THE GREENGRASS PAPERS
Secrets and lies. Conspiracy and coverup. Tipping point and revolution. Where the redactions end, a Paul Greengrass film begins. A graduate of Granada’s award-winning World in Actioninvestigative reporting team, Greengrass has become one of the most successful and influential filmmakers to come out of the British isles. Using blistering verite techniques forged on the streets of Beirut and Belfast, his films — including The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum, Captain Phillips — pack all the punch of news reports, and have taken more than a billion dollars at the box office, forever changing the way Hollywood makes movies. Opening up his personal archive to film critic and historian Tom Shone for the first time, and providing many never-before-seen behind the scenes photographs, the filmmaker lays bare the roots of his own obsession with unravelling the “secret history of the West” in a book that provides an exclusive inside track on a career that turned Hollywood upside down.
November 2025 Faber & Faber
mesmerised by movies as a kid, I followed the POPCORN traiL all the way to the source, trying to work out where those images came from and who made them. I became the film critic of the London Sunday Times in 1994. After moving to New York in 1999 to work for Tina Brown’s Talk magazine, I published sEVEN books, most OF THEM about the movies.
Book inquiries to Emma Parry at JANKLOW & NESBIT.
US NOLAN VARIATIONs inquiries to Amy Hagedorn at KNOPF and UK NOLAN VARIATIONs inquiries to Connor Hutchinson at faber & faber.
I’m ALSO available for writing assignments, TV & RADIO APPEARANCES.
"Shone is simply one of the most eloquent and acute film writers we have" — Teddy Jamieson, The Sunday Herald
"Shone is a clever film columnist who can also write a wise book: two attributes that don't often go together" — Clive James
"Is there anyone now writing about movies better than Tom Shone? I think not” — John Heilemann, New York magazine
THE NOLAN VARIATIONS (2020)
“The Nolan Variations is that rare thing, a superb book about a living filmmaker. Erudite, complex, labyrinthine and mind-expanding - it’s as close as you’re ever going to get to the Escher drawing that is Christopher Nolan’s remarkable brain.” — SAM MENDES
“One of the great filmmaker q&a filmmaker portraits, up there with Hitchcock/Truffaut” — Glenn Kenny, author Made Men: The Story of Goodfellas
“A master-class–immersive, detailed, meticulous, privileged inside-dope… Tom Shone is the king of critical cool.” — CRAIG RAINE
“An up-close and personal look at one of Hollywood’s most successful directors…This erudite book is packed with extensive, expansive discussions about Nolan’s films…. Fans of Nolan’s films will find this revealing book invaluable.” — KIRKUS, starred review
“Quite simply, this is the book for which director Christopher Nolan’s many admirers have long been waiting…. a thoroughly entertaining and fascinating portrait… the definitive word on Nolan and a must for film buffs” — LIBRARY JOURNAL, starred review
“Nolan is a wonderfully unlikely contemporary filmmaker. We’re fortunate indeed to have him, and fortunate now to have this book." — William Gibson
“Insightful… sharp… A first-class book about an intriguing filmmaker” — Booklist
“A study as subtle and gripping as the work of the great director himself” — Tom Holland, author of Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind
“An essential read for Nolan fans…. Thorough and fascinating… erudite but accessible… a considerable achievement” — Total Film *****
“This has to be one of the very best auteur studies ever written… Tom Shone has given us the definitive book on one of today’s most accomplished and exciting directors… Shone has woven the films’ imagery and structure, his investigation of them, and his conversations with Nolan into such a tight fabric that … the project becomes, in its final lines, as cryptically reflexive as Nolan’s own work.” — David Bordwell, Professor Emeritus, University of Wisconsin-Madison, author of Film Art: An Introduction and Christopher Nolan: A Labyrinth of Linkages
THE IRISHMAN: THE MAKING OF THE MOVIE (2019)
“What you wrote was fair” Scorsese told me in the summer of 2019, referring to my previous book about his work, SCORSESE: RETROSPECTIVE, when we met in a hotel on the upper east side to discuss the possibility of writing a book about THE IRISHMAN. He’d mellowed singe I first met him in the early 2000s, then halfway through his battle with Harvey Weinstein on Gangs of New York — he seemed to have relaxed more into fatherhood and the comforts of family — indeed that is what The Irishman turned out to be about when I saw it in his screening room on 59th street, sans special effects: the regrets of an aging hitman who realises too late that he has neglected his family for the addictive camraderie of crime. It seemed to me that Scorsese was making a film about the future he had only just narrowly avoided himself. “Al Pacino said, when he saw the picture, ‘You have had to have gone through the 76 years in order to make this film,” he told me. “I can't sit and say I'm any wiser but on the other hand you've been through a great deal and it doesn't feel natural to resist what I know as basic truths. And when I say that I have an image of dark hallway and some old woman sitting in a wooden chair in the front of the building, like an old apartment on Elizabeth street. You know, seeing the old people sitting there wearing black. Or an old man getting up making the espresso. That's really it. Speaking Sicilian and I'm the kid down the hall and I see them and that afternoon light is shining on the wooden floors. You could still smell the coffee. They would put these peppers, red peppers and green peppers, they'd put them on the stove, it's an incredible image, the flame below it the skin would just burn off and that's how they'd start working and it was fascinating to watch. My mother used to do it too. So it's a very important image. And that's something that's in you.”
TARANTINO: A RETROSPECTIVE (2019)
“Shone’s text is a seamless mixture of career biography, retrospective appreciation, and film criticism. Surprisingly, there aren’t many essential books available about the director. This makes Shone’s text all the more essential for fans of the director” — CINEMALITERATE
"MUST HAVE.... this vibrant compilation ... a visually stunning compendium.... the best book on Quentin TARANTINO"— Quentin Tarantino FanClub
SCORSESE: A RETROSPECTIVE (2013)
"Most critics are at their best when speaking the language of derision but Shone has the precious gift of being carried away in a sensible manner, and of begin celebratory without setting your teeth on edge." — Clive James, Prospect
"The real draw here is Shone’s text, which tells the stories behind the pictures with intelligence and grace. It’s that rarest of creatures: a coffee-table book that’s also a helluva good read." — Jason Bailey, Flavorwire
"A beautiful book on the Taxi Driver director's career by former Sunday Times film critic Tom Shone who relishes Scorsese's "energetic winding riffs that mix cinema history and personal reminiscence".' — Kate Muir, The Times
"An admiring but clear-eyed view of the great American filmmaker’s career... Shone gives the book the heft of a smart critical biography... his arguments arealways strong and his insights are fresh. The oversized book’s beauty is matched by its brains”— Connecticut Post
WOODY ALLEN: A RETROSPECTIVE (2015)
"This level of discernment and tart dissent is an unexpected treat... Shone's prose has a beauty of it's own, abounding in nonchalantly exquisite turns of phrase" — Guy Lodge, The Observer
"Sharp, smart... Shone doesn't just follow critical orthodoxies. He
makes his argument beautifully. It's the brain food Allen's rich career deserves." — Ian Freer, Empire
"The book is a must for Woody Allen fans" - Joe Meyers, Connecticut Post
BLOCKBUSTER: HOW HOLLYWOOD LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE SUMMER (2004)
“Compelling, witty, authoritative and very, very smart… This may be a strange thing to say about a book that embraces the evil Hollywood empire so warmly, but Blockbuster is weirdly humane: it prizes entertainment over boredom, and audiences over critics, and yet it’s a work of great critical intelligence” – Nick Hornby, The Believer
“[An] impressively learned narrative... Shone evinces an intuitive knowledge of what makes audiences respond.” – Kirkus Reviews
“STARTLINGLY ORIGINAL... his ability to sum up an actor or director in one well-turned phrase is reminiscent of Pauline Kael’s... the first and last word on the subject. For anyone interested in film, this book is a must read.” – Toby Young, The Spectator
“Exhilarating.... wit, style and a good deal of cheeky scorn for the opinions of bien-pensant liberal intellectuals.” – Phillip French, Times Literary Supplement
“The film book of the year... enthralling, ground-breaking” – The Daily Telegraph
“Smart, observant…nuanced, original” – Chris Tamarri, The Village Voice
Brooklyn 2016. Photograph by Kate Shone