Hughes allegedly wrote Ferris Bueller's Day Off in four days, Planes, Trains and Automobiles in three days, The Breakfast Club in two days, and Vacation in a week. He never went to film school or studied cinema. And he spent most of his incredible career in the Midwest, far from the Hollywood Hills. John Hughes was indeed one of the most prolific and successful filmmakers in Hollywood history. He helped launch the careers of Andrew McCarthy, Molly...

"As one of the most famous faces of silent cinema, Buster Keaton was and continues to be revered for his stoic expressions, clever visual gags, and acrobatic physicality in classics such as Sherlock Jr., The General, and The Cameraman. In this spirited biography, every aspect of Buster Keaton's astonishing life is explored, from his humble beginnings in vaudeville with his parents to his meteoric rise to Hollywood stardom during the silent era. Based...

"Hailed by the New Yorker as "a crucial forebear of generations," award-winning director Joyce Chopra came of age in the 1950s, prior to the dawn of feminism, and long before the #MeToo movement. As a young woman, it seemed impossible that she might one day realize her dream of becoming a film director-she couldn't name a single woman in that role. But with her desire fueled by a stay in Paris during the heady beginnings of the French New Wave, she...

The extraordinary life of the legendary, under-celebrated Hollywood director known in his day as "Wild Bill" Wellman, whose 82 movies (six of them uncredited) ranged from adventure and gangster pictures to comedies, aviation, romances, westerns, and searing social dramas. Among his iconic pictures: the pioneering World War I epic Wings (winner of the first Academy Award for best picture), Public Enemy (the toughest gangster picture of them all), Nothing...

A riveting story of ambition, greed, and genius unfolding at the dawn of modern America. This landmark biography brings into focus a fascinating brilliant entrepreneur--like Steve Jobs or Walt Disney, a true American visionary--who risked everything to realize his bold dream of a Hollywood empire. Although a major Hollywood studio still bears William Fox's name, the man himself has mostly been forgotten by history, even written off as a failure. Now,...

"For a brief period of about five years in the early 1940s, Preston Sturges sat on the top of Hollywood. At the time, he was one of the few people, along with Orson Welles and Frank Capra, who both wrote and directed his films. Sturges's films including The Great McGinty (1940), Sullivan's Travels (1941), The Palm Beach Story (1942), The Miracle of Morgan Creek (1942), and Hail the Conquering Hero (1944) have become classics of American comedy and...

"Director, writer, and actor Jay Chandrasekhar tells the hilarious history of his comedy group, Broken Lizard, and the making of the cult film Super Troopers, as well as the currently filming Super Troopers 2. Jay Chandrasekhar has spent the past two decades writing, directing, and acting in film and TV. With his comedy group, Broken Lizard, he has produced and directed beloved movies such as Super Troopers, BeerƯfest, and Club Dread. Now, with the...

A spirited dive into the life and career of a performer, writer, and director who dominated twentieth-century American comedy --from Amazon.

"My name is Jose Antonio Vargas. I was born in the Philippines. When I was twelve, my mother sent me to the United States to live with her parents. While applying for a driver's permit, I found out my papers were fake. More than two decades later, I am still here illegally, with no clear path to American citizenship. To some people, I am the "most famous illegal" in America. In my mind, I am only one of an estimated 11 million human beings whose uncertain...

A shocking account of how Harvey Weinstein rose to become one of the most iconic figures in the world of movies, how he used that position to feed his monstrous sexual appetites, and how it all came crashing down, from the author who has covered the Hollywood power game for the New Yorker for three decades. Twenty years ago, Ken Auletta wrote one of the iconic New Yorker profiles for which he is famous, of the Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, then...