Best Film Magazines

[Aunt Peg]

I've got stacks of old film magazines that have long since ceased publishing:

American Film, Cinefantastique (which was a great magazine in the 70s and 80s until it started to focus on TV too much, Films and Filming, Films Illustrated (I can still feel the gut punch I felt when it ceased publication in the very early 1980s).

I naturally have Film Comment from the late 1970s onward and Monthly Film Bulletin from the mid 70s until it merged with Sight and Sound.

A year or so ago I tried to get rid of my older Sight & Sound issues prior to the merger with Monthly Film Bulletin as well as the Australian magazine Cinema Papers which I had from the mid 1970s until it ceased publication around the turn of the century.

I placed an ad on a local website called Free Cycle basically offering to give them away to the first bidder but I had no takers so they all ended up in the recycling bin.

I do need to bite the bullet as to what I'm else I'm going to get rid of. I'd always envisaged that when I retired from work (which I was lucky enough to be able to at the age of 54) just over three years ago that I'd speed time looking through them but the trials of life have gotten in the way.

I have been and am in process of selling off most of my movie poster collection and have just started doing the same with my lobby cards (I have hundred of sets collected over about a 20 year period) though I'll hold on to my most treasured ones.

[GaryC]

Little White Lies is a really fun magazine, but I’ve only seen it available in London.

You should be able to find it in WH Smith's. I bought the new issue in my local branch this afternoon.

[furbicide]

A year or so ago I tried to get rid of my older Sight & Sound issues prior to the merger with Monthly Film Bulletin as well as the Australian magazine Cinema Papers which I had from the mid 1970s until it ceased publication around the turn of the century.

I placed an ad on a local website called Free Cycle basically offering to give them away to the first bidder but I had no takers so they all ended up in the recycling bin.

That is a horrible story. What a shame nobody wanted them!

For anyone who's interested, by the way, the entire archive of Cinema Papers (which is, indeed, a seminal film publication and a great resource for Australian cinema in particular) is available to read online: https://ro.uow.edu.au/cp/

[pianocrash]

Little White Lies is a really fun magazine, but I’ve only seen it available in London. On trips to the Barnes and Noble it’s difficult to not want to pick up, or at least find a seat and browse through Film Comment, Cineaste, and Cinema Scope. Occasionally Film Maker does a really nice piece on the new faces of independent film.

I tend to hold on to my magazines too. I still have a nice collection of 90s era Spin and Sassy.

I suggest you snoop out any B&N brick & mortars in your USA area, if that's the case, as they seem to show up intermittently around my locale (but I'm technically between two states, so I have better snooping odds). Sometimes the praise in LWL can be fawning, which is why I kind of hate curated issues of anything, but there's still some wonderful interviews (Olivier Assayas a few issues back was pretty head-turning) and the UK-based coverage, which I always appreciate now that Sight & Sound isn't readily available around here anymore.

I still have a chunk of S&S on a bookshelf, along with many more years of The Wire, most of the full run of INDEX (bigtime R.I.P.), though I do miss my stack of Spins and, most especially, Sassy (for real)

Only semi-related: those old issues of Raygun are like $100 each now, which is incredible

[bearcuborg]

I only have a few Raygun copies, but I had friends who studied graphic design who ate those 90s issues up.

One of the issues I have has Jarvis Cocker on the cover. He talks about wanting to score films, and even direct one day. Hopefully those things happen.

[Orson Kane]

Has anyone read the online-only magazine Backstory (https://backstory.net/). It's got quite a few interviews that I like the look of.

Also if I wanted to subscribe to a magazine that has a more esoteric bent, would Cineaste be my best bet? Or Sight and Sound?

[Andre Jurieu]

I feel confident in stating that Cineaste is more esoteric than Sight & Sound.

[Godot]

Esoterica scale (among are the periodicals I've collected) ... following Andre's lead:
Screen > Cinemascope > Positif > CineAction > Movie > Cineaste > Sight & Sound > Film Comment > American Film > Empire > Entertainment Weekly

I browse in local Barnes and Noble, and frequently I find that I don't recognize the films or directors or writers in the table of contents. This is perhaps more a sign of my diminishing time devoted to watching the latest films. Notes betraying my increasingly pedestrian cinema tastes:

• Screen (way over my head ... though I'm likely not the intended audience)
• Cinemascope (I love Jonathan Rosenbaum's "Global DVD Discoveries" column, but rarely understand much else)
• Positif (I like the 50 Years of Selected Writings compendium, but beyond those I was mostly lost)
• CineAction (late, lamented, look for back issues on eBay, great stuff by Robin Wood)
• Movie (late, lamented, but see note below for it's online revival of sorts --- the best things to come from this periodical are the collections in Book of Film Noir, Book of the Western, etc.)
• Cineaste (I rarely buy now, but loved the '80s-'90s)
• Sight & Sound (loved the '70s-'90s ... again, great collections in books published by BFI)
• Film Comment (loved the '70s-'80s)
• American Film (great stuff in the '70s but an ugly death rattle)
• Empire (my boys love the snarkiness and fanboyish gushing, Kim Newman's column is often the highlight, and the podcast has humorous British cursing that all my kids love to imitate)
• Entertainment Weekly (pick up for $0.25 each issue at library for coming attractions news)

I highly recommend the Movie journal online publications, which can be somewhat esoteric (like the magazine was in the '60s-'80s), but has at least 2-3 articles each issue that I download, print out, and carry with me to read. Following that thought, I think the best film writing periodicals are now blogs, such as Bordwell & Thompson's "Observations on Film Art" (always enlightening and entertaining, and fairly consistent weekly posts). I've printed out many of those, as well as CineSavant, Shadowplay, Some Came Running, Nitrate Diva, Self-Styled Siren, and Film Studies For Free.

[Ribs]

Esoteric is not, to my mind, the way to describe Screen; it’s a trade, and probably the one that has changed the least in the internet era. It truly is just for people in the business and not at all something a consumer should have interest in beyond its reviews, and it hasn’t made concessions to still get clicks or subscribers from a bigger audience as Variety and THR have. But esoteric to me implies a particular appreciation for the avant garde or outsider cinema or something when it’s just doing what trades should do in terms of being a publication consumed by the industry and not a general audience. Also Film Comment is, imo, marginally more esoteric than Sight & Sound (I cannot imagine the latter giving something as small as Vitalina Varela a cover story, for example) but that’s a little thing.

[Dr Amicus]

Are you confusing Screen International, the UK based trade magazine, and Screen, the academic (and then some) theoretical periodical? I haven't read Screen in years (not having access to a university library and I've never really been tempted to get a personal subscription) but there's a reason you don't find copies next to Empire or Sight & Sound in WH Smiths...

[Ribs]

I am, my mistake! Thought it seemed odd and that’s the explanation for why

[Oedipax]

The editorial staff of Cahiers du Cinéma has resigned today, citing problems with the magazine's new owners (a collective of businessmen and producers).

[senseabove]

UC Press has made all of their content free through June, including Film Quarterly.