This fourth edition of our bestselling text has been comprehensively updated and revised to include contemporary film analysis and recent films. With a focus on contemporary popular cinema and examples from Classical Hollywood, Graeme Turner examines the social and cultural aspects of film from audiences and ideologies to exhibition and technology. This fourth edition now includes: new sections dealing with debates about spectacle and special effects an extended treatment of sound and its contribution to cinema film theory's discussion of the representation of race and ethnicity a thorough update of individual film references a revised applications chapter that includes new contemporary examples new illustrations from contemporary popular cinema. Students of film studies, film practice and film theory will find this a welcome addition to their degree course studies.