Finding
Book and Film
Reviews

When you're looking for reviews on a book or a film, it is important to remember that there is no guarantee that your chosen work has been reviewed. Huge numbers of books and movies come out every year and many of them never have anything written about them.

You must know 2 things when you look for reviews: the title of the work and the year it was published/released. For books, you need to know the author's name as well.

If you do not succeed in finding anything on your chosen book or movie, please go by or call (915-5855) the Reference Desk at the library and the librarians will do all they can to help you.

You can find reviews in any of the three formats listed below.


Print  |  Online Articles  |  Web Sites

PRINT
The titles listed below are all located near the Reference Desk on the first floor of JD Williams Library.

Books

• Magill's Literary Annual
  PN 44 .M35 -- 1954 - present
  Reviews 200 "notable titles"--both fiction and non-fiction--of "serious literature" every year. Each review is about 2000 words, easy-to-read, contains some background information on the author, and refers the reader to other places where the work is reviewed.
  
  

NOTE: The following resources do not have full text. They tell you in which magazines or newspapers you can find reviews; you must then do a Journal Title search in our catalog to see if UM has the magazine or newspaper. They are good for older reviews.

• Book Review Digest
  Z 1217 .C96 -- 1906 - present
  There are very, very short excerpts from longer reviews in this series of books, sometimes more than one per book title. You can also find out which magazines have reviews of your chosen book. Look up the magazine abbreviations in the "Abbreviation of Periodicals" on page xi.
  
  
• Book Review Index
  Z 1035 .A1 B6 -- 1965 - present
  This series will tell you where to find reviews on your chosen book. There are both popular magazines and scholarly journals. Look up by author name or book title--remember that these two lists are separate: first the author names and then the titles. The magazine abbreviations are in the "Publications Indexed" on page xi.
  
  
• Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature
  AI 3 .R4 -- 1901 - present
  Check the "Book Reviews" section at the back of each volume to see if they include your book. This series is very similar to the Book Review Index above in that it tells you which magazines to look in for the review.
  
  

Films

• New York Times Film Reviews
  PN 1995 .N4 -- 1913-2000
  These books have many of the reviews from the New York Times. Look them up by title.
  
  
• Film Review Annual
  PN 1995 .F465 -- 1982-2000
  Each volume covers the movies of the year before: 2000 has reviews of films from 1999. There are excepts of reviews from various magazines and newspapers; more notable films--such as Academy Award winners--have longer excerpts and sometimes the whole review.
  
  
• Variety Film Reviews
  PN 1995 .V34 -- 1907-1984
  Very similar to the NYT Reviews above: short reviews originally published in the magazine Variety. Look movies up by title.
  
  
• Magill's Survey of Cinema: English Language Films and Foreign Language Films
  PN 1993.45 .M3
  Similar format to the Magill's Literary Annual described below: reviews of about 2000 words written with students in mind. These series are good for older movies since they cover the beginning of cinema to 1981 (English language) and 1985 (foreign language).
  
  

ONLINE ARTICLES
The differences between these resources listed below and the ones in the "Web Sites" section is that that the library pays for the following resources and they are preferable to and more authoritative than free Internet sites; they are also articles, not web sites. Older book and movie reviews may not be available online; in these cases, use the print resources above.

• EBSCOhost: Academic Search Elite
  Contains many full-text articles from 1985 - present. Don't bother checking the "Peer Reviewed" box on the search page, since most reviews are in popular magazines or newspapers. NOTE: For best results, search on the movie or book title and the word "review"; for example:
  
  apocalypse now AND review
  
  You can also try the artist's name, like this:
  
  stephen king AND review
  
  
• JSTOR
  All full-text articles; all are scholarly and non-popular: no Time or People magazine reviews here. Most articles in JSTOR are about 4-5 years old. You must scroll down to the bottom of the Search page to "Refine Your Search" and check the box next to "Reviews." NOTE: Search within titles, because full-text gives you lots of irrelevant reivews and only 10% of the articles in JSTOR have abstracts.
  
  
• LexisNexis Academic
  Full-text articles from newspapers and some magazines. To find book and film reviews, follow these steps:
  
  
  1. Click on the "Guided News Search" tab from the main search page
  2. Select "Arts and Sports News" from the first drop-down box
  3. Select "Book, Movie, Music, and Play Reviews" from the second drop-down box
  4. Search on keywords from your title; if you're looking for reviews of The Silence of the Lambs, for example, just type in "silence lambs."
  
  
• Literature Online
  A fair number of full-text articles. The reviews in this database tend to be literary: Toni Morrison, yes; Stephen King, no. You can get good results from this database if you follow the steps below:
  
  
  1. Click "Search Criticism and Reference" from the Literature Online home page
  2. Click "ABELL + FT"
  3. Select "Records only" from the "Search In" option
  4. Type the title or words from your work's title in the "Keyword" search box; you could also do a search like this: [author] AND [work]
  5. Select "Reviews" from the "Limit to" drop-down box

WEB SITES
The web sites below contain good information and are librarian-approved. Remember that the reviews in the Internet Movie Database are probably not authoritative and are thus unacceptable for a paper.

Books

• The Atlantic Monthly
  This web site is perfect for reviews of old books: back to Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, and Edith Wharton. The more recent reviews are not free.
  
  
• Booklist
  You can find short book reviews here. The web site offers the current month's reviews, a special edition (for example, the Mystery Showcase) with reviews, and the editor's choice books for the year.
  
  
• New York Times Book Reviews
  This site requires free registration. There are books reviews from 1996 - present. Tons of reviews from popular fiction to more scholarly books.
  
  

Films

• New York Times Film Reviews
  This site requires free registration. Free movie reviews from 1983 to the present, plus some classic movie reviews. For old movies use one of the print resouces above.
  
  
• Movie Review Query Engine
  You can type in your movie title into this extremely up-to-date search engine that includes reviews from diverse international and domestic sources. If there are no reviews for your title, the MRQE will refer you to sites that may contain a review.
  
  
• Rotten Tomatoes
  A huge web site with a large amount of reviews. There are profiles on the reviewers and reviews linked from several other sites.
  
  
• Internet Movie Database
  Tons and tons of movie info. This is a good place to come if you don't know what year a movie was released. The reviews are not very legitimate because you never know who wrote them, but it is a nice place to start.