DVD Quicksearches

By audience:

By genre:

Finding books:

Tips:

If you're after something specific such as information on a particular person or film, try a subject or keyword search in our catalogue.

Check the large book section and reference books if you can't find anything in the normal-size sequence.

'Select: Sound & Vision' collection!

Get the latest CDs & DVDs faster! The 'Select' collection - available at Karori and Kilbirnie libraries - is designed to make it easier to borrow heavily used and reserved items within our AV Collection. The items in this collection have a reduced loan period of 3 days, meaning you can access the most popular CDs and DVDs faster for the same price and find them on the shelf more often.

Online movie resources

Databases

• All Movie Guide
  Huge database featuring reviews, actor biographies, cast/credits info, genre keyword searching amongst other features.
• ForeignFilms
  Database & news.
• Internet Movie Database
  Similar to allmovie.com, but arguably more extensive. Movie news, biographies, user-ratings, plot summaries, photo galleries and more.
• Movie Review Query Engine
  Easy to use movie review database. Links to full text reviews of over 100,000 films.

Blogs

• Daily Film Dose
  Film reviews, as well as plenty of interesting features.
• The A.V Club
  A one stop shop, 'The AV Club' is an online entertainment paper, published by 'The Onion', though it is not satirical in content. It includes reviews of films, music, comics, DVDs, vide games & books.
• The DVD Journal
  A great site, 'The DVD Journal' is now unfortunately defunct. Begun in 1997, it provided over 10 years worth of great reviews and features, focusing not just on the movies themselves, but also the technical aspects of the DVD releases and re-issues.
• The Pinocchio Theory
  Not just a 'review' site, Steven Shaviro's blog incorporates the world of film with his interests in philosophers Giles Deleuze & A.N Whitehead, pop music & comic books.
• Self Styled Siren
  A literate, but never pretentious, film blog that has plenty of smart things to say about old movies - all the way back to the silent era - & film preservation. With plenty of great stories on actors, actresses and the old Studio system.

Local Festivals

• Fringe Film Festival February.
• OutTakes Lesbian & Gay Film Festival Late May/early June.
• Wellington Film Festival July-August.

International Festivals

• Film Festivals
  A portal site for festivals and film news.
• Cannes
• Sundance

New Zealand Film

• Lonely Geek NZ cinema guide
  Links to industry sites.
• Lord of the Rings location guide
• Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision
  New Zealand Archive of Film, Television and Sound, includes an Events Calendar.
• New Zealand Film Commission
• Spada
  Screen Production and Development Association
• Zeroland (NZ film section)

NZ News, Reviews, Media

• Screen Hub
  Daily online film and television industry news & vacancies.
• Lumiere
  NZ site with film criticism, reviews and forum.
• New Zealand Herald
  Daily reviews, competitions, entertainment news.

International News, Reviews, Media

• Agony Booth - "An ongoing inquisition into some of the worst movies humanity has to offer."
• Cinema review - Archived reviews of cinema and video/DVD releases. Provides short synopses; critical reviews; cast and crew information; average reviewer ratings.
• DVD Talk - DVD reviews and columns.
• E-online - Hollywood gossip.
• Guardian - great film reviews.
• JoBlo - Latest news, DVD, VHS and cinema reviews; upcoming releases, box office rankings.
• Journal of Religion and Film
• Masters of Cinema - Substantial material about quality foreign films and classics.
• Metacritic - Compares net-wide reviews for film and DVD/Video releases to yield an overall rating.
• Moviemaker - Magazine on the 'art and business of making movies'.
• New York Times - some of the best reviews and analysis (free registration req'd).
• Reelviews - Copious reviews by James Berardinelli.
• Roger Ebert - Reviews, interviews & essays, events and 'answer man'.
• Rotten Tomatoes - Similar to Metacritic, Rotten Tomatoes compiles net-wide reviews to give an overall 'fresh' or 'rotten' rating.
• SFgate
• U.K. Critic

Studios and Collectives - International

• British Film Institute
• Universal Studios
• Wikipedia list of film production companies
• Wikipedia index of motion picture-related articles

DVD rental & retail

• Aro Video - Wellington's home of quality film has an equally excellent website. The fully searchable catalogue is replete with reviews and recommendations. They also have a good range of VHS and DVD titles for purchase.
• DVD video NZ
• Real Groovy
• United Video

Miscellanea

• The Movie Wavs Page - Recorded, downloadable, classic movie quotes. Just the thing for that Dirty Harry line you always wanted for your answering machine. See also: The Movie Sounds Database and Reelwavs.
• The Oscars
• The Razzies
• Office of film & literature classification New Zealand
• New Zealand Censorship Information in other languages

Comments, ideas?

This page is written and maintained by Mark, our Sound & Vision specialist. My aim is to keep you informed about the film and television collections and to highlight parts of the collection which may interest you. I'd be pleased to hear from you about this page - you can email me with any feedback.