Film & Video Resources

Current Films

Academic Search Premier (Duke Community only)  1975 to date. 
One of the best places to look for reviews of recent films, Academic Search Premier contains both citations to and the full text of reviews from selected popular magazines, scholarly journals, and some major American newspapers. The database is updated daily. Covers both foreign and American films. At the initial search screen, select keyword search and enter the film's title and the subject term "motion pictures -- reviews" in the search box.

BOXOFFICE Online
Contains reviews of the latest releases and news about and previews of films in the works. A section called "Classic Reviews" includes critiques of 75 classic titles spanning the decades from 1931's "City Lights" to 1993's "Jurassic Park." A "Review Archive" contains reviews for more than 900 films released since 1995. BOXOFFICE Online is a good source for very current reviews, interviews, and articles covering the film industry.

Cinema Sites
Listing of mainstream publishers, Internet origination, content approving, and alternative sources of film reviews compiled by David R. Augsburger.

EMRO (Educational Movie Reviews Online)
A database of video, DVD, audio CD and CD-ROM reviews of materials from major educational and documentary distributors and independent filmmakers.  The reviews are written by librarians and teaching faculty in institutions across the United States and Canada.

IIPA (Duke Community only) 1864 to date
The International Index to the Performing Arts is a combined index/full-text database that provides coverage of 200 international arts periodicals.  Search by document type "film review."

Internet Movie Database
IMDB includes more than 100,000 domestic and foreign films of all genres that date back as far as 1892. Listings contain movie credits and plot summaries. Many listings link to reviews. Search for a movie by title, year, or genre. IMDB also contains more than 1.5 million filmographies and biographies of persons involved at all levels of movie-making. The database offers many other features.

LexisNexis Academic (Duke Community only)
LexisNexis Academic is a full-text index to newspapers, magazines, newswires, and media transcripts from across the United States and the world. The database is a good place to look for newspaper and magazine reviews of films released within the past ten years. To find film reviews, select "Arts and Sports News" as the news category and "Book, movie, music, and play reviews" as the news source.

MRQE (Movie Review Query Engine)
An online database for moview reviews, it provides a searchable index of published and available movie reviews.  MRQE aggregates reviews, news, interviews and other material associated to specific movies. MRQE also partners with leading movie blogs so that their content is collected in the MRQE database and searchable by any user.

Project Muse (Duke Community only)
A database of e-journals covering the arts and humanities, social science, and mathematics. The journals are published by university presses, including the Duke University Press.  In an advanced search limit the document type to "review."  

ProQuest  (Duke Community only)  1971 to date
ProQuest is another combined index/full-text retrieval system that indexes many general interest and scholarly periodicals and newspapers. The system only lags within a month or two of the present date. To locate a review, go to "more search options" and choose the document type, "film review."

Roger Ebert Movie Reviews
Provides Ebert's reviews of current movies as well as those dating back to 1985. Search the backfile by title, actor, director, producer, or writer. Sort the results by star rating, title, or date of publication. One of the  features is "The Great Movies" in which Ebert reviews his all-time favorites.

Triangle CitySearch Movies Listings
A guide to movies showing in the Triangle area. Categorizes movies as classics, comedy, cult, documentary, drama, horror, independent/foreign, kids, romance, science fiction/fantasy, and thriller. The first page offers "top picks" of Ian Williams, CitySearch's movie critic. Select "All Movies" to get an alphabetical list of movies that are currently showing. Click on the movie title for a review. Click on the theater name to get an address, phone number, theater hours, and forms of payment accepted.

Triangle Guide Online
The News and Observer guide to movies showing in the Triangle area. Categories include "opening today," "now playing," "late shows," and "special shows." "Sneak previews" and "children's movies" are added at certain times of the year. Each listing includes a plot summary, movie length, rating, location, and time of showing. Click on the movie title to link to the Internet Movie Database (described above). Maps are provided for locating area theaters.

TV Guide Movie Database
From The Motion Picture Guide, Cinebooks's 23-volume reference landmark, and Ephraim's Katz's comprehensive Film Encyclopedia, this searchable database includes the cast, credits, awards won, and reviews for more than 30,000 movies released in the U.S., plus filmographies and biographical information on thousands of actors, directors, and other filmmakers. Reviews for films in current release (check the "In Theaters" section in the index), movie industry news, features and interviews, and video charts are also some key features of this site.