This title offers students an accessible introduction to the study of film. It aims to stimulate students' enjoyment and understanding of a wide range of different types of film, and to give them an awareness of the nature of cinema as a medium, as an art form and as a social and economic institution. It is designed to encourage an understanding of the nature of personal responses to film and help students make use of the critical languages that have been developed to understand the ways in which films and spectators construct meaning. As such, it develops students' sense of the context in which films are produced, disseminated and consumed. Contemporary film is seen in context by tracing its development from 1895 to the present, exploring film production in a variety of countries in a range of styles. Cinema is also placed within the wider context of the media in terms of the growth of multinational conglomerates and increasing globalisation.