Get ready to spot hundreds of things you’ve never seen before across a wide range of films, in this brand new book from the creator of Den Of Geek.

From the small references and inspirations, through to clues, hidden meanings and moments in frame that you may have simply missed, this indispensable guide is both a love letter to cinema and a jam-packed treasure trove that no film fan will want to miss!

“Once Upon a Time in the West was the movie that made me consider filmmaking.” Quentin Tarantino

Sergio Leone’s film Once Upon a Time in the West set out to be the ultimate Western – a celebration of the power of classic Hollywood cinema, a meditation on the making of America and a lament for the decline of one of the most cherished film genres in the form of a “dance of death.” With this film, Leone said a fond farewell to the noisy and flamboyant world of the Italian Western, which he had created with A Fistful of Dollars and sequels, and aimed for something much more ambitious – an exploration of the relationship between myth (“Once Upon a Time…”), history (“…in the West”) and his own autobiography as an avid film-goer. This would be a horse opera in which the arias aren’t sung, they are stared. Once Upon a Time has since inspired several generations of filmmakers worldwide. Its combination of “film about film” with an angry historical epic, told with great style, has resonated for half a century, and its reputation has steadily grown.

This book, by the world-renowned authority on Sergio Leone, Christopher Frayling, includes revealing personal interviews with all the key players involved in the movie (in front of the camera and behind it) a wealth of never-before-published documents, designs and photographs, and the latest research into the making of a masterpiece, shot by shot.

It is introduced with a foreword by Quentin Tarantino.

This year is the 50th anniversary of Once Upon a Time in the West and this richly illustrated book is a suitably spectacular birthday tribute.

From Paris to Prague, from the past to the present, authors and artists explore what Europe means to them – and us – in this unique collection.

In these pages you’ll find personal letters, reminiscences, poetry, art and brand new fiction from some of the most talented and important voices at work today, including Jessie Burton, Alain de Botton, Matt Haig, Richard Herring, Owen Jones, Mark Kermode, Robert Macfarlane, Kate Mosse, Chris Riddell, Lionel Shriver and many more. A fascinating, funny and moving must-read collection.

Get sucked into the world of box-sets, binge-watching and addictive insider anecdotes with this comprehensive guide to the small screen, brought to you by the people behind the Den of Geek website.

TV GEEK recounts the fascinating stories of cult-classic series, reveals the nerdy Easter eggs hidden in TV show sets, and demonstrates the awe-inspiring power of fandom, which has even been known to raise TV series from the dead.

Includes:
– How the live-action Star Wars TV show fell apart
– The logistics and history of the crossover episode
– The underrated geeky TV shows of the 1980s
– The hidden details of Game of Thrones
– Five Scandinavian crime thrillers that became binge hits
– The Walking Dead, and the power of fandom

TV series are now as big as Hollywood movies with their big budgets, massive stars, and ever-growing audience figures! TV GEEK provides an insightful look at the fascinating history, facts and anecdotes behind the greatest (and not-so-great) shows.

Following a formative encounter with the British pop movie Slade in Flame in 1975, Mark Kermode decided that musical superstardom was totally attainable. And so, armed with a homemade electric guitar and very little talent, he embarked on an alternative career – a chaotic journey which would take him from the halls and youth clubs of North London to the stages of Glastonbury, the London Palladium and The Royal Albert Hall.

HOW DOES IT FEEL?: A Life of Musical Misadventures follows a lifetime of musical misadventures which have seen Mark striking rockstar poses in the Sixth Form Common Room, striding around a string of TV shows dressed from head to foot in black leather, getting heckled off stage by a bunch of angry septuagenarians on a boat on the Mersey, showing Timmy Mallet how to build a tea-chest bass – and winning the International Street Entertainers of the Year award as part of a new wave of skiffle. Really.

Hilarious, self-deprecating and blissfully nostalgic, this is a riotous account of a bedroom dreamer’s attempts to conquer the world armed with nothing more than a chancer’s enthusiasm and a simple philosophy: how hard can it be?

On New Year’s Day 1818, Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein was first published in an anonymous three-volume edition of 500 copies. Some thought the book was too radical in implication. A few found the central theme intriguing… no-one predicted its success.

Since then, there have been many, many adaptations – 120 films alone, at the last count – on screen, stage, in novels, comics and graphic novels, in advertisements and even on cereal packets. From a Regency nightmare, Frankenstein became a cuddly childhood companion – thoroughly munstered, so to speak. The story has been interpreted as a feminist allegory of birthing, an ecological reading of mother earth, an attack on masculinist science, the origin of science fiction, an example of ‘female gothic’, a reaction to the rise of the industrial proletariat… and much else besides.

Frankenstein lives! The ‘F’ word has been applied, since the 1950s, to test-tube babies, heart transplants, prosthetics, robotics, cosmetic surgery, genetic engineering, genetically-modified crops, and numerous other public anxieties arising from scientific research. Today, Frankenstein has taken over from Adam and Eve as the creation myth for the age of genetic engineering…

This book, celebrating the two hundredth birthday of Frankenstein, will trace, in colourful and engaging ways, the journey of Shelley’s Frankenstein from limited edition literature – to the bloodstream of contemporary culture. It includes new research on the novel’s origins, and a facsimile reprint of the earliest-known manuscript version of the creation scene; visual material on adaptations for the stage, in magazines, on playbills, in prints and in book publications of the nineteenth century; series of visual essays on many of the film versions – and their inspirations in the history of art; and Frankenstein in popular culture – on posters, advertisements, packaging, in comics and graphic novels.

Christopher Frayling has spent 45 years exploring the history of one of the most enduring figures in the history of mass culture – the vampire. Vampyres is a comprehensive and generously illustrated history and anthology of vampires in literature, from the folklore of Eastern Europe to the Romantics and beyond. Frayling recounts the most significant moments in gothic history, while extracts from a huge range of sources – including Bram Stoker’s detailed research notes for Dracula, penny dreadfuls and Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber, new to this edition – are contextualized and analysed.

This revised and expanded edition brings Vampyres up to date with 21st-century vampire literature, including new text extracts, commentary and a revised introduction. For the first time, Christopher Frayling also explores the development of the vampire in the visual arts in four colour-plate sections, with illustrations ranging from 18th-century prints to 21st-century film stills, demonstrating the enduring appeal of the vampire from popular press to fine art and, finally, to film.

This stunning tome is a previously unseen look behind-the-scenes at the making of this most legendary of science fiction classics. It is an in-depth examination of the complete, largely unpublished archive of art director Harry Lange’s designs, concepts, roughs and photographs.

Lange’s strikingly realistic designs created an extraordinary vision of the future. By releasing this unpublished archive and explaining its significance, the book takes the reader/viewer on a journey deep into the visual thinking behind 2001, for the first time ever – visual thought that might actually work.

The book is about the process, as well as the finished product. It examines how Harry Lange’s experience with NASA fed into the innovations of the film.

It includes rejected designs, concepts and roughs, as well as the finished works. It reveals how the design team was obsessed with things that actually might work. The book illustrates several innovations that were science fiction in the 1960s but have since become science fact, including a ‘newspad‘ designed by IBM, which bears an uncanny resemblance to today’s iPad. The remarkable designs for 2001 created a credible vision of the future.

Whatever your ailment, the nation’s best-loved film experts have the perfect cinematic prescription for you, whether it’s a course of the Coens or a dose of Die Hard. And they’re ready to cure the movies too, taking their scalpels to bloated blockbusters and warning of the ill effects of overpraise.

Where medical ignorance and movie expertise meet – the surgery of Doctors Kermode and Mayo is now open.

Leading cultural historian and broadcaster Christopher Frayling reflects on gothic themes in literature, art and popular culture, through the lens of his friendship and correspondence with Angela Carter during her formative Bath years, during which she wrote most of her key works; The Bloody Chamber, The Sadeian Woman, The Passion of New Eve. Inside the Bloody Chamber collects Frayling’s articles, essays and lectures written since then on various aspects of the Gothic several in hard-to-find places, many never published before, but all revised for this new book. The subjects match Angela’s interests, are mirrored in the stories within The Bloody Chamber and mesh with his memories of their time together in Bath in the 1970s.