Acknowledgments -- Preface to the Fourth Edition -- Introduction -- Part One: Theory -- 1. Genre (Andrew Tudor) -- 2. The Idea of Genre in the American Cinema (Edward Buscombe) -- 3. A Semantic/Syntactic Approach to Film Genre (Rick altman) -- 4. Cycles and Clusters: The Shape of Film Genre History (Leger Grindon) -- 5. Genre Films and the Status Quo (Judith Hess Wright -- 6. Social Implications in the Hollywood Genres(Jean-Loup Bourget) -- 7. Ideology, Genre, Auteur (Robin Wood) -- 8. "Cinema/Ideology/Criticism" Revisited: The Progressive Genre (Barbara Klinger) -- 9. The Structural Influence: New Directions in Film Genre Study (Thomas Schatz) -- 10. Genre Film: A Classical Experience (Thomas Sobchack) -- 11. Experience and Meaning in Genre Films (Barry Keith Grant) -- 12. Genre and Performance: An Overview (Richard de Cordova) -- 13. Film Bodies: Gender, Genre, and Excess (Linda Williams) -- 14. Questions of Genre (Steve Neale) -- 15. Hybrid or Inbred: The Purity Hypothesis and Hollywood Genre History (Janet Staiger) -- 16. Film Genres at the Crossroads: What Genres and Films Do to Each Other (Celestino Deleyto) -- Part Two: Selected Genre Criticism -- 17. The Western (Genre and Movies) (Douglas Pye) -- 18. Apes and Essences: Some Sources of Significance in the American Gangster Film (Edward Mitchell) -- 19. Notes on Film Noir (Paul Schrader) -- 20. Chinatown and Generic Transformation in Recent American Films (John G. Cawelti) -- 21. Shoot-Out at the Genre Corral: Problems in the "Evolution" of the Western (Tag Gallagher) -- 22. The Bug in the Rug: Notes on the Disaster Genre (Maurice Yacowar) -- 23. "Surge and Splendor": A Phenomenology of the Hollywood Historical Epic (Vivian Sobchack) -- 24. Children of the Light (Bruce F. Kawin) -- 25. Monsters from the Id (Margaret Tarratt).

26. Immigrants, Aliens, and Extraterrestrials: Science Fiction's Alien "Other" as (Among Other Things) New Latino Imagery (Charles Ramírez Berg) -- 27. Tales of Sound and Fury: Observations on the Family Melodrama (Thomas Elsaesser) -- 28. Screwball Comedies: Constructing Romance, Mystifying Marriage (David R. Shumway) -- 29. Redressing the "Natural": The Temporary Transvestite Film (Chris Straayer) -- 30. Friendly Civilians: Images of Women and the Feminization of the Audience in Vietnam War Films (Susan Jeffords) -- 31. The Family in Action (Yvonne Tasker) -- 32. The Self-Reflexive Musical and the Myth of Entertainment (Jane Feuer) -- 33. The Black Gangster Film (Mark A. Reid) -- 34. Teen Films: The Cinematic Image of Youth (Timothy Shary) -- 35. Re-presenting the National Past: Nostalgia and Pastiche in the Heritage Film (Andrew Higson) -- 36. Global Noir: Genre Film in the Age of Transnationalism (David Desser) -- Bibliography -- Notes on Contributors -- Index.