Guide to Finding a Movie Review

If you are looking for a review of a motion picture, especially if the movie is rather recent, check on one of the World Wide Web sites first.

If the movie you want a review of is not among the World Wide Web sites, or you need additional reviews (this is especially true for older movies) try one the following:

InfoTrac General Reference Center Gold. 1980-present. This database provides citations to movie reviews in various magazines and journals. We own many of these periodicals. After you have a citation to a movie review from InfoTrac go to WestCat, the Libraries' catalog, to see if we own the periodical that has the review you want. InfoTrac also contains some full-text reviews from some of these periodicals. If this is the case, you do not have to search WestCat for the printed version of the periodical.

LexisNexis Academic. LexisNexis Academic is a full-text database containing newspapers and selected magazines. Some of these contain movie reviews. Coverage goes back ten years, or earlier, in some cases.

Step 3. If electronic sources don't have the review you want or you need additional material try the following print resources:

New York Times Film Reviews. 1913-present. PN 1995 .N4 (Ref) Waldo Library. Reprints reviews, in chronological order, from the New York Times. Consult the index at the back of each volume or the cumulative index (through 1968) by title of the movie. We own the microform edition of this newspaper and full-text coverage of the whole newspaper is available online for the last 365 days through InfoTrac, but these print volumes are handier for earlier reviews. LexisNexis Academic has selected full text of the New York Times for the last 20 years.

Motion Picture Guide. 1910-present. PN 1995 .N346 (Ref) Waldo Library. Briefer reviews, usually, than those in the New York Times, but with the convenience of being listed alphabetically by title in a number of easy-to-use volumes.

Film Review Annual. 1981-present. PN 1995 .F463x (Ref) Waldo Library. Reprints movie reviews from the following newspapers, magazines, and journals: The Christian Science Monitor, Cineaste, Film Quarterly, The Los Angeles Times, New Statesman and Society, New York, New York Post, Newsday, Newsweek, Sight and Sound, Time, and The Village Voice. Consult the alphabetical list of film titles in the Table of Contents to find reviews.

If you still can't find a review of a movie after searching all these sources it is possible there never was a review of the movie and here, then, is an opportunity to write one yourself.