BFI Film Classics books in order

The BFI Film Classics series features short, scholarly books about individual films, with 29 volumes covering classics from The Seventh Seal to The Big Lebowski.

Reading order

# Title Published Author Buy on Amazon
1 Napoleon: Abel Gance’s Classic Film 1982 Sarah Kozloff Buy
2 The Seventh Seal 1993 Sarah Kozloff Buy
3 L’Atalante 1993 Sarah Kozloff Buy
4 It’s a Gift 1994 Sarah Kozloff Buy
5 Things to Come 1995 Sarah Kozloff N/A
6 The Big Sleep 1997 Sarah Kozloff Buy
7 The Thing 1997 Sarah Kozloff Buy
8 The Birds 1998 Sarah Kozloff Buy
9 Crash 1999 Sarah Kozloff Buy
10 Sanshô Dayû 1999 Sarah Kozloff Buy
11 Titanic 2000 Sarah Kozloff Buy
12 Belle de Jour 2001 Sarah Kozloff Buy
13 The Manchurian Candidate 2002 Sarah Kozloff Buy
14 The Exorcist 2003 Sarah Kozloff Buy
15 Kind Hearts and Coronets 2003 Sarah Kozloff Buy
16 The Matrix 2004 Sarah Kozloff Buy
17 City Lights 2007 Sarah Kozloff N/A
18 Ratcatcher 2008 Sarah Kozloff Buy
19 2001: A Space Odyssey 2010 Sarah Kozloff Buy
20 The Best Years of Our Lives 2011 Sarah Kozloff Buy
21 Meshes of the Afternoon 2011 Sarah Kozloff Buy
22 Caché 2012 Sarah Kozloff Buy
23 Spirited Away 2014 Sarah Kozloff Buy
24 The Shawshank Redemption 2019 Sarah Kozloff Buy
25 The Silence of the Lambs 2019 Sarah Kozloff Buy
26 Silent Running 2019 Sarah Kozloff Buy
27 The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp 2020 Sarah Kozloff Buy
28 The Big Lebowski 2020 Sarah Kozloff Buy
29 Fear Eats the Soul 2020 Sarah Kozloff Buy

The BFI Film Classics series is a long-running academic publishing project from the British Film Institute. Each slim volume focuses on a single film, offering close analysis of its themes, techniques, and cultural impact. The 29 volumes listed here cover a wide range, from The Seventh Seal (1993) and L’Atalante (1993) through The Shawshank Redemption (2019) and The Big Lebowski (2020).

The series includes books on horror (The Exorcist, The Thing), science fiction (2001: A Space Odyssey, The Matrix), animation (Spirited Away), and drama (The Best Years of Our Lives, Kind Hearts and Coronets). Each book is written by a different scholar, and the series has become a standard reference for film students and cinephiles.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many books are in the BFI Film Classics series?

There are 29 books in the BFI Film Classics series, published between 1982 and 2020.

What is the first book in the BFI Film Classics series?

The first book in the BFI Film Classics series is Napoleon: Abel Gance’s Classic Film, published in 1982.

What is the BFI Film Classics series?

Published by the British Film Institute, each BFI Film Classics volume is a short book analyzing a single film in depth. The series covers films from every era and genre, from silent cinema through modern blockbusters, with contributions from film scholars and critics.

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