captures something universal: our favorite films become inseparable from the people with whom we shared them.

Perfect fo...

Discover the secrets of The Odyssey: A Film by Christopher Nolan with this exclusive behind-the-scenes look at Summer 2026’s most celebrated film.

Filming The Odyssey: Inside the Making of Christopher Nolan’s Modern Epic traces the creation of Nolan’s latest film from script to screen through exclusive interviews with the director and his cast and crew accompanied by electrifying visuals from the film, including on-set photos, concept art, and research materials.

Buy the book HERE.

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We're at the 45th Giornate del Cinema Muto at Pordenone and I'm talking to American author and academic Allyson Nadia Field about her 20226 book: Acts of Love: Black Performance and the Kiss That Changed Film History. Get your copy of the book HERE.

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In its 45 edition, we're at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, the international silent film festival in Pordenone, with Mark Fuller -- expert and enthusiast in equal measure.

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Here is the comprehensive, first-ever biography of the award-winning child star, Planet of the Apes movie icon, beloved film legend, and Hollywood renaissance man whose career spanned 60 years.

“This is a beautiful tribute to a very special man. For those who aren’t familiar with Roddy, you’re in for a treat. You will get to know a man who was as kind as he was gifted.” —CAROL BURNETT

The book is available HERE.

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I'LL SETTLE FOR NOTHINGNESS is a brand new book of conversations with Mike Hodges, the legendary British film director of classics such as GET CARTER, FLASH GORDON and THE CROUPIER. Available HERE.

These conversations were conducted with filmmaker Jon Spira over the last years of Hodges' life. they form a personal and candid view of his work, life and philosophy as he meditates on his declining health and thoughts of legacy.

WITH A FOREWORD BY GRIFF RHYS JONES

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Citizen Kane. The Magnificent Ambersons. And the film history forgot.

In July 1939, Orson Welles signed a contract with RKO Pictures granting him complete creative control over his films. Less than three years later, he was thrown off the lot.

At RKO, he made two of the most celebrated films in cinema history. He also made Journey Into Fear, a film that has been debated, dismissed, and misunderstood ever since.

Beneath it all lies the mystery: Who actually directed Journey Into Fear: Welles or credited director Norman Foster? Rumors have persisted for decades that Wel...

Bilge Ebiri is a film critic writing in New York magazine and Vulture.

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Nicholas Bell from Eye on Cinema and Fish Jelly YouTube channel joins me to talk Ink, Bucking Fastard and Wild Horse Nine, live from the Venice International Film Festival.

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When it came to filmmaking, Richard Fleischer had big shoes to fill. His father, Max, was one of America's most influential animators. However, Richard's own passions led him not to the animator's desk but to the director's chair.

After garnering an Academy Award for Best Documentary with Design for Death (1948), Fleischer became known for an eclectic mix of pictures such as 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), Fantastic Voyage (1966), Doctor Dolittle (1967), The Boston Strangler (1968), Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970), Soylent Green (1973), and Conan the Destroyer (1984), directing such luminaries as Orson Welles, Kirk Douglas, Charlton Heston, Joan Collins, Lee Marvin, and Arnold Schwarzenegger...

From one of cinema’s wisest and most penetrating observers, an arresting new perspective on the sweep of film history.

David Thomson has been called “the greatest living writer on the movies.” Here is a career capstone of sorts—a one-volume history of film and screens as illuminating and provocative as his classic Biographical Dictionary of Film. In tracing the progress, from the Lumiere Brothers to the Coens, Thomson glories in the great movies, but admits to increasing unease over what the medium has done to us—promoting fantasy, misleading models of sexual identity, the cult of authority...

KIER-LA JANISSE is an author, critic, film programmer, podcaster, publisher and producer with an emphasis on genre cinema.

Video Watchdog’s Tim Lucas referred to her book House of Psychotic Women as one of the 10 “most vital” horror film books of all time, and Ian MacAllister-McDonald of the LA Review of Books called it “the next step in genre theory, as well as the most frightening and heart-rending memoir I’ve read in years.”

Her book on Monte Hellman's infamous film Cockfighter is stunning. Visit her website here for more on her writing, her films and podcasts...

Samira Ahmed is a journalist, writer, and BBC broadcaster. She presents Front Row on Radio 4, Newswatch on BBC News, and regularly hosts radio documentaries. In 2020, she was named British Broadcasting Press Guild's Audio Presenter of the Year. Ahmed has written for The Guardian, The Independent, and other publications, and she writes a regular column for New Humanist.

Read her blog here.

Samira Ahmed's BFI Classics: A Hard Days Night is available here. 

John Bleasdale's Connery: A Novel is available here.

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On the eve of Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, I talk to author of Christopher Nolan: The Iconic Filmmaker and his Work.

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Scott Feinberg is a veteran reporter of The Hollywood Reporter and hosts the Awards Chatter podcast. His work can be found here.

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Norwegian film director Truls Krane Meby and John-Kristian Dalseth, programmer for the Tromsø International Film Festival (TIFF) and manager of the Verdensteatret Cinemateket join John Bleasdale to talk about the 40th Cinema Ritrovato Festival in Bologna.

John Bleasdale's second novel Connery A Novel is available to buy at Plumeria.

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Published to coincide with the 35th anniversary of Michael Lehmann's 1991 infamous "turkey shoot", The Unmaking of Hudson Hawk is an in-depth look at the history and legacy of the film that brought Bruce Willis's career crashing to Earth, from the germ of the idea in 1980s New York to the recent revisionist views of the film by critics and commentators. Featuring interviews with co-creator/composer Robert Kraft, director Michael Lehmann, screenwriters Daniel Waters, Steven de Souza, Jeff Reno and Ron Osborn and many members of the cast and crew, the book is for everyone who looked at Hudson Hawk and...

Laura Horak is Professor of Film Studies at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, and founder of the award-winning Transgender Media Portal. She is author of Girls Will Be Boys: Cross-Dressed Women, Lesbians, and American Cinema.

Trans Cinema Making Communities, Identities, and Worlds is an exciting introduction to cinema by the trans creators who are innovating filmmaking to imagine a more inclusive world.

Order Here. 

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Ed Zwick made his film debut with the comedy About Last Night (1986), followed by Glory (1989), Legends of the Fall (1994), Courage Under Fire (1996), The Siege (1998), The Last Samurai (2003), Blood Diamond (2006), and Defiance (2008). His later films include Love & Other Drugs (2010), Pawn Sacrifice (2014), and Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016).

He is also the co-creator of the ABC family drama series thirtysomething and Once and Again.

John Bleasdale's novel Connery is available here.

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Christina Jeurling Birro speaks to John Bleasdale about the 79th Cannes Film Festival and competition entry, Fjord, directed by Christian Mungiu.

John Bleasdale's new novel Connery is released by Plumeria.co.uk and is available HERE.

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Thomas Schultz speaks to John Bleasdale about the 79th Cannes Film Festival and competition entry, Minotaur, directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev.

John Bleasdale's new novel Connery is released by Plumeria.co.uk and is available HERE.

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Nicolas Bell (Eye On Cinema) and Ed Potton (The Times) join John Bleasdale to talk about the 79th edition of the Cannes International Film Festival.

Read John Bleasdale's Connery, HERE.

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Ian Christie FBA is a British film scholar whose work on Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, Martin Scorsese and the development of cinema has made him one of the most respected film writers today. He is a regular contributor to Sight & Sound magazine and a frequent broadcaster as well as being the Professor of Film and Media History at Birkbeck, University of London.

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In the first episode of a new mini-series, Dr. Brian Baker joins me to discuss the adaptations of J.G. Ballard on film, including Empire of the Sun, Crash and High Rise along with some lesser known films.

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Nicholas Bell and John Bleasdale discuss Salvatore Giuliano (Francesco Rosi, 1962).

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Robert Kolker and David Wyatt provide readers with a history of auteur theory, from its initial origins in France in the late 1940s as an outgrowth of the cinematic theories of the French film critics and theorists André Bazin and Alexandre Astruc, to the canonizing work of American film critic Andrew Sarris in the 1960s. Available HERE.

Connery A Novel by John Bleasdale can be bought EXCLUSIVELY from Plumeria.

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John Rain is the host of the cult podcast Smersh Pod and the author of Thunder Book, SuperBook and Explodobook. Smersh Book is available here.

Connery A Novel is available here. 

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One of the greatest films never finished. One of Hollywood’s most dangerous alliances. One enduring legend.

In the late 1920s, at the height of silent cinema’s reckless glamour, three formidable figures set out to make an impossible film. Gloria Swanson, the era’s most dazzling star. Erich von Stroheim, cinema’s most obsessive and uncompromising auteur. And Joseph P. Kennedy, a ruthless financier with ambitions far beyond Hollywood. The result was Queen Kelly — a production so extravagant, scandalous, and volatile that it collapsed before completion, leaving behind fragments, myths, and a curse that would haunt everyone inv...

Although Alfred Hitchcock was notoriously dismissive of actors, Victoria Lowe (University of Manchester) and Adrian Garvey have edited a collection of essays which argues that acting played a key element of his work. Films discussed include Notorious, Stage Fright and Strangers on a Train. The book provides detailed analysis of some exceptional performances by major stars – from Ivor Novello to Tippi Hedren – and considers performance as a theme across Hitchcock’s oeuvre.

I talk to Adrian and Victoria about their work and Hitchcock more generally.

The Book is available Here.

Connery: A Novel by Joh...

Filmmakers Thinking begins from a simple premise: that we do not take the ongoing reflections of filmmakers about their medium, their art and their craft, seriously enough. Every day, everywhere, filmmakers are asked to talk mainly about themselves and their own works. Yet their vocation springs from a deep engagement with the history and possibilities of cinema as a whole. Going beyond the usual, oft-cited sources, Filmmakers Thinking delves into a vast archive of writings (public and private), interviews, talks, and anecdotes to discover what filmmakers think about how to create cinema – and what cinema is, or could be.

Stephen Volk is a Welsh screenwriter, who wrote the screenplays for numerous horror films, including Ken Russell's Gothic (1986), The Kiss (1988), and William Friedkin's The Guardian (1990). In 1992, Volk wrote the teleplay for the BBC pseudo-documentary Ghostwatch. Other screenwriting credits include Octane (2003) and The Awakening (2011).

Stephen Volk's website can be visited here.

Buy John Bleasdale's Connery here.

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Irish actor and writer Gabriel Byrne talks about writing his memoir Walking with Ghosts, available here.

Buy John Bleasdale's Connery here.

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DANIEL KRAUS is a New York Times bestselling writer of novels, TV, and film. His latest novel, Angel Down, was a New York Times Top 10 Book of 2025. His novel Whalefall won the Alex Award, was a Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist, and was named a Best Book of 2023 by NPR, The New York Times, Amazon, Chicago Tribune, and more. With Guillermo del Toro, he cowrote The Shape of Water, based on the same idea the two created for the Oscar-winning film.

Buy Here

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“Most dyed-in-the-wool film buffs nurture their own private lists of movie directors they feel have been underappreciated, neglected, and/or underrated,” Joe Dante writes in this book’s Foreword. “But very few of us are moved to write an entire book about them.” Beyond mere appreciation, however, author Daniel Kremer presents a philosophy and a guiding principle for venerating the undervalued or forgotten. Buy the book here.

Buy John Bleasdale's Connery here.

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The World of Black Film is an entertaining, informed, and thought-provoking survey of important and influential Black films from around the globe. Available here.

The recommended book is African Cinema: Politics & Culture by Manthia Diawara.

Meanwhile my novel Connery is available here.

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As a film critic and disabled person, Kristen Lopez speaks with particular authority on how disability is represented-and too often misrepresented-in movies. Popcorn Disabilities is her impassioned but nonetheless fun and engaging survey of how Hollywood has dealt with disability over the last century.

Buy Kristen's book Here.

Connery: a Novel by John Bleasdale is available here.

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Featuring nearly 400 original interviews with close friends, family members, and colleagues, The Life of Singleton is the definitive account of prolific filmmaker John Singleton’s life and times. Get it here.

Also Connery: a Novel by John Bleasdale is available here.

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For over 50 years, Martin Scorsese has been one of cinema’s most celebrated directors. From a Catholic kid in Manhattan to a legendary filmmaker, he’s shaped Hollywood with masterpieces such as Taxi Driver, Goodfellas and The Irishman.

But what makes a Scorsese film unique? His stories explore power, morality, and human nature, blending raw emotion with intellectual depth. Whether reinventing noir, musicals or crime dramas, his work captures the pulse of America and the Italian-American experience.

This book dives into all 26 of his films, breaking down his signature themes, iconic collaborations with Robert De Niro and...

Ever since the dawn of the sound era, Hollywood and friends have made a series of elaborate feature films about the lives of the great artists: the cast of colorful characters includes Fredric March as Cellini, Charles Laughton as Rembrandt, George Sanders as Gauguin, José Ferrer as Toulouse-Lautrec, Kirk Douglas as Van Gogh, Charlton Heston as Michelangelo, Mel Ferrer as El Greco—and, more recently, Jeffrey Wright as Jean-Michel Basquiat Derek Jacobi as Francis Bacon, Ed Harris as Jackson Pollock, Salma Hayek as Frida Kahlo, and many others.

The book can be bought here.

John Ble...

Icons of Cinema: Greta Gerwig explores the career of one of the world's most celebrated movie directors and is available here.
john Bleasdale's novel Connery is available for pre-order here.

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