[2] His decision to become a Jesuit at age 17 was strongly affected by his viewing of the film The Keys of the Kingdom (1944) as a boy.
He had written or edited more than 20 books on filmmakers and film (see bibliography); several of these have been reviewed by major newspapers.
[5][6][7] Phillips had served on juries at the Cannes, Berlin, and Chicago International Film Festivals.
[8] Phillips had been a prolific author of biographical books on filmmakers, and had published extended interviews with many filmmakers including Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, Fritz Lang,[9] and Joseph Losey.
Phillips was a consultant for The Devils (Russell, 1971) and famously defended the film against charges of blasphemy saying, in the documentary Hell On Earth - The Desecration and Resurrection of The Devils (Mark Kermode, 2002), that the film depicts blasphemy, although it is not itself blasphemous.