Contributors include Adrian Martin, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Richard Peña, David Stratton, and Margaret Pomeranz.

Presented chronologically, the 14th edition begins with Georges Méliès' A Trip to the Moon from 1902 and ends in 2020 with Chloé Zhao's Nomadland.

[2] The book has also been translated and published in different language editions, among them German, French, Swedish, Hungarian, Danish, Turkish, Spanish and Portuguese.

Jason Solomons, who writes movie columns for The Observer and The Mail on Sunday, wrote the foreword.

As of the 5th anniversary edition, over 70 critics contributed essays (of up to 500 words), including: Geoff Andrew, Linda Badley, Kathryn Bergeron, Garrett Chaffin-Quiway, Roumiana Deltcheva, Nezih Erdogan, Jean-Michel Frodon, Chris Fujiwara, Tom Gunning, Ernest Hardy, Aniko Imre, Kyung Hyun Kim, Frank Lafond, Adrian Martin, Kim Newman, Devin Orgeron, Marsha Orgeron, Richard Peña, Margaret Pomeranz, Jonathan Rosenbaum, David Stratton, Adisakdi Tantimedh, Michael Tapper, Sam Umland, Matt Venne, Ginette Vincendeau, Andy Willis, and Josephine Woll.