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CONTENTS
FOREWORD BY ROBERT OSBORNE
WHAT CONSTITUTES AN ESSENTIAL?
Metropolis (1927)
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
City Lights (1931)
Grand Hotel (1932)
King Kong (1933)
Duck Soup (1933)
It Happened One Night (1934)
The Thin Man (1934)
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
Swing Time (1936)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
Gone With the Wind (1939)
The Lady Eve (1941)
Citizen Kane (1941)
Now, Voyager (1942)
Casablanca (1942)
Double Indemnity (1944)
Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)
Leave Her to Heaven (1945)
The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
Out of the Past (1947)
The Red Shoes (1948)
The Bicycle Thief (1948)
The Third Man (1949)
White Heat (1949)
Adam’s Rib (1949)
Winchester ’73 (1950)
Sunset Boulevard (1950)
Gun Crazy (1950)
All About Eve (1950)
Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
Roman Holiday (1953)
Seven Samurai (1954)
On the Waterfront (1954)
Rear Window (1954)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
The Searchers (1956)
Some Like it Hot (1959)
North By Northwest (1959)
Ben-Hur (1959)
Breathless (1960)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Dr. Strangelove (1964)
Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
In the Heat of the Night (1967)
The Graduate (1967)
Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
Jaws (1975)
Rocky (1976)
Annie Hall (1977)
This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
FOREWORD BY ROBERT OSBORNE
When Turner Classic Movies began in 1994, we launched with
a switch-flipping ceremony in New York City. We were very
specific about the city we chose to celebrate the occasion as
well as the day we picked for the event—April 14. That day
marked the 100th anniversary of film in the United States. It
had been on April 14, 1894, that the first kinetoscope parlor
opened in New York City—the launch of the film industry in the U. S. of A.
What better time and place to mark the launch of Turner Classic Movies, which
began that same April day in 1994 with the promise to bring to movie lovers one
hundred years’ worth of Classic cinema from around the world.
From the beginning we were challenged and also a bit daunted. One hundred
years of movies is an awesome number to deal with and first we had to figure
out where to begin. The initial film aired on TCM was Gone With the Wind, not
only a film appropriate in size and reputation but also the favorite of Ted Turner,
who was responsible for launching Turner classic Movies in the first place. The
programming plan for the channel was always to show movies from all countries
and from all eras, big productions, small ones, legendary ones, as well as B-
budget movies. As the years ticked on, we collectively began to feel the need to,
at least once a week, let people who were perhaps not knowledgeable about
classic films see movies we felt were necessary to be enjoyed by anyone who
wanted to be more than a casual movie observer. And we wanted to have those
screenings hosted by people who did know interesting details about those
particular films.
In 2001 we launched The Essentials as a weekly Saturday night event, and
our first host was writer-actor-director Rob Reiner, flying solo. Rob was the host
for two years, then was followed by two years with director Sydney Pollack
(2003–05) and Peter Bogdanovich (2005–06). Then in 2006 the format was
changed a bit, and I began sitting down with cohosts to discuss the films.
Acclaimed critic Molly Haskell was the first to join me (2006–07). She was
followed by writer-actress-wit Carrie Fisher (2007–08), actress Rose McGowan
(2008–09), actor Alec Baldwin (2009–11), actress-producer Drew Barrymore
(2012–15), and two-time Academy Award winner Sally Field, starting in 2015.
From the beginning we asked our celebrated cohosts to be an integral part in
choosing the films we would pick as Essentials. Every year our programming
department compiles a list of films available in the year ahead, after which my
cohost and I separately comb through that list, picking what each of us feels is a
genuinely “essential” movie. Every film is considered, from silent comedies to
French New Wave, film noir to slapstick comedy, Casablanca to Invasion of the
Body Snatchers.
Doing The Essentials has become one of my favorite of all projects I’m
involved in at TCM, not only because it introduces some great films to people
who might not otherwise be aware of them, but because it gives me a chance to
have interesting movie conversations (and an occasional argument) with people
like Molly, Carrie, Alec, Sally, and the others. This book is a celebration of our
Essentials history at TCM but do keep in mind: it is not a ranking list. This
doesn’t pretend to be a list of anyone’s idea of the fifty-two best movies of all
time, or the most underrated, or the biggest grossers. (I shudder at the thought of
the TCM staff, as rabid as everyone at TCM is about film likes and dislikes,
trying to compile any kind of a “best movies” list—that would require that the
National Guard be called in to referee and keep order.) Instead, this book is a
sampling of some of the nearly three hundred films that have been shown so far
on TCM as “essential” movie-watching—fifty-two films that represent some of
the best that the art of film has given us . . . so far.
Description:"Spanning eight decades of films and featuring the brightest stars ever to grace the silver screen, The Essentials is the guide to must-see movies from the most trusted authority on film - Turner Classic Movies. Since its inception on Turner Classic Movies in 2001, The Essentials has become the ulti
