The New Biographical Dictionary of Film

The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, Fourth Edition

cover of the 2004 paperback edition, featuring a still from the film To Have and Have Not
Author	David Thomson
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre	Film criticism, Reference Book
Publisher	Knopf
Publication date	November 16, 2004
Pages	1008
ISBN
OCLC	57691971
Dewey Decimal	791.4302/8/0922 22
LC Class	PN1998.2 .T49 2004
Preceded by	A Biographical Dictionary of Film, Third Edition
Followed by	The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, Fifth Edition

The New Biographical Dictionary of Film is a reference book written by film critic David Thomson, originally published by Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd in 1975 under the title A Biographical Dictionary of Cinema. Organized by personality, it is an exhaustive inventory of those involved in international cinema, whether contemporary or historical, elite or esoteric. Beyond its scope, the tome is most notable for infusing subjectivity into its fact-based form; the technique may best be described as a playful deconstruction of the "reference book." It is currently available in its sixth edition, released in May 2014.

The New Biographical Dictionary of Film has garnered wide acclaim throughout the releases of its various editions; in a 2010 poll by the British Film Institute, it was voted the greatest of all books about film.

Fourth edition press notes from Random House:

Although it looks very much like a dictionary or encyclopedia, each of the book's approximately 5,000 brief biographical sketches is highly subjective: a typical entry may begin with a birthplace and filmography but always concludes with something closer to criticism and memoir as the author examines his connection to the subject's career both academically and personally.

Thomson’s entry on Tom Cruise, for example, opens by considering the actor’s age, recognizing that detractors see him as “representative of all that is most immature in American cinema today.” Thomson notes that Clark Gable was a rising star at thirty: “Now, in our collective recollection, Gable may seem older, worldlier, and more grown-up than Cruise was at thirty. But when did Gable ever risk playing the jerk to whom Cruise was totally committed in The Color of Money? When was Gable as uninhibitedly tender as Cruise managed in Risky Business? And could Gable have survived the black-hole narcissism of Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man?” The entry closes with the actor’s late-90s comeback, calling his work in Magnolia, “his most searching and self-critical performance,” and abandoning objectivity altogether: “So, after bad years, I remain hopeful, even if all the [Mission:] 'Impossibles' put a greater load on things that might be.”