Leslie Halliwell, creator of the most ambitious and comprehensive guide to films, died in 1989. Passionate and informed he was one the most respected film critic of the last century both to those in the know and those of a ruthless critical persuasion. He was responsible for creating and adopting the famously stringent Four Star rating for his eponymous film guide, the first of its kind, which has run yearly since 1965. 
By Halliwell’s standard, all films by default receive a zero star rating. Only exceptionally interesting and important films manage to receive a one or two star rating with a tiny handful (just over 1%) of the 23, 000 odd films covered receiving the maximum recommendation of Four Stars.
This marking scheme, which many people disagree with ofr misunderstand, is a way of positively affirming interesting, well-executed and excellent films while damning all other comers with indifference. Ironically, for a scoring system so misunderstood, it makes the most realistic sense compared to all the other non-textual critical ‘scoring’ systems in my mind.
The first of its kind, Leslie meticulously documented each and every film released worldwide for the book, including under each entry names and details of the actors, the scriptwriter, director, composer and the year of release while collating any remarkable press cutting or notable rival critics’ words before adding his own critical synopsis for each entry.
It was and has been an extraordinary single-minded and coherent critical resource, often imitated but never matched mainly because of Halliwell’s immovably strict reviewing policy and intolerant approach to cinematic mediocrity.
Since 1989 editing of the guide has passed on to John Walker and many fans of Halliwells have bemoaned the more lenient and mainstream approach. Nevertheless, Halliwell’s work remains intact in each new edition of the Film Guide and, as there seems to be no repository on the internet of that 1% of remarkable films to receive a Halliwell’s Four Star Rating, I decided to collate them here on Chewing Pixels partly as I’m trying to collect/ see each one myself, and partly because many of them are extremely hard to track down as they’re tucked away on compilations or unhelpfully tagged on Amazon. I’ve done all the hard work for you.
Even if you disagree with some of the inclusions (if indeed you’ve even heard of them) or, more likely, strongly disagree with many of the ommissions, I urge you to try to see each film on this list; every one is enjoyable and/ or important, even if you don’t agree that it forms the summit of the cinematic canon as Halliwell did.
The lists below contain links to buy each DVD. Many of these films are currently only available in America, or are out of print, or appear on obscure compilations. Wherever possible I have provided a link to buy the film firstly in Region 2 format, or, if none exists, in Region 1 format, or if none exists, in Pal VHS format etc.
Many of these DVDs can also be rented via Amazon. If you would like to rent DVDs via Amazon then please use the button below.
