In this work, Marcus interprets a body of work that managed to transcend the decline of Italian cinema's prominence within the industry during the last two decades of the 20th-century.

This book is a complete reworking and update of Marga Cottino-Jones' popular A Student's Guide to Italian Film (1983, 1993) . This guide retains earlier editions' interest in renowned films and directors but is also attentive to the popular films which achieved box office success among the public.

In Recent Italian Cinema, two fundamental questions are asked: the first concerns whether Italian cinema, as national cinema, is in reality reduced to a niche market in its own territory. The second relates to what Italian audiences do with domestic films.For nearly two decades, most Italian films have been produced outside box office returns, through a practice of subsidy and co-financing between many institutional and private entities. Thus Italian cinema has had to define its mode of production and use-value of films in a different way. It is clear that it is no longer possible to separate national cinemas from the grip that the American film industry has on world markets, in terms of imagination and modes of production, distribution and exhibition. It is thus only by examining the multiple layers of description and analysis, which take into account the presence of Hollywood, that we can come to an understanding of what recent Italian cinema actually is.

A History of Italian Cinema, 2nd edition is the much anticipated update from the author of the bestselling Italian Cinema - which has been published in four landmark editions and will celebrate its 35th anniversary in 2018. Building upon decades of research, Peter Bondanella and Federico Pacchioni reorganize the current History in order to keep the book fresh and responsive not only to the actual films being created in Italy in the twenty-first century but also to the rapidly changing priorities of Italian film studies and film scholars. The new edition brings the definitive history of the subject, from the birth of cinema to the present day, up to date with a revised filmography as well as more focused attention on the melodrama, the crime film, and the historical drama. The book is expanded to include a new generation of directors as well as to highlight themes such as gender issues, immigration, and media politics. Accessible, comprehensive, and heavily illustrated throughout, this is an essential purchase for any fan of Italian film.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat provides the first in-depth study of feature and documentary films produced under the auspices of Mussolini’s government that took as their subjects or settings Italy’s African and Balkan colonies. These "empire films" were Italy's entry into an international market for the exotic. The films engaged its most experienced and cosmopolitan directors (Augusto Genina, Mario Camerini) as well as new filmmakers (Roberto Rossellini) who would make their marks in the postwar years. Ben-Ghiat sees these films as part of the aesthetic development that would lead to neo-realism. Shot in Libya, Somalia, and Ethiopia, these movies reinforced Fascist racial and labor policies and were largely forgotten after the war. Ben-Ghiat restores them to Italian and international film history in this gripping account of empire, war, and the cinema of dictatorship.

Giorgio Bertellini examines the historical and aesthetic connections of some of Italy's most important films with both Italian and Western film culture.

Written by leading figures in the field, A Companion to Italian Cinema re-maps Italian cinema studies, employing new perspectives on traditional issues, and fresh theoretical approaches to the exciting history and field of Italian cinema. Offers new approaches to Italian cinema, whose importance in the post-war period was unrivalled Presents a theory based approach to historical and archival material Includes work by both established and more recent scholars, with new takes on traditional critical issues, and new theoretical approaches to the exciting history and field of Italian cinema Covers recent issues such as feminism, stardom, queer cinema, immigration and postcolonialism, self-reflexivity and postmodernism, popular genre cinema, and digitalization A comprehensive collection of essays addressing the prominent films, directors and cinematic forms of Italian cinema, which will become a standard resource for academic and non-academic purposes alike