Notes from the Dream House ― A Selection of Film Reviews 1963-2013

For nearly half a century Philip French’s writing on cinema has been essential reading for film-goers, cinephiles and anyone who enjoys witty, intelligent engagement with the big screen. His vast knowledge of the medium is matched only by his love for it. Notes from the Dream House collects some of the best of Philip French’s film writing from 1963-2013. Ranging across half of the history of the cinema, these pieces cover every kind of film: westerns, musicals, comedies and gangster films, art movies and blockbusters, the hits, the misses, the good, the bad, and the ugly. This distillation of a lifetime’s engagement with cinema is a worthy memorial to one of the most respected and beloved of modern critics in any medium.

Philip French (1933-2015) was an accomplished film critic who worked for the Observer, served on the jury of the Cannes Film Festival and the Booker Prize, was named the Critics Circle Critic of the Year in 2003 and the British Press Awards Critic of the Year in 2009, was made an Honorary Member of BAFTA and a Fellow of the British Film Institute, and was awarded an OBE. Karl French, Patrick French, and Sean French are sons of the late Philip French. Kersti French is the wife of the late Philip French.