Ranging from the mass culture critics to postcolonial and queer theory, this reader is an accessible and comprehensive introduction to the main theoretical approaches within film studies. It provides students with an opportunity to engage with primary sources in the form of extracts from key critics while also offering a general introduction and chapter introductions that help to locate the extracts in historical contexts and explain their contributions to, and interventions in, debates within the study of film. Among the distinguished contributors are Tom Gunning, Steven Cohan, Janet Staiger, James Naremore, Jim Kitses, Carol Clover, and Jane Gaines.

Section One: Political economy and mass culture theory; Section Two: Film and authorship; Section Three: Genre criticism; Section Four: Star studies; Section Five: Historical poetics of cinema; Section Six: Screen theory I from Marxism to psychoanalysis; Section Seven: Screen theory II--psychoanalysis, feminism and film; Section Eight: Cultural studies; Section Nine: Theorizing differences.