French film in the 1980s might have lacked the invention of the New Wave but gritty police thrillers and nostalgic costume-dramas such as Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources brought French cinema to a wider audience than ever before. This landmark study is not merely a history of French film in the 1980s, but offers a set of critical essays on the crisis of masculinity in contemporary French culture, and its interrelationship with nostalgia. After a brief overview both of the crisis in the French film industry during the 1980s, and of the socio-political crisis of masculinity in the wake of 1970s feminism, the book is divided into three sections: the retro-nostalgic film, the Polar, or police thriller, and the comic film. Films studied in detail include Diva, Subway, Coup de foudre, Vivement dimanche , La Vie est un long fleuve tranquille, and Tenue de soir e, while the volume covers actors from G rard Depardieu, Daniel Auteuil, and Yves Montand to Isabelle Adjani, Isabelle Huppert, and Emmanuelle B art.

To a large extent, the story of French filmmaking is the story of moviemaking. From the earliest flickering images of the late nineteenth century through the silent era, Surrealist influences, the Nazi Occupation, the glories of the New Wave, the rebirth of the industry in the 1990s with the exception culturelle, and the present, Rémi Lanzoni examines a considerable number of the world's most beloved films. Building upon his 2004 best-selling edition, the second edition of French Cinema maintains the chronological analysis, factual reliability, ease of use, and accessible prose, while at once concentrating more on the current generation of female directors, mainstream productions such as The Artist and The Intouchables, and the emergence of minority filmmakers (Beur cinema).

The study of French cinema has greatly expanded in recent years, as it is increasingly taught alongside literature in modern language departments. This book, written by two leading scholars of French film, offers students an introduction to the history and theory of French cinema.

Women's filmmaking in France has been a source of both delight and despair. On the one hand, the numbers are impressive – over 250 feature-length films were made by over 100 women directors in France in the 1980s and 1990s. On the other hand, despite the heritage of French feminism, French women directors characteristically disclaim their gender as a significant factor in their filmmaking. This incisive study provides an informative, critical guide to this major body of work, exploring the boundaries between personal films (intimate psychological dramas relating to key stages in life) and genre films (which demonstrate women's ability to appropriate and rework popular genres). It analyzes the effects of postfeminism, women's desire to enter the mainstream, and the impact of a new generation of filmmakers, enabling readers to take stock of the wealth and diversity of women's contribution to French cinema during the 1980s and 1990s.

Following on from Phil Powrie's French Cinema in the 1980s: Nostalgia and the Crisis of Masculinity (Clarendon Press, 1997), this collection of essays, which brings together scholars in the UK and the USA, focuses on continuity with the 1980s in terms of genres and preoccupations, such as definitions of a national cinema, the heritage film, gay/lesbian issues, and ethnic issues. But it also focuses on key differences: new types of heritage film, whether postcolonial or heritage pastiche; the newly emerging genre of cinema de banlieue; and the focus on community and political reflection.

This collection of new essays is a comprehensive introduction to the concerns and styles which characterise contemporary popular French film.

An in-depth look at some of the best and most influential French films of all time, The Cinema of France contains 24 essays, each on an individual film. The book features works from the silent period and poetic realism, through the stylistic developments of the New Wave, and up to more contemporary challenging films, from directors such as Abel Gance, Jean Renoir, Marcel Carné, François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Alain Resnais, Agnès Varda and Luc Besson. Set in chronological order, The Cinema of France provides an illuminating history of this essential national cinema and includes in-depth studies of films such as Un Chien Andalou (1929), Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot (1953), Le Samouraï (1967), Shoah (1985), Jean de Florette (1986), Les Visiteurs (1993) and La Haine (1995).