I am currently working on a new interactive campaign for an upcoming film when this great resource list came across my desk. Some of these sites, I visit daily, but I have to admit there are a couple (UK based) sites I was not even aware of. As all the information ever known to mankind becomes available to us on-line, it is increasingly more difficult to sift through it all and get to the core info you are looking for. There are many other film related sites out there, but Mike Peake of the Times Online compiled a nice top 10 list. Enjoy!
The 10 best film websites
Movies remain the inspiration for some of the slickest, busiest and most entertaining websites around on the internet
Film fans were active on the internet even before the emergence of the worldwide web — IMDb.com has been going for nearly 20 years and has its roots in the long-gone world of text-only newsgroups. Today, film remains the inspiration for some of the slickest, busiest and most entertaining sites around, and rising broadband speeds mean they’re able to offer increasingly high-quality clips and trailers without your having to sit through five minutes of ads first. Purist home cinema buffs can, of course, download that evocative signature tune fromwww.pearlanddean.com for the authentic experience.
1 IMDb.com
The Internet Movie Database is the web’s best film resource, with extensive and trustworthy credits for tens of thousands of titles. It’s also good at collating film journalism: click on the “External reviews” button to bring up links to hundreds of online reviews from magazines and newspapers.
Want a quick idea of the merit of a new release? Rotten Tomatoes gives films a percentage score aggregated from dozens of professional reviewers, with links to the source material. Great for the big titles but patchy on non-Hollywood releases.
The site of the UK’s biggest-selling movie magazine has a good contacts book (Steven Spielberg guest-edited a recent edition of Empire). The many quizzes, news stories and blogs are imbued with some refreshingly spiky British humour.
This statto’s dream collates the box-office takings of the 75 highest-grossing films in the USA into a huge, searchable database. Whether you want to discover the biggest single-day opening (The Dark Knight; $67m) or the worst per-theatre average weekly take (Proud American, $128), this is the place.
No prizes for its design, but Ain’t It Cool is the best site for sneak previews and fan criticism. Avoid the messageboards, which are like roomfuls of screaming teenagers.
A huge American site that features movie news, top 10 lists, film clips, interviews and more. Particularly useful for its links to hundreds of fan sites.
Download the screenplays of hundreds of well-known films, as well as early drafts and sometimes even scans of the original scripts complete with handwritten amendments made during shooting.
The website of Screen International, the British film trade magazine, makes a welcome change from the Hollywood emphasis of most movie sites. Particularly strong on international box-office takings, reviews of art-house titles and festival news.
The best selection of film trailers and teasers online, many in high definition. You will need to download the latest version of Apple’s QuickTime software to play them.
10 Flixster.com
Flixster combines social networking with film geekiness. Registered users can post reviews and chat about films; the site also has numerous quizzes, news, trailers and more.
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John Ayers 