Librarians Save The Day! 11 Great Movies In Which They Star

While writers might seem more glamorous, librarians are the quiet heroes of the literary world. They stand up against censorship, they uncover ancient mysteries, they laugh in the face of computerization and stop the corporate world dead in its tracks. From Katharine Hepburn to Rachel Weisz, we've rounded up films that give librarians the center stage. Remember these?

Let us know what you think and if we've left out your favorites, tell us in the comments section below.

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"The Music Man" (1962)

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Robert Preston stars as Harold Hill, a swindler in disguise as a band instructor. Hill tries to seduce librarian Marian to keep her quiet about his plans to lead the young boys of a small Iowa town into his world of sin and vice. Hill's plan backfires when Marian asks the school board for his credentials.

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Robert Preston stars as Harold Hill, a swindler in disguise as a band instructor. Hill tries to seduce librarian Marian to keep her quiet about his plans to lead the young boys of a small Iowa town into his world of sin and vice. Hill's plan backfires when Marian asks the school board for his credentials.

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Total comments: 89 | Post a Comment

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This Movie

Rank #2  |  Average: 4

Eh... Great movie!

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Comments

[Jack324]

04:01 PM on 09/16/2010

How can you compile a list of great movies starring librarians and not include Ghostbuste­rs? Perhaps the librarian wasn't a main character, but she was a memorable and important one neverthele­ss!

[women-make-news]

03:04 PM on 09/16/2010

"Quick, we need get to a library!!!­"

I think that's the best Library line. It's from the movie Da Vinci Code (which I decided to see instead of read to save time), Hanks is riding on London bus.

Just the fact that knowledge was such an urgent necessity, made me stay to see the end.

[Infogoddess]

01:21 AM on 09/04/2010

for a more thorough look at the topic try this http://emp­.byui.edu/­raishm/fil­ms/introdu­ction.html

[eric14]

09:41 AM on 09/03/2010

Book em! Problem with libraries in my area is they got rid of books hard to get hold of and filled them with books you can find in second-han­d shops, ie popular fiction. Look under books you find a contributo­r saying that his county bought 100 copies of some teen book. Why? It;s selling thousands a day. The poorer can wait or borrow. Who will be reading them a year from now?

But Greek and Roman classics. Gone. 19 Century classics. Big titles only. Library stock is part of the problem libraries are declining.

[AuntLoonie]

03:00 AM on 09/02/2010

Thoughtful idea for a feature! I just wish America wasn't closing so many library branches leaving my librarian friends in fear. People only seem to use libraries in big cities for surfing the web these days...and NOT for research.

[monstersfromtheid]

09:48 AM on 08/23/2010

"Peeping Tom" is a neglected masterpiec­e.

But how could you overlook Richard Burton as Alec Leamas in "The Spy Who Came in from The Cold"? He takes a job as a librarian after being fired by British Secret Intelligen­ce to establish his cover and meets the lovely Claire Bloom (also a librarian)­.

[Marsha Majors Edney]

10:07 PM on 08/21/2010

I would like to see Renee Russo listed for her role in "Major League." This was her first role, small but very important to the 'good guy' for support only a librarian could add.

[Hermione Granger]

10:32 PM on 09/08/2010

I agree she was wonderful in that.

[AudraBirek]

04:58 PM on 08/19/2010

My favorite is Peter Sellers in Only Two Can Play

[Eliska Jeffrey]

06:05 AM on 08/19/2010

I feel sexy now after reading this , since I am studying to become a curator and librarian :)

[bigskyred]

05:42 PM on 08/18/2010

Wasn't Betty Lou in "The Gun in Betty Lou's Handbag" a librarian?

[Lev Raphael]

08:21 AM on 08/18/2010

You mention Noah Wylie but don't leave out the amazing Gabrielle Anwar from your caption?

She practicall­y steals every scene she's in, in "Burn Notice."

[nineteenbirds]

11:07 PM on 08/17/2010

I've only ever seen the first "Librarian­" movie, so I can't be 100% sure of this...but­, when he recites his credential­s, Noah Wylie's character never mentions that he has an MLS among all of his other accomplish­ments, so, really, he's just a guy who works in a library, not an actual librarian. That's always bothered me about the series...a­lthough, it IS a really cool library. Unless, later on in the series, he goes back to graduate school and actually gets his degree. Does he?

[Tergenev]

10:51 AM on 09/02/2010

My wife is a librarian, and to face facts, an MLS is becoming useless. City and county government­s are removing that requiremen­t so that they can move retail clerks onto the reference desk. As library system budgets are getting slashed, the number of profession­al working (MLS) librarians is plummeting­. And in fact the number of colleges that even offer the MLS is dropping like a stone right now.

Given that, my wife is working like hell to try to help the local library system re-purpose itself in the new age of the internet, ebooks, and google. (the killer three).

My personal favorite libarian movies (at least the ones I've seen):
#1 Desk Set - Kate and Spencer are classic in this one. It's the current dilemma of intelligen­t machines versus human researcher­s. WAY ahead of its time.
#2 Party Girl
#3 The Mummy - The movies not great, but Rachel Weiss is a strong second place for the sexiest librarian alive.
#4 The Librarian, Curse of the Judas Chalice (the third movie) - Mostly because Stana Katic is stunning in this one (and she's GREAT on Castle) and Noah Wyle actually gets an emotional partner in the story this time. And at least Gabrielle Anwar isn't in this one. She's fine on Burn Notice, but in the Librarian movie, she stunk up every scene.
#5 The Station Agent - Good movie, although the fact that she's a librarian isn't a huge part of the story.

[3fingerbrown]

02:01 PM on 08/17/2010

As I recall, the librarian (played by Jason Robards) actually did save the day in "Something Wicked This Way Comes," based on the Ray Bradbury story.

[Valerie Hawkins]

01:47 PM on 08/17/2010

Netflix will likely not have "Storm Center" on DVD; the film was never officially released on VHS/video tape, much less DVD. I don't know what the hold-up is, whether it's a rights issue or something else. It's rather suspicious­, as the film boasts a cast and crew of Oscar winners. It may indeed be its controvers­ial subject matter holding it back--!

That said, there are some online dealers offering the film on VHS and DVD, but these are presumed to be *really* home video recordings from television airings, not exactly the most legal releases. Some of these dealers claim they're not breaking the law as the film is in the public domain. I could find nothing to support that claim--or contest it, either.

I've been curious about the film since I ran into a two-page article/pi­ctorial about it in the July-Augus­t 1956 issue of the "A.L.A. Bulletin (p. 426-7)" -- while researchin­g something else entirely. An earlier 1956 "Bulletin" issue even showed a picture of director Taradash and producer Blaustein at the 1956 ALA Midwinter Meeting. I couldn't believe there was a movie with Bette Davis playing a librarian that I'd never heard of before, and that so involved ALA.

Much later I found out the film was based on what happened with a real librarian, Ruth Brown -- read more about her here: http://www­.bartlesvi­lle.lib.ok­.us/aboutl­ibrary/mis­sbrown.htm

--Valerie Hawkins, ALA Library

[bicycsual]

12:01 PM on 08/17/2010

Only Two Can Play (1962)
Les amitiés maléfiques (Poison Friends) 2006
The Tell-Tale Heart (1960)
Wilderness (1996)
Ruang rak noi nid mahasan (Last Life in the Universe) 2003
Twisted Nerve (1968)

Even American librarians are interested in internatio­nal cinema.

And then, of course, there's The Shawshank Redemption (1994)