Movies That Mattered
More Reviews from a Transformative Decade
- Contents
- Review Quotes
Table of Contents

Contents
Foreword by Jonathan Rosenbaum
Introductory Note
Part 1: From Chicago Magazine
The Black Stallion (Carroll Ballard)
Used Cars (Robert Zemeckis)
Tess (Roman Polanski)
Westerns
Disney Films
Budd Boetticher
The Mystery of Oberwald (Michelangelo Antonioni)
The French “Tradition of Quality”
The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock, by Donald Spoto
Sequels
Jacques Rivette
Boat People (Ann Hui)
L’argent (Robert Bresson)
A Sunday in the Country (Bertrand Tavernier)
Mikey and Nicky (Elaine May)
The Coca-Cola Kid (Dušan Makavejev)
Ran (Akira Kurosawa)
Shoah (Claude Lanzmann)
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
Home Video
Part 2: From the Top Ten (Reader)
Supervixens (Russ Meyer)
Robin and Marian (Richard Lester)
Islands in the Stream (Franklin J. Schaffner)
Moses and Aaron (Jean-Marie Straub [and Danièle Huillet])
Blue Collar (Paul Schrader)
Luna (Bernardo Bertolucci)
Atlantic City (Louis Malle)
Fanny and Alexander (Ingmar Bergman)
The Legend of Tianyun Mountain (Xie Jin)
Pale Rider (Clint Eastwood)
Part 3: Favorites (Reader)
Twilight’s Last Gleaming (Robert Aldrich)
Movie Movie (Stanley Donen)
Saint Jack (Peter Bogdanovich)
Nosferatu (Werner Herzog)
Knife in the Head (Reinhard Hauff)
Macbeth (Orson Welles)
The Woman Next Door (François Truffaut)
Lola (Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
Valley Girl (Martha Coolidge)
Gremlins (Joe Dante)
Part 4: Autopsies/Minority Reports
The Last Tycoon (Elia Kazan) (Reader)
A Wedding (Robert Altman) (Reader)
Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola) (Chicago)
Kramer vs. Kramer (Robert Benton) (Chicago)
The Shining (Stanley Kubrick) (Reader)
Dressed to Kill (Brian De Palma) (Reader)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (Steven Spielberg) (Chicago)
A Passage to India (David Lean) (Chicago)
Hannah and Her Sisters (Woody Allen) (Chicago)
Salvador (Oliver Stone) (Reader)
Afterword
Appendix: Top Ten Lists, 1974–86
Index
Introductory Note
Part 1: From Chicago Magazine
The Black Stallion (Carroll Ballard)
Used Cars (Robert Zemeckis)
Tess (Roman Polanski)
Westerns
Disney Films
Budd Boetticher
The Mystery of Oberwald (Michelangelo Antonioni)
The French “Tradition of Quality”
The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock, by Donald Spoto
Sequels
Jacques Rivette
Boat People (Ann Hui)
L’argent (Robert Bresson)
A Sunday in the Country (Bertrand Tavernier)
Mikey and Nicky (Elaine May)
The Coca-Cola Kid (Dušan Makavejev)
Ran (Akira Kurosawa)
Shoah (Claude Lanzmann)
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
Home Video
Part 2: From the Top Ten (Reader)
Supervixens (Russ Meyer)
Robin and Marian (Richard Lester)
Islands in the Stream (Franklin J. Schaffner)
Moses and Aaron (Jean-Marie Straub [and Danièle Huillet])
Blue Collar (Paul Schrader)
Luna (Bernardo Bertolucci)
Atlantic City (Louis Malle)
Fanny and Alexander (Ingmar Bergman)
The Legend of Tianyun Mountain (Xie Jin)
Pale Rider (Clint Eastwood)
Part 3: Favorites (Reader)
Twilight’s Last Gleaming (Robert Aldrich)
Movie Movie (Stanley Donen)
Saint Jack (Peter Bogdanovich)
Nosferatu (Werner Herzog)
Knife in the Head (Reinhard Hauff)
Macbeth (Orson Welles)
The Woman Next Door (François Truffaut)
Lola (Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
Valley Girl (Martha Coolidge)
Gremlins (Joe Dante)
Part 4: Autopsies/Minority Reports
The Last Tycoon (Elia Kazan) (Reader)
A Wedding (Robert Altman) (Reader)
Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola) (Chicago)
Kramer vs. Kramer (Robert Benton) (Chicago)
The Shining (Stanley Kubrick) (Reader)
Dressed to Kill (Brian De Palma) (Reader)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (Steven Spielberg) (Chicago)
A Passage to India (David Lean) (Chicago)
Hannah and Her Sisters (Woody Allen) (Chicago)
Salvador (Oliver Stone) (Reader)
Afterword
Appendix: Top Ten Lists, 1974–86
Index
Review Quotes
Peter Biskind | New York Times Book Review
“Extraordinary. . . . The 1980s were not the most salubrious decade in which to shine as a movie reviewer, . . . but as with all great reviewers—Pauline Kael, Andrew Sarris, Manny Farber—Kehr’s reviews fly free from their ostensible subjects to become specimens of cultural criticism. Agree with his opinions or not, they’re always smart, lucid, well argued, and witty. This book is a pleasure to read.”
Cineaste
"The ability to see a film projected more than once has significantly aided the training of Kehr's visual sensibilities, which he displays with sharp analyses of the varied styles of Robert Bresson, Joe Dante, Stanley Kubrick, Akira Kurosawa, Elaine May, and Orson Welles."
Publishers Weekly
"Kehr is a prodigious critic and this collection is an excellent sampling of his voice."
Chicago Reader
"Kehr's descriptive prose conjures a rich, multilayered experience—not unlike the one delivered through cinema."
For more information, or to order this book, please visit https://press.uchicago.edu
Google preview here
You may purchase this title at these fine bookstores. Outside the USA, see our international sales information.