Finding Motion Picture Reviews

Bob Gorman
Reference Librarian
Winthrop University
June, 2008

To locate a review of a motion picture, it is important to know the year the movie was first released. [If exact year is not known, use one of the film encyclopedias found in Reference] 

For Reviews of Recently Released Film

Academic Search Premier is available on DLO and provides full-text of nearly 4,700 publications.  Search under the name of the film, then limit the search by typing the term "review".

Academic OneFile and General OneFile are available on DLO and index thousands of popular magazines and scholarly journals, many of which are full-text online. Search under the name of the film, then limit the search by typing the term "movie review."

Arts & Humanities Search (FirstSearch) - Type name of film then choose "Film Review" under the "Article Type" category. 

LexisNexis Academic is available on DLO and indexes hundreds of newspapers in the U.S. and around the world.  All are full-text.  Do a keyword search under the name of the film and narrow the search with the term "movie review". 

Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature. (Index tables) - Look under the subject heading "Motion Picture Reviews - Single Works" to find an alphabetical listing.

Sight & Sound. (Current periodical shelves and bound in General Collection- PN1993.S56x) - Look under "Movie Reviews" in the table of contents.

Web Sites

Movie Reviews with Joan Ellis http://www.joanellis.com - This site lists reviews by film title.

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) http://www.imdb.com/ - allows you to search for information on more than 150,000 movies

Movie Review Query Engine http://www.mrqe.com - provides reviews of over 25,000 films.

Rotten Tomatoes http://rottentomatoes.com - Provides linds to reviews appearing in newspapers, magazines, and online.

Other Review Sources

American Film Criticism, from the Beginning to Citizen Kane: Review of Significant Films at the Time They First Appeared by Stanley Kauffmann. (Gen Collection-PN1995.K293 1972) - One of several collections of reviews gathered mainly from ones which originally appeared in The New Republic.

Figures of Light by Stanley Kauffmann. (Gen Collection-PN1995.K296 1971) - Another of the collections of film criticism collected from Kauffmann's reviews in The New Republic.

Film Review Index. (Ref. PN1995.B1F54 1986) - Title, director, country, or year produced indexes provide access to reviews from 1882 - 1985.

Film Criticism: An Index to Critics' Anthologies. (Ref. PN1995.H4) - Title, subjects, and director indexes indicate where to find reviews located in anthologies. 

Hooked. (Gen Collection- PN1995.K235 1989) - A collection of reviews originally appearing in the New Yorker.

The Motion Picture Guide. (Ref. PN1993.M4334) - A comprehensive multi volume encyclopedia covering films from the silent era through 1989.

The New York Times Film Reviews. (Ref. PN1995.N4) - Use the title or personal names index for reviews between 1913 and 1974. The complete review from the newspaper is located in these volumes, so there is no need to use the microfilm.

Selected Film Criticism. (Ref. PN1995.S426) - Use the "Index of Film Titles" in volume 7 to locate reviews of films released between 1896 and 1960.