Although films rarely act as mirror reflections of everyday reality, they are, nevertheless, powerful cultural expressions of the dreams and desires of the American public. This work provides a complete post-World War II survey of American cinema and its often complex and contradictory values.

This selection of essays taken from Hollywood Quarterly reflect the eclecticism of the journal, with sections on animation, the avant-garde, and documentary to go along with a representative sampling of articles about feature-length narrative films.

This is the most comprehensive analysis to date of Nazi film propaganda in its political, social, and economic contexts, from the pre-war cinema as it fell under the control of the Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels, through to the end of the Second World War. David Welch studies more than one hundred films of all types, identifying those aspects of Nazi ideology that were concealed in the framework of popular entertainment.

Americans have long considered their country to be good—a nation "under God" with a profound role to play in the world. Yet nothing tests that proposition like war. Raymond Haberski argues that since 1945 the common moral assumptions expressed in an American civil religion have become increasingly defined by the nation's experience with war. God and War traces how three great postwar “trials”—the Cold War, the Vietnam War, and the War on Terror—have revealed the promise and perils of an American civil religion. Throughout the Cold War, Americans combined faith in God and faith in the nation to struggle against not only communism but their own internal demons. The Vietnam War tested whether America remained a nation "under God," inspiring, somewhat ironically, an awakening among a group of religious, intellectual and political leaders to save the nation's soul. With the tenth anniversary of 9/11 behind us and the subsequent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan winding down, Americans might now explore whether civil religion can exist apart from the power of war to affirm the value of the nation to its people and the world.

From Steven Spielberg's Lincoln to Clint Eastwood's American Sniper, this fifth edition of this classic film study text adds even more recent films and examines how these movies depict and represent the feelings and values of American society. One of the few authoritative books about American film and society, American Film and Society since 1945 combines accessible, fun-to-read text with a detailed, insightful, and scholarly political and social analysis that thoroughly explores the relationship of American film to society and provides essential historical context. The historical overview provides a "capsule analysis" of both American and Hollywood history for the most recent decade as well as past eras, in which topics like American realism; Vietnam, counterculture revolutions, and 1960s films; and Hollywood depictions of big business like Wall Street are covered. Readers will better understand the explicit and hidden meanings of films and appreciate the effects of the passion and personal engagement that viewers experience with films. This new edition prominently features a new chapter on American and Hollywood history from 2010 to 2017, giving readers an expanded examination of a breadth of culturally and socially important modern films that serves student research or pleasure reading. The coauthors have also included additional analysis of classic films such as To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) and A Face in the Crowd (1957).

'The contributors supply skilful overviews of the major critical approaches' Sight and Sound May 1998 Top international contributors Emphasis throughout on critical concepts, methods and debates Learning aids include chapter summaries, critiques of individual films and further reading This text is perfectly tailored to meet the needs of students taking a course in Hollywood cinema as part of a degree in film, media studies, or cultural studies.