Illustration by Stephanie Lane Gage.
It's that time of the year again! Here at Notebook, we celebrate the season of light in the traditional way: with a gift guide, of course, stuffed with all manner of goodies to delight the lucky cinephile in your life—and why not get yourself a little something while you’re at it?
You might start with a MUBI subscription and a Notebook print subscription if your recipient is still without either: these are the gifts that keep on giving. Plus: get a jump on next year’s holiday rush by preordering Read Frame Type Film, the just-announced first book by MUBI Editions.
Naughty? Nice? Who are we to judge? Whatever your pleasure, we hope you’ll enjoy this twice-checked list.
Jump to a category:
- Books
- Home video
- Music and soundtracks
- Posters, prints, and memorabilia
- Apparel and home goods
- Miscellany
BOOKS
If this first category is somewhat overrepresented in the scope of the overall guide, then you’ll know where our personal proclivities lie. And if your recipient is anything like us, they’re in the habit of reading more than one book at once, so we’ve taken the liberty of proposing some thematic pairings.
- Directed by Yasujiro Ozu by Shiguéhiko Hasumi, translated by Ryan Cook (University of California Press)
- Footlights by Serge Daney, translated by Nicholas Elliott (Semiotexte)
Two essential books of film scholarship and criticism, in English for the first time. When his acclaimed book was finally translated, 40 years after the original printing, we sat down with Shiguéhiko Hasumi, who would like everyone to forget that Yasujiro Ozu is a Japanese director. Meanwhile, we excerpted Serge Daney’s notes on Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975), in which he writes, with signature verve, “Pleasure is hardly anything when it comes to resisting barbarity.”
- The Lady with the Torch: Columbia Pictures 1929–1959 edited by Ehsan Khoshbakht (Les éditions de l’Œil)
- TEXTUR #1–7 (Viennale)
A book on Columbia Pictures, published to coincide with this year’s Locarno Film Festival retrospective of the studio, features essays by many Notebook contributors, including Jonathan Rosenbaum, Elena Lazic, Christopher Small, Farran Smith Nehme, and Imogen Sara Smith, the last of whom wrote about the series in these pages. Plus: we recommend Viennale’s TEXTUR series, each volume of which is dedicated to a contemporary filmmaker, including Alain Guiraudie, Darezhan Omirbayev, Lisandro Alonso, and Roberto Minervini.
- The African Gaze: Photography, Cinema, and Power by Amy Sall (Thames and Hudson)
- Temporal Territories: An Anthology on Indigenous Experimental Cinema edited by COUSIN Collective (Light Industry)
The first calls itself “a comprehensive exploration of postcolonial and contemporary photography and cinema from Africa,” the second “something like a celebration, a point along your path that fosters conversations and connections.” Both are first-of-their-kind introductions to hugely consequential counter-hegemonic filmmaking practices.
- A Complicated Passion: The Life and Work of Agnès Varda by Carrie Rickey (W. W. Norton and Company)
- Agnès Varda: Director’s Inspiration edited by Matt Severson (Academy Museum of Motion Pictures)
A new biography of Agnès Varda and the catalogue to an exhibition of her work at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, which includes contributions from the likes of Jane Birkin, Martin Scorsese, and Manohla Dargis, promise hours of enjoyment for the Varda-head in your life.
- Eternal Current Events by Chris Marker, translated and edited by Jackson B. Smith (Inpatient Press)
- Le Dépays by Chris Marker (Film Desk Books)
Before Chris Marker was a filmmaker, he was Chris Mayor (among other pseudonyms), a contributor to Esprit, a leftist Parisian monthly. These stories, essays, poems, reviews, and reportage, newly translated and excerpted in these pages—are thorny and brilliant in their own right, and a sign of more to come. Among those things was Le Dépays, a photo-essay, produced during the production of Sans Soleil (1983) and only now published in Marker’s own English translation. In her review, Kaitlyn Kramer sees Marker’s written “reflections working toward the images the way a spell of déjà vu anticipates a memory—that dizzying sensation of perceiving the familiar in something new.”
- Knights of Cinema: The Story of the Palestine Film Unit by Khadijeh Habashneh, translated by Nadine Fattaleh (Palgrave Macmillan)
- War Primer by Bertolt Brecht, translated and edited by John Willett (Verso)
Knights of Cinema is an account of the Palestine Film Unit written by a member of what is now known as the Palestinian Cinema Institution. Part scholarly undertaking, part personal recollection, this is the first time certain details of the movement have been published in English. Brecht’s War Primer pairs magazine and newspaper photographs with his own brief lyric verses, set boldly against the war machine; first published in 1937, it has sadly never faded from relevancy.
- Little Joe: A book about queers and cinema, mostly edited by Sam Ashby (Mack Books)
- Corpses, Fools and Monsters: The History and Future of Transness in Cinema by Caden Mark Gardner and Willow Catelyn Maclay (Repeater)
From 2010 to 2021, Little Joe sporadically published six issues in limited, hard-to-find print runs, training its incisive eye on “forgotten and overlooked” films. Selections from the likes of John Waters, Sarah Schulman, Douglas Crimp, Ira Sachs, Terence Davies, Shu Lea Cheang, Kevin Killian, Wayne Koestenbaum, and Rosa von Praunheim have been collected in a large, handsome volume. With Corpses, Fools and Monsters, Caden Mark Gardner and Willow Catelyn Maclay chart the evolution of the trans image on screen, “an exhilarating journey of compromise, recuperation, and potential liberation.”
- Illuminated Hours: The Early Cinema of Nathaniel Dorsky and Jerome Hiler edited by Francisco Algarín Navarro and Carlos Saldaña (Lumière)
- Double Vision: The Cinema of Robert Beavers by Rebekah Rutkoff (MIT Press)
Illuminated Hours collects old and new interviews, writings, and production documents by the American poet laureates of 16mm film, whose practices are deeply idiosyncratic parallel explorations of vision, and also an intimately intertwined love story spanning more than half a century. Rutkoff’s thoroughly researched and lavishly illustrated book represents a leap forward in engaging one of Dorsky and Hiler’s closest contemporaries. In an excerpt in these pages, Rutkoff finds germinal influences beyond the most obvious, Beavers’s partner, Gregory Markopoulos.
- Anatomy of a Fall screenplay by Justine Triet and Arthur Harari (Gallimard)
- A24 screenplay collection (Mack Books)
The screenplay for last year’s Palme d’Or winner (in the original French) has been adorned with David Lynch’s distinctive illustration of the film’s inciting incident. Elsewhere, A24’s handsome editions—with bonus features—include the screenplays for Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin (2013), Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird (2017), and Barry Jenkins’s Moonlight (2016).
- In Dreams Begin Responsibilities by Jonathan Rosenbaum (Hat & Beard Press)
- Last Movies by Stanley Schtinter (Tenement Press)
“The light touch of belletrism alternates rhythmically with the closed fist of political commitment across Rosenbaum’s entire oeuvre,” Thomas Quist writes of the venerable critic’s latest collection, which offers essays on cinema, jazz, and literature from across 60 years. Stanley Schtinter’s collection presents an interlinked series of vignettes in debonair prose: what did notable personages—from John F. Kennedy to Rainer Werner Fassbinder—watch just before they died?
- Ingrid Caven: I Am a Fiction (Fireflies Press)
- Decadent Editions subscription (Fireflies Press)
Our friends at Fireflies Press are back with a monograph dedicated to the German actress, including contributions from Erika Balsom, Rachel Kushner, and Nathalie Léger. Plus: the last five volumes of Decadent Editions, their one-film-per-year reappraisal of the aughts, are available as a generously discounted subscription plan; the first—Christine Smallwood on Chantal Akerman’s La captive (2000)—is out now.
- Cashiers du Cinema, #1–2 (Obvious Fake Press)
- Videoland: A Visual Catalog of American Video Store Logos, 1980–1995 by Andy Sturdevant (Deeper Into Movies)
Mind the spelling! Cashiers publishes art, comics, interviews, essays, and fiction by New York’s cinema workers in 40-page Risograph-printed zines. Videoland collects over 100 specimens from a nearly extinct species: independent video store logos from the end of the previous century, mostly collected from local newspaper advertisements (a free copy offered to all who worked at one).
- David Cronenberg: Clinical Trials by Violet Lucca (Abrams)
- New Utopia and Light Fracture by Luther Price (Visual Studies Workshop)
Monographs of two filmmaker-provacateurs, unafraid to plumb the depths of the human animal. The first approaches the Canadian body horror extraordinaire via a “dreamlike exploration” inspired by Carl Jung, with a foreword by Viggo Mortensen. The second is structured around two sets of handmade 35mm slides, plus a correspondence with the artist and an essay by Ed Halter, who calls Price’s films “fucked up, in the way that families are fucked up, and our memories of them are fucked up, tangled into messy superimpositions of comfort and pain.”
- Telephones by Christian Marclay (Ivory Press)
- She Mad by Martine Syms (Sternberg Press)
Two spiral-bound artist books involving telecommunications of yesterday and today. Marclay’s adapts his 1995 film into a two-folio format that allows the reader to play editor. Syms’s is a source book for her fragmented “television” series (2015–20).
- My First Movie, volume 3 by Cory Everett and Julie Olivi (Cinephile Game)
Instead of a double feature, here’s a flight of three. Raising a young cinephile, or shopping for someone with a very active inner child? Consider the latest edition of the My First Movie board books, which offer illustrated introductions to science fiction, kung fu, and midnight movies.
HOME VIDEO
On those bitterly cold evenings when your special someone just can’t make it out to the cinema, they’ll be glad to have a trusty classic on the shelf to keep them warm. Here are a few choice recommendations from some of our favorite distributors.
Region A (North and South America, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia)
A collection of twenty features from Capra’s time at the studio, on Blu-ray or UHD, “from silent pre-code rarities, comedic romps, action spectaculars, Best Picture winners and everything in between.”
- Will Your Heart Beat Faster? (Mike de Leon, 1982) (Kani Releasing)
- Spacked Out (Laurence Lau, 2000) (Kani Releasing)
In just a few years, Kani Releasing, named after Ozu’s tatami-level tripod, has brought sixteen wonderfully idiosyncratic Asian films to American audiences, of which these are just two excellent examples.
- Typhoon Club (Shinji Somai, 1985) (Cinema Guild)
- Dad & Step-Dad (Tynan DeLong, 2024) (Vinegar Syndrome)
Seishun-eiga auteur Shinji Somai is finally getting his due in the West. This may be his best, and the release includes an interview with Kiyoshi Kurosawa, an ardent disciple. So is Hamaguchi, who writes that Somai’s camera “ventured out into a time and space that only existed then and there. Where Somai's teenagers are wholly unsupervised, Brian Fiddyment’s Branson has perhaps too much oversight on a long weekend upstate in a film that is painfully funny and heartbreakingly sincere.
- Funny Girl (William Wyler, 1968) (Criterion)
- Evil Does Not Exist (Ryusuke Hamaguchi, 2024) (Criterion)
Criterion’s upcoming slate includes a film for which Kayleigh Donaldson recommends Barbra Streisand’s “mockery of the Ziegfeld Girl mold” and another in which, as Sasha Frere-Jones writes, “Hamaguchi’s imagery is evidence of his empathy, his ability to sit still with people and let them talk.”
Region B (Europe, Africa, Middle East, Australia, and New Zealand)
Feuillade’s silent French crime serials—Fantômas (1913), Les Vampires (1915–16), Judex (1916), and Tih Minh (1918)—were huge for Fritz Lang and Albert Hitchcock, as well as early progenitors of the masked vigilante and criminal mastermind as we know them today. All four are now available in full on nine region-B Blu-ray discs.
- Bushman (David Schickele, 1971) (Other Parties)
One of the most highly-rated restorations of the year—scenes from the life of a Black man in San Francisco in 1968, as reality intrudes on the film’s fiction—is now available as a limited-edition region-B Blu-ray.
- Chantal Akerman box set (Capricci)
- João César Monteiro box set (Spectrum Films)
Pick your poison: A comprehensive 46-film set of Akerman’s essential work, sold as a whole or by the decade, plus bonus material including television appearances and interviews. Or ten newly restored films from Monteiro’s acclaimed and controversial corpus, which evinces, Dylan Adamson writes, “a deep-seated disdain for life perpetually contending with a stubborn passion for beauty.”
Multiple/no region(s)
- The Game of Clones: Bruceploitation Collection (Severin Films)
An eight-disc box set collecting fourteen new restorations of the films of Bruce Li, Bruce Le, Dragon Lee, Bruce Liang, and other glorious pretenders vying for Bruce Lee’s vacant throne.
- Shawscope Vol. 3 (Arrow Video)
- Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (James Signorelli, 1988) (Arrow Video)
After recommending the first two volumes of Arrow’s Shaw Brothers collection in prior years, we would be remiss to leave out the latest, which leads “from the righteous stoicism of the late-60s Mandarin period, right through to the wild-and-weird anarchism of the early-80s Cantonese explosion.” Plus: In the consummate horror host Elvira’s first motion picture, she is “like a goth Barbie,” writes Chris Shields: “There’s a touch of Mae West bawdiness to the jokes, but the majority of the film’s humor radiates from a deeper level of diffuse parody.”
- Hollywood 90028 (Christina Hornisher, 1973) (Grindhouse)
The experimental filmmaker’s only feature film is one Sean Baker calls “part indie arthouse, part grindhouse and part historical travelogue of a now-vanished Los Angeles.”
MUSIC AND SOUNDTRACKS
They’re movies for your ears. Here are some long-players sure to set the mood on your home stereo, whether you’re going for erotic thriller, monster movie, or bad-trip manhunt.
- Body Double (Brian De Palma, 1984) original soundtrack by Pino Donaggio (Waxwork Records)
- Godzilla (Ishiro Honda, 1954) original soundtrack by Akira Ifukube (Waxwork Records)
Waxwork has pressed Pino Donaggio’s synth-heavy soundtrack for Body Double to vinyl for the first time, and they’ve issued a remastered edition of Akira Ifukube’s unforgettable score for the original Godzilla on the occasion of the film’s 70th anniversary—both on lovely colored discs with new and restored art.
- Imprint by Koichi Shimizu (Smalltown Supersound)
Shimizu is Apicatpong Weerasethakul’s longtime sound designer and creator of the “bang” in Memoria (2021). His record for Smalltown Supersound’s “Le Jazz-Non” series includes the first vinyl pressings of expanded compositions from that film and Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010).
- Aggro Dr1ft (Harmony Korine, 2023) original soundtrack by AraabMuzik (Milan Records)
The propulsive score for the first EDGLRD release, including a nod to the orchestration of the spaghetti western, is now available to spin in the comfort of your living room. Thermal-vision goggles not included.
- Chess of the Wind (Mohammad Reza Aslani, 1976) original soundtrack by Sheida Gharachedaghi (Mississippi Records)
The music for the long-banned Iranian queer gothic-horror treasure features “a combination of Persian classical instrumentation and atonal dissonance.”
- Road House: The Lost Soundtrack by The Jeff Healey Band (Light in the Attic)
- Studio Ghibli Five-LP bundle by Joe Hisaishi (Light in the Attic)
Light in the Attic, known for their essential reissues, has dug up all nineteen tracks The Jeff Healey Band recorded for Road House (1989), only four of which were used in the film, and seven of which have never been released until now. Plus: Joe Hisaishi’s scores for Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1985), Castle In The Sky (1986), My Neighbor Totoro (1988), Porco Rosso (1992), and Princess Mononoke (1997) are now available in a single bundle.
POSTERS, PRINTS, AND MEMORABILIA
Under the tutelage of Adrian Curry’s Movie Poster of the Week column, we study the art of movie poster design on a regular basis. A good poster, like a good film, continues to open up with every viewing. If your recipient has a bare wall or two, a piece of fine art may be just the thing.
There’s always an embarrassment of riches to be found among Posteritati’s new arrivals. If you’re buying for us, please consider this Czech stunner for Veronika Voss (1982), or else this Japanese handbill for Henry Fool (1999). Otherwise, they have their own handy gift guide, and a gift card is always a safe bet.
Why simply buy a gift when you can win one? Bid on a handwritten love letter penned from Montgomery Clift to William LeMassena (courtesy of Farley Granger's personal collection), or a Chevron gas station receipt signed by River Phoenix. If your special someone has an outré interest, there is a gift for them from Julien’s Auctions.
APPAREL AND HOME GOODS
Loving a film can be a very personal, private affair, but sometimes you want to shout it from the rooftops. For street-level enthusiasms, we can recommend these items.
- The Herzog Tee (Director Fits)
Celebrate the uncompromising vision of Werner Herzog (and the discerning eye of Les Blank) with this wonderful woodcut-style shirt.
- Blue Collar T-shirt (Human Boy Worldwide)
A tribute to Paul Schrader’s 1978 masterstroke made for both the cinema queue and the assembly line, in Chevy blue.
- Duet for Cannibals T-shirt (Metrograph)
Celebrate Susan Sontag’s 1969 directorial debut in a canny reprisal of the theatrical poster.
- Grey Gardens T-shirt (Terminal Classic)
If mother and daughter Edith Beale had started a rock band, they could have done a lot worse than have this on the merch table.
- Donnie Darko scarf (SCRT)
For when it’s cold outside and the apocalypse is nigh.
- Film/television collection (Intramural)
Intramural scours the earth for rare original swag, including the Kangol hats Samuel L. Jackson had made for his 60th birthday, or the crew fleece for John Woo’s Face/Off (1997).
MISCELLANY
For the film lover who has everything, get them something they certainly did not know existed.
If you spent this summer and fall admiring the cherubic shells and leaves adorning our festival coverage, you’ll be pleased to learn that their creator, Maddie Fischer, is also responsible for a four-color, Risograph-printed wall calendar—never a dull month with one of these around!
- “Mad Puppet” toy, inspired by Dario Argento’s Deep Red (1975)
It’s not a doll; it’s an action figure.
- Waterworld water bottle (Screen Slate)
In the future, the sea may cover the entirety of the earth’s surface, but the human body will still be mostly water. Stay hydrated with this tribute to the extravagant opus, in which Kevin Costner is the Mad Max of the jet-ski set.
- The Bergman Tarot (Gatoshop)
You won’t find any wands, cups, swords, or pentacles in this irregular tarot deck, but the evocative stills from across Ingmar Bergman’s filmography may help set intentions for your next total breakdown.
- VHS glass ornament (Factory 25)
- Miniature VHS movie keychain (Billw1983)
Proudly display your undying love for the humble, hard-working VHS tape, as an ornament or keychain.
- Q&A bumper sticker (Union Docs)
- Nitrate sticker (BFI)
A bumper sticker is a gift to your loved one—and to the people stuck behind them in traffic. UnionDocs’s recalls many a groaner of Q&As past, while the BFI’s lets the world know the contents of your car (or computer, or skateboard) are toxic and highly flammable—licensed projectionists only.
And that’s a wrap for this year! Give generously, and remember: the best gift is often sitting down for a movie with the people you love. Happy holidays to you and yours from all of us at Notebook.
All products featured on Notebook are independently selected by our editors. However, if you purchase a book through a retail link to Bookshop.org, we may earn an affiliate commission.