Looking for the ultimate gift for movie fans on your holiday shopping list? If so, I suggest 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, a comprehensive movie guide edited by Steven Jay Schneider and published by Quintet Publishing Limited. It’s a big, entertaining volume filled with vital statistics and surprising facts about the movies included.  

According to Schneider, this book “seeks not just to inform and to prescribe, but to motivate: to turn its curious readers into ardent viewers and to make it obvious that the pressure is on, that time is short, and that the number of films eminently worth watching has become very long indeed.”

How were the 1001 movies selected? Schneider explains that a number of existing “greatest” film lists were examined to  provide key reference points. “After we settled on an initial batch of around 1300 titles, we proceeded to go through the list again (and again and again) with the dual and conflicting aim of reducing the overall number while still achieving sufficient coverage of the medium’s various periods, national cinemas, genres, movements, traditions, and notable auteurs.”

The “we” Schneider refers to above is a group of close to sixty contributors from eight different countries who helped with this ambitious project.

Although many of my favorites didn’t make the final list, I’m happy that Singin’ in the Rain, Vertigo, When Harry Met Sally, Strictly Ballroom, Gilda, L.A. Confidential, Fargo, Moulin Rouge!, The Wizard of Oz, Gaslight and Talk to Her did. Because the book was published in 2003, some recent films like Zhang Yimou’s magnificent Hero are missing -- but perhaps a later edition will be issued to solve that problem. Some questionable titles appear on the final list, including Breaking the Waves, The Ladies Man, and The Pillow Book -- three films I wouldn’t add to a list of “greats” under any circumstances. But that’s a minor complaint, considering the wealth of enlightening movie information contained in this massive volume.     

For each listing, there’s an explanation of why it’s exceptional as well as fascinating photos from the film and names of important personnel involved. It’s easy to find a movie you’re looking for because the book includes a genre index, a film title index and a director index. Holding the book, however, is not easy -- unless you’ve been lifting weights.  

Finding out about so many film treasures I never heard of before emerged as the real treat of this book for me. After browsing through it, I can hardly wait to check out La Femme Du Boulanger (from France), VIJ (from Russia), El Topo (from Spain), The Quiet Earth (from New Zealand), Wong Fei-Hung (from China) and many, many others.    

“But the clock continues to tick away,” Schneider warns. “So start reading, and keep watching!”

 (Click here to order 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die from Amazon.com.)